Pastor MatÃas Herrera died during a sermon and found himself in hell, where he saw hundreds of pastors suffering for hidden sins, fulfilling the warning that “judgment must begin at the house of God” (1 Peter 4:17 KJV). Demons exposed his pride, lust, greed, and hypocrisy, proving true that “be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23 KJV). In despair he cried out the name of Jesus, and instantly an angel rescued him, echoing the promise, “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13 KJV). Jesus told him he deserved damnation—“the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23 KJV)—but granted him mercy and sent him back with a mission to warn believers that “God is not mocked” (Galatians 6:7 KJV) and that only genuine repentance can save a soul from eternal judgment.
A pastor died during a sermon and the worst part is that he was in sin. He was taken to hell and says he saw more than 300 other pastors there. I invite you to share this testimony with others so they can be warned and not fall into the same sin as this pastor. Pay attention to this testimony:
My name is Mashes Herrera. I was a pastor for 23 years. I led a congregation of 4,000 people. I preached at international conferences. I wrote three books on holiness and thousands called me a man of God. I believed it. I believed my faith was solid, that my path was straight, that my heart was clean before the Lord.
But on the night of August 14th, all of that collapsed in a second in front of 30,000 people watching a screen. We were broadcasting our special event, Nights of Glory and Power, the 20th anniversary of the church. We had set up a massive production, synchronized LED lights, giant screens, a 15‑piece band, and cameras broadcasting across Latin America.
I was wearing my best black Italian suit, carrying my newly purchased leather Bible, and my gold watch gleamed under the stage spotlights. I felt powerful, anointed, untouchable. I walked up to thunderous applause. The lights flashed. The music vibrated in my chest. Thousands of hands rose in my direction. I smiled like a celebrity.
The sound technician handed me the wireless microphone, the same one I had used hundreds of times. I didn't notice anything unusual. I simply reached out and gripped it firmly, ready to begin the most important sermon of my life.
But the exact instant my fingers touched the metal, something exploded inside me. It wasn't pain. It was an electric shock so violent that every nerve in my body ignited simultaneously. My hand closed involuntarily around the microphone as if welded to metal. I couldn't let go.
My body began to convulse, shaking grotesquely under the bright lights. I heard screams. I heard the distorted sound of the amplified microphone as my breath caught in my throat. I fell to my knees on the stage, still clinging to that deathly current. The lights flickered. I saw blurry faces running toward me. But no one dared touch me.
I smelled burning flesh, my own flesh. My chest burned. My vision filled with black spots. And then everything stopped.
I found myself floating above my own body, which lay twisted in the center of the stage, still smoking. My hand closed around the microphone. The lights were still shining. But now they seemed distant, cold, meaningless. I could see it all from above—the technicians frantically unplugging cables, the musicians frozen, the crowd in shock, the cameras still rolling. My death was being broadcast live.
I tried to scream, to move my arms, to descend to that body lying on the stage, but I couldn't. I was trapped in an existence that was neither life nor death, suspended between two realities, watching the people who adored me weep over my corpse.
I saw my wife pushing her way through the crowd, screaming my name. I saw my children running toward the stage, but I was no longer there. That's when the scene began to darken. Not the physical lights, but something deeper. A darkness that didn't come from outside, but from within, as if the universe itself were closing in around me. I felt terror. A terror so pure and primal it didn't even have a name. Because in that moment, I understood something that chilled my soul. I wasn't ascending. I was falling.
I had expected the light. I had expected angels. I had expected to hear the voice of God calling me home, telling me I had been a faithful servant. After all, I was a pastor. I had dedicated my life to the church. I had preached the gospel to thousands, written books, prayed for the sick, baptized, married, comforted. Wasn't that enough? I didn’t deserve eternal peace? But nothing came. No light, no angel, no heavenly voice—only silence. A silence so complete, so absolute that it made me feel more alone than I had ever been in my life.
I floated in a gray void, with no up or down, no direction or destination. I called out to God in my mind. Lord, I am here. Take me with you. But my words died before they were born. The void began to change. It was no longer gray. It was becoming darker, like ink slowly seeping into water. I felt panic growing in my chest. This was not what was supposed to happen. I had studied theology. I knew the scriptures. I knew that the righteous went to heaven immediately upon death. I was righteous. I had lived righteously.
