From Militant Atheist to Hell Survivor: Bryan Melvin’s Near-Death Experience

Shaun Tabatt Show Episode 990: From Militant Atheist to Hell Survivor: Bryan Melvin’s Near-Death Experience

Bryan Melvin:
Another hand came up outta my hand and went through my dog's chin. And then, then something, air came outta me and I floated above my body and I was no longer an atheist because I was, as soon as I left my body, it was like waking up into an ultimate reality. In fact, I was more alive than I am now. I was floating above my body, chilling out, felt great, felt wonderful. I could see myself laying on the floor. And then I could see the ceiling. And I remember the ceiling was a textured ceiling where they troweled it. So they had a trowel.

Bryan Melvin:
And so a fingerprint of the guy troweling or the painter was up in there under a fold of ceiling texture. So my face was stuck in the ceiling staring at it and I couldn't move. I could see the room behind everywhere, but I was just fixated on that fingerprint. And then boom, went, went, kind of went above. Right through the roof. All I know is as soon as I went above the swamp cooler, I entered into, I call it a pleasant darkness, pitch black, like inside of a cave, blacker than that, darker than that. And I was going, I could see a pinprick of light way off in the distance and I was being propelled toward it.

Shaun Tabatt:
Bryan, it's so good to see you, my friend. Welcome back to the show.

Bryan Melvin:
Oh, it's great to be back, Shaun. It's been a while since I've seen you. It's been quite a while actually. But yeah, how, how, how, how are you doing?

Shaun Tabatt:
Well, I, uh, I stay busy. There is no lack of projects or really not a lot of rest in Christian publishing. You're always living kind of in this ever-moving kind of three seasons of work. And so, uh, lots, lots of stuff with books and PR and interviews. It never stops, but I enjoy it. So, hey, I'm glad to be working in this space. For some of you who've seen earlier conversations with me and Bryan, uh, we're going to be covering some of the same ground we did, uh, a few years back. I am reconnecting with all of my old NDE friends, if you will, uh, just doing fresh interviews, uh, with everybody.

Shaun Tabatt:
Cause there's, there's only so much you can cover in each interview. And I found through the years, you know, whether you hear Bryan or Randy Kay or whoever it might be speak once or say 50 times, I feel like the Holy Spirit always shows up in a unique way. People respond differently to the message, even if it's somewhat the same as has been shared before. And so I've just been enjoying reconnecting with friends in this space and putting, putting some fresh focus on their stories. So that's, that's what we're going to do today with Bryan. But Bryan, before we kind of get into when you were doing construction in Arizona, is Arizona, right? If I remember correctly.

Bryan Melvin:
Yeah, Arizona, Tucson.

Shaun Tabatt:
Um, I want to talk back about your early life because before your NDE, you describe yourself as a militant atheist, but it's not like you grew up in a godless household and never went to church. So, I'd love to hear a little bit about your family, your church upbringing, and just in terms of the faith, like what were you exposed to as a child?

Bryan Melvin:
I grew up in a Southern Baptist home. My dad was a preacher's kid and, um, but he was a World War II veteran. And so he didn't follow the call, I guess. He just went into, got out of the military, then took some schooling and he was, uh, ended up getting a job in the government with the, um, in the National Park Service in buildings and maintenance and grounds at the headquarters of the Park Service. And then my mom was a stay-at-home mom, and then she had to earn some money. So she, she worked for the National Security Agency, Army Security Agency. Then she transferred into the National Park Service where she, um, at that time she was responsible for putting together big programs like the Christmas tree lighting, the fireworks and everything else that goes on. Also things like that.

Bryan Melvin:
There's a picture of her with the Queen, Queen of England, walking down the street together. That's what she did. She kind of a PR work. She put together all these. Big programs. So, and so they were Southern Baptists and I grew up in a Southern Baptist home and I was dragged to church all the time, but I was, um, you know, I don't think it really set in. I just remember a hot summer night and, um, I was before air conditioning. Everybody had these little fans.