Why was I suspended in this terrible void, forgotten, abandoned? Then I heard something. It was not music or a voice. It was a distant sound like the echo of something creeping in the darkness. My consciousness tightened. I tried to move upward, but there was no up. I tried to pray, to invoke the name of Jesus, but the words wouldn't come. It was as if something was blocking them. Something dense and suffocating that filled the space around me.
The darkness was almost total. And in that gloom, I began to see shapes—shadows moving, faceless figures floating in directions I couldn't understand. Some seemed to be falling, others simply vanishing into the blackness. None looked at me. None responded.
It was then that I felt the pull. It didn't come from above. It came from below. An invisible but undeniable force like cold hands grabbing my ankles, pulling me down into the depths of that bottomless darkness.
I struggled. I kicked. I screamed silently. But it was useless. The more I resisted, the stronger the force became. It was like being sucked into a whirlpool toward a place from which there was no escape.
The descent began slowly. Darkness closed in on me, enveloping me like a heavy, damp shroud. The air—if it could be called air—grew thick and difficult to breathe. Though I no longer needed to breathe, it was a suffocation of the soul.
The deeper I descended, the heavier I felt, as if my very being were turning to lead. And then I heard it clearly for the first time—a scream. It wasn't human. It was something deeper, more harrowing, filled with utter agony and despair. It came from below, from where I was being dragged. And that scream was followed by another and another and another until it became a distant chorus of wails that shook the very void.
I prayed it was a nightmare, but it wasn't. It was real. Terribly, horribly real. The fall accelerated. It was no longer a gradual pull, but a relentless force dragging me down at breakneck speed. I felt cold. A cold so penetrating it burned, piercing to the very core of my being. It wasn't the cold of winter. It was the cold of total absence. The temperature of a place where nothing alive could exist.
The darkness now had texture. I could feel it brushing against my skin like thousands of invisible fingers caressing my face, my neck, my arms. It was as if the darkness itself were alive, conscious, examining me as I fell through it.
The screams grew clearer. They were no longer distant echoes. I could distinguish individual voices—some pleading, others cursing, others shrieking in wordless agony. I heard someone repeating endlessly, “Help me. Please help me,” until the voice broke.
I heard another cry: “I don’t deserve this...I don't deserve this" Each voice was a dagger to my conscience because I knew I would soon join that chorus. The air suddenly turned hot. I went from biting cold to suffocating heat in a matter of seconds. It was the heat of a dense oppressive furnace. But the strange thing was that there was no light. The heat didn't come with any visible flames. It was a blind heat that existed in the darkness, emanating from the invisible walls of that endless abyss.
Then I smelled something. The smell came like a sudden wave that hit me with physical force. It was the stench of burnt flesh mixed with sulfur, rot, and something chemical and nauseating that had no name. I began to hear other things besides the screams. Metallic sounds like dragging chains, deep creaks like enormous stone structures moving in the darkness, heavy panting breaths that were not human, and laughter—low, guttural laughter, full of malice and perverse pleasure.
Even the fall finally began to slow. My feet touched the ground. It wasn't ordinary ground. It was hot and damp and moved slightly under my weight, as if I were standing on raw flesh. I opened my eyes, and what I saw made me wish I had never been born. I was in an immense valley, illuminated by a sickly red glow that came from no visible source. The ground was cracked and steaming. In the distance, I saw jagged mountains that looked as if they were made of ash and bone. The sky, if it could be called a sky, was a black, starless vault, oppressive and low, as if it were about to collapse.
Above all, and everywhere, absolutely everywhere, there were figures—hundreds, thousands of souls writhing, crawling, screaming, suffering in ways my mind couldn't fully process. I began to walk, guided by a desperate impulse to find some way out, some explanation, some hope. But with every step, that hope faded. The landscape was uniform in its horror. Sharp rocks, figures bent in postures of eternal agony.
Then I saw something that made me stop dead in my tracks. Legos in a slightly elevated area of the valley. There was a more organized crowd. They weren't scattered randomly like the others. They were gathered in groups as if in some kind of assembly. I approached slowly, my heart pounding harder and harder. And when I was close enough, what I saw took my breath away.
They were pastors, hundreds of them, all dressed in the remnants of their ministerial vestments—burnt black suits, tattered robes, ties dangling from withered necks. But what completely froze me was that I recognized their faces. Not all of them, but many. They were famous preachers, evangelists I had seen on television, leaders of megachurches whose conferences I had attended, authors whose books I had read and recommended, men and women who had been celebrities of the Christian world, adored by millions.
One of them was on his knees, his hands covering his face, weeping uncontrollably. I recognized him immediately. It was Pastor Enrique Salazar, founder of one of the largest churches in Colombia, who had preached about prosperity and blessing for 40 years. Now he stood here in his tattered suit, weeping like a child. I approached him, still in shock.
“Pastor Salazar,” I whispered. He looked up. His eyes were sunken, empty or filled with such deep despair that it made me recoil. “You, too,” he said hoarsely. “You fell too.” I looked around. There were more. The Brazilian evangelist Marcos Olivivera, who had filled stadiums with his healing crusades. The Mexican pastor Carolina Reyes, who had written 20 books on faith. The Argentinian preacher Sebastian Romero, whose ministry had moved millions of dollars in donations.
They were all here, all suffering. Some walked in circles, murmuring prayers that led nowhere. Others shouted Bible verses into the void. Others simply lay motionless, broken beyond repair. And more kept coming. I saw an elderly pastor being dragged away by shadowy creatures, screaming that he had been faithful, that he had preached the truth, but his cries changed to nothing.
I sat on a hot rock, shivering. My mind couldn't process what I was seeing. If these men and women, these giants of faith, these admired leaders, these spokesmen for God were here, what hope was there for me? What hope was there for anyone? I covered my face with my hands, and I began to cry. Not physical tears, but an anguish so deep it felt like it was tearing my soul apart.
“Don't cry yet,” a voice said beside me. I looked up. It was a woman I vaguely recognized, a famous worship leader who had died years before in an accident. She looked at me with a mixture of sadness and resignation. “You haven't seen the worst yet. You don't yet know why you're here. When you do, you'll wish you could cry louder.” Her words chilled me to the bone. Before I could ask what she meant, she walked away, disappearing into the crowd of damned souls.
It was then that I heard a low, deep laugh full of malicious intent. I turned slowly, and there, emerging from the shadows as if it had been waiting for this moment all along, was a figure that wasn't human—tall, thin, with eyes that glowed like embers in the darkness. A hideous smile spread across its deformed face. And when it spoke, its voice was like metal scraping against stone.
“Welcome, Pastor Mashes Herrera. We have been waiting for you.” The creature approached slowly, savoring each step. It didn't walk. It glided as if the ground itself were parting beneath its feet. Its eyes never left me, piercing me with an intensity that made me feel naked, exposed, utterly vulnerable.
“Surprised to be here?” the demon asked, tilting its head unnaturally. “I can see it in your expression. Do you still believe there was a mistake? Do you still think you deserve heaven?” It laughed again, and the sound echoed throughout the valley, mingling with the screams of the others. “Everyone here thought the same thing when they arrived, especially those of your type—the preachers, the leaders, the anointed ones.”
“I preached the gospel,” I stammered, finally finding my voice. “I served God. I helped people.” The devil raised a hand, silencing me instantly.
“Did you serve God, or did you serve yourself in God’s name? Because I was there, Mashes. I was at every service where you preached with passion while your heart was full of pride. I was there when you counted the offerings and felt pleasure seeing how much money had been given. I was there when you secretly judged other pastors, looking down on them for not being as successful as you.”
His words were like knives. I wanted to deny them, but I couldn't because they were true. Every accusation resonated with something deep inside me, something I had buried under layers of justification and self‑deception.
“I saw how you looked at the women in your congregation,” he continued. “Not with the eyes of your body, but with the heart. You saw their beauty and fantasized, even though you never acted on it physically. You thought that made you innocent, didn't you? But your heart had already committed adultery a thousand times.” “I repented,” I whispered weakly.
The demon cackled. “Did you repent, or did you simply feel momentary guilt before going back to the same thing? How many times did you promise to change? How many times did you say, ‘Lord, this is the last time,’ knowing deep down it was a lie? Repentance isn't a feeling, Mashes. It's transformation. And you never changed. You just got better at hiding who you really were.”
I fell to my knees, trembling. Every word was true. The demon crouched down, bringing his hideous face close to mine. “And worst of all,” he whispered, “you used God’s name to build your own kingdom. That church wasn’t for His glory. It was for yours. Every sermon, every book, every conference—everything was so they would admire you, applaud you, call you powerful. You wanted to be God, not serve Him.”
Tears began to fall. I couldn't deny him anything. Everything he said was true. I had lived a lie. I had preached holiness while my heart was rotten. I had condemned sins in others while secretly cultivating them within myself. I had used my position to feel superior, to feed my ego, to build an empire centered on myself, not on Christ.
“Look around you,” said the demon, pointing at the other pastors in the valley. “They're all like you—double‑lipped preachers, hypocritical leaders, men and women who spoke of love while their hearts were full of hatred, envy, lust, and greed. That one over there stole offerings for 20 years. That woman emotionally manipulated thousands to give money while living in mansions and luxury. That old man abused his spiritual authority to control and destroy lives. All while smiling from the pulpit.” “But they were famous pastors,”
I murmured, barely able to speak. The devil smiled broadly. “306 to be exact. And these are just the ones who arrived this month. There are entire sections of this place filled with religious leaders—priests, bishops, prophets, apostles, evangelists—all convinced they were serving God. All discovering too late that they were serving only themselves.”
I completely broke down. The weight of the truth crushed me. There were no excuses, no defenses. I knew exactly why I was here. I had lived a spiritual life for decades, hiding my true nature behind titles, sermons, and Bible verses. I had judged others while believing myself untouchable. I had built a public image of holiness while my soul secretly rotted away.
“Get up,” the demon ordered. His voice was no longer mocking. It was authoritarian. Cold. Final. I stood with difficulty, trembling from head to toe. “It’s time you saw your final resting place. Every soul here has a torment specifically designed for their sin. And you, dear shepherd, have a very special one waiting for you.”
He grabbed my arm with supernatural strength. His touch burned. He began to drag me across the valley, past the other condemned shepherds. Some stared at me with empty eyes. Others looked away in shame. One cried out, “Don’t go. Hold on.” But his voice was drowned out by the general wailing.
We walked for what seemed like an eternity. The landscape gradually changed. The rocks grew taller, forming walls on either side. The heat increased with every step, and the smell of sulfur and burnt flesh intensified until I could barely stand it. Finally, we reached a vast cavern whose entrance resembled a gaping maw waiting to swallow me whole. Inside, I saw something that made me recoil in horror.
It was a grotesque replica of my church. The same design, the same lights, the same stage set, but everything was twisted and corrupted. Something dark and viscous dripped from the walls. The pews were made of bones. The pulpit in the center burned with flames that didn't consume the wood but radiated unbearable heat. And seated on those hideous pews were hundreds of figures, souls staring at me with accusing eyes.
“Welcome to your eternity,” said the demon, pushing me forward. “Here you will preach forever, but not the gospel. You will preach your own lies, your own hypocrisies, your own damnation. And every time you open your mouth, you will feel the fire burning your throat. Every word will be agony.”
He pointed to the ghostly congregation. “They will remind you of every sin you committed, every lie you told, every soul you deceived.” He shoved me toward the burning pulpit. My hands touched the surface, and the pain was indescribable. It was as if every nerve in my body was being electrocuted again, but a thousand times worse. I screamed, but the sound only echoed in that infernal cavern.
The souls in the pews began to jeer at me, to hurl accusations. “You told us God would prosper us, but you kept the money for yourself.” “You preached purity while you leered at our wives with lust.” “You said you were a man of God, but you were just a fraud.” “You made us believe you were an anointed man, but you were empty inside.”
Their voices multiplied, overlapped, creating a deafening chorus of condemnation that pierced my soul. I tried to speak, to defend myself, but when I opened my mouth, liquid fire poured out. I felt my tongue burning, my throat melting, and yet I remained conscious. I still felt every second of torture.
“This is only the beginning,” the demon said. “This is for all eternity. Every day, every hour, every endless moment. You will preach your lies and feel the judgment of those who trusted you.”
I fell from the pulpit, rolling across the burning floor. My body was covered in burns that would never heal. The pain was constant, absolute, relentless. And worst of all was the despair—the complete realization that this would never end. There was no escape, no relief, no hope.
I crawled to a corner of the cavern, curling into a fetal position, weeping uncontrollably. The voices of the ghostly congregation continued to mock, accuse, remind me of all I had done wrong. The demon stood watching me with cruel satisfaction.
“This is how it should have been from the beginning. The truth laid bare. The final judgment. The eternal reward for a lifetime of deceit.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing to vanish, wishing to cease to exist. But I couldn't. I was trapped in this place forever, condemned by my own actions, by my own hypocrisy, by my own choice to serve myself instead of God. And in that moment of utter despair, when I felt there was nowhere lower I could sink, when I accepted that this was my eternal fate, something inside me shattered completely.
From the very depths of my being, from a place I didn't even know existed, a scream erupted. It wasn't a cry of physical pain or fear. It was a cry from the soul, a desperate plea born of utter spiritual bankruptcy. And in that cry, without thinking, without planning, without any religious strategy, I uttered a single name: Jesus.
The effect was immediate and terrifying. The entire cavern shook. The flames on the pulpit flickered violently. The demon recoiled as if struck. His face contorted with fury and fear. The ghostly figures in the pews vanished instantly. The walls began to crack. And through those cracks, a light that wasn't of that place began to seep in.
“No!” roared the demon, trying to grab me again, but he couldn't get near. It was as if an invisible barrier had formed around me. The light intensified, becoming so bright it blinded. The infernal heat was replaced by a different warmth—a warmth that healed instead of burned.
I heard a sound, not words, but a frequency that made my entire being vibrate with something I can only describe as pure love.
And then I saw him—a figure enveloped in light descended through the cavern ceiling, as if the burning rocks didn't exist. He was imposing, majestic, with wings that spread like storms of light. An angel, but not the sweet kind of angel in paintings. This was a warrior radiant with authority and power. His eyes shone like suns, and when he spoke, his voice made the entire cavern tremble. “Let him go.”
“Never!” hissed the demon, writhing, trying to resist. “He is mine. He belongs to me. He lived a lie. He preached in hypocrisy.” The angel stepped forward, and the light emanating from him burned the demon, making him cry out. “It is not for you to decide that. There is a greater One who judges, and He has heard this man's genuine cry.” The demon retreated into the shadows, cursing, but couldn't get any closer.
The angel turned to me. His gaze was piercing but not destructive. It was as if he could see every part of me, every flaw, every sin, every lie. And yet he didn't despise me. “Get up,” he said with firmness but without cruelty. I stood up trembling, unable to believe what was happening. The angel extended his hand.
There is someone who wants to speak with you. But you must understand what you have seen here was real. This was your destiny, and this is the price of spiritual hypocrisy. But the cry that came from your heart, genuine, broken, desperate, opened a door that was locked. Now come. He took my hand, and in an instant we were ripped from that cavern. We ascended at an impossible speed, passing through layers of darkness, traversing the valley of the damned shepherds, leaving hell in its entirety behind. The contrast was so violent that I could hardly process it.
From absolute darkness to blinding light, from infernal heat to a peace that had no temperature, from constant torment to a silence that was not empty, but full of presence. When we finally stopped, I found myself in a place I cannot adequately describe with human words. It wasn't exactly heaven, but it wasn't earth either. It was an in‑between space filled with golden light where time seemed not to exist. And before me, seated on something that might be called a throne, but which was more a spiritual center of gravity, there was He—Jesus.
I can't describe His face. Every time I try to remember it, my mind only captures light, love, sadness, and absolute authority intertwined. But His eyes pierced me to my very core, not with anger, but with immense sadness mixed with a love so pure it made me collapse immediately. I fell to my knees, unable to hold His gaze, weeping in a way I had never experienced.
“Matias,” He said, and His voice was both gentle and overwhelming. “Look at me.” I slowly raised my eyes. “You saw the truth of your heart down there. You saw what you really were behind the mask of ministry. Do you understand now why you couldn't enter heaven?”
I nodded, unable to speak. The tears kept falling. “You preached my name,” He continued. “But you didn’t know me. You used my gospel to build your own kingdom. You spoke of humility while your heart was full of pride. You taught about love while you judged in secret. You declared holiness while you cultivated lust. And most tragically, you led others astray because they followed your example instead of mine.”
Each word was like spiritual surgery, cutting away the layers of self‑deception I had built up over decades. “Lord,” I finally whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You’re right about everything. I have no excuses. I deserve that place. I deserve that eternal torment.”
“Yes,” He said with an honesty that shattered me. “You deserve it. Everyone deserves it. But my grace isn’t based on what you deserve, but on what I offer. The cry that came from your heart in that moment of utter despair was the first genuine moment of faith you had ever had. It wasn’t the prayer of a pastor trying to impress. It was the cry of a broken soul, acknowledging its absolute need for salvation.”
He looked at me with an intensity that seemed to pierce through time. “I’m going to give you something you don’t deserve—another chance. But it won’t be easy. You will return to your body. You will return to life. But when you do, you will have a mission you cannot ignore. You must tell what you saw. You must warn other pastors, other leaders, other believers who live in hypocrisy. You must expose the truth about hell, about the judgment, about the reality of the condemnation that awaits those who use my name for their own purposes.”
“Many will not believe you,” He continued. “They will say you are crazy, that it was a hallucination, that you blaspheme by suggesting that famous pastors are in hell. Your reputation will be destroyed. You will lose friends, position, influence. But if you have truly changed, if you have truly seen the truth, then none of that will matter more than warning the souls who still have time.”
I nodded vigorously, weeping. “I will do whatever it takes, Lord. Whatever it takes.” Jesus reached out and touched my forehead. I felt a fire that did not burn, but that transformed—cleansing, purifying, rearranging something fundamental within me.
“Remember this when you return. The ministry is not about you. It never was. It never will be. It is about me. About my message. About the souls who need real salvation, not religious entertainment.” “And one more thing,” He said with absolute seriousness. “When you tell this story, when you warn about what you saw, some will genuinely repent, but others will be enraged. They will protect their hypocrisy more fervently than ever. Don’t stop. Keep going, because every soul awakened by your testimony will be worth all the rejection you will face.”
Before I could answer, I felt a violent tug as if thousands of wires were dragging me back. The light began to fade. I saw Jesus walking away—or rather, I was walking away from Him. And then everything went black.
I woke up screaming. I was in a hospital bed surrounded by machines that were beeping frantically. Doctors and nurses rushed toward me. I heard someone shout, “He’s alive. His heart is beating.” My wife appeared beside me, weeping, clutching my hand. “You were dead for 18 minutes.” “I’m sorry,” they declared. “You died. We don’t understand how, but you did.”
For the next few days, as my body recovered, my soul wrestled with the weight of what I had seen. When I was finally able to speak coherently, I told my story—first to my family, then to my church, then to the world.
The reaction was exactly what Jesus had predicted. Some wept and repented. Others called me a heretic, a lunatic, a false prophet. I lost my position in the church. I was kicked off conferences. Friends of decades turned their backs on me. But I didn’t stop, because I saw over 300 famous pastors in hell. I saw their torments, heard their screams, knew their secret sins, and understood that if I remained silent to protect my reputation, I would be complicit in the destruction of more souls. So today, I tell you this with tears in my eyes and fire in my heart:
It doesn’t matter who you are, what position you hold, how many sermons you’ve preached, or how many people call you anointed. If your heart is living in hypocrisy, if you’re using God’s name to build your own kingdom, if you’re preaching holiness while cultivating secret sin, you are walking toward eternal damnation. Hell is real. Judgment is real. And God is not mocked. You can deceive the multitudes, but you cannot deceive Him. Repent now while you still have time. Break free from hypocrisy. Live the truth you preach. Because one day, when your heart stops beating, there will be no second chance.
Thank you for listening. A final say… for speaking the truth is better than being complicit in the lies that lead souls to eternal destruction. May God examine them. May God transform them. And may God have mercy on us all.
-Source