Bryan Melvin:
They're sitting in church and I was a little kid and my mom, uh, I was playing with all these animals or toy soldiers and making a noise and my dad's trying to make me stop. And then I heard about baptism. So I asked my mom what baptism was and she explained to you, you go into a pool and you get, and you get, and you get clean. And I was thinking, I'm hot. It's a pool. I remember doing this. I thought it was a big pool and I can jump in. And I said, I want to be baptized and I'm sweating and all that.

Bryan Melvin:
But you know, she said, no, when you're ready, something about being ready, you'll, you'll know when. I was just probably too young and Wearing a starchy suit, sweating in a hot August day in Virginia in a church. So, you know, but anyway, that's, that's how it was. And then I grew up 10 miles south of Washington, DC during the 1960s. And as a kid in the '60s, and so all the protests, all the stuff that's going on and the actual, actual real racism, not the contrived stuff that's conjecture now existed. And so it was just, I got to a certain age where I didn't believe anything. I didn't want to believe in Jesus, whatever. So I decided decided to, um, I was an agnostic.

Bryan Melvin:
There could be a God. I remember thinking that. And then, uh, I found out that through watching all things Bullwinkle cartoons, that Simon and the Time Machine, they go back and interview Aristotle and Plato and all these things. And so I was an inquisitive kid, and our reading level back in those days are a lot higher than they are now. So I would go to the library and get Plato's Republic. So I got Plato's Republic and I'm reading it. And I remember my mom, like all good moms do, I said, mom, what does this word mean? What does this word mean? She slams a dictionary down, look it up. So I start looking up all the words.

Bryan Melvin:
And so from that, I wrote a children's right for freedom or liberty or something. It was a declaration of independence for kids to be free from their parents and eat ice cream and cookies all you want and throw away your parents. They're old. You know, I was, I wrote this down, my mom, for a school project, and she read it, and she looked at me, and she fell into tears. Do you think this about us? I go, oh, I felt real small, so I never turned that paper and wrote another one. Threw it away. Right away, I was into Plato's Republic, and that kind of led me down the path into atheism later on. So I bounced back and forth, and I stopped going to church.

Bryan Melvin:
They couldn't make me, and I didn't want to go anymore. I put up a really good fight for it. Make a big scene. So I didn't go, and I would stay at home, watch cartoons, and then wait till they get home and we go do whatever parents and kids do on Sunday afternoon back then, like visit relatives. And then later, as I went into high school and junior high school and all that, I really fell away from the Lord. I was agnostic and atheist and eventually became full-blown atheist. Yeah, and I moved out of my house, I think it was It was the end of 1977 or 1978. I can't.

Bryan Melvin:
And so my friend was in the, was a member of a bike club in Virginia. I tell people about it now. It's a subchapter of the, of a very large prominent bike club in the East Coast. That's the antithesis of, of the, um, Hells Angels. So it's, it's the East Coast version called the Pagans. So there's a subchapter. So I hung out with these guys. And so I wrote about it in my first book.

Bryan Melvin:
A Land Unknown: Hell's Dominion, just one little snippet of it. But that's just a crazy lifestyle. So I was drinking, partying, I saw all kinds of things, and then eventually decided to move to Tucson. So that's how I just kind of fell away. And at that time, being in the bike club, I was just a militant atheist. And I would, I had Christians come and witness to me. I would debate them. You know, usually they were more Calvinist leaning, and that was easy to to swat away.

Bryan Melvin:
It really was. Not to offend Calvinists, but you know, your predestination things justifies a lot of people to fall away from the faith. I'm just gonna tell you. And, and so it was, so, so there are a few Christians I could not at all, at all thwart because they would box me in. Some of 'em were my relatives. I'd go to my grandparents' farm in Southwest Virginia and they would witness to me and my uncle and aunt were witnessing to me and I was put in a box. Big thing about evolution, how great evolution was, explained everything. And he asked me where the first seed come from, the first plant.

Bryan Melvin:
So I said, from, from stardust colliding. Where'd the stardust come from? Well, there's a couple atoms, they kind of bumped in. Where'd the atoms come from? Where'd the nuclei from the atoms come from? He kept reducing it down to absurdity. I didn't have a leg to stand on. I couldn't, I was stumped. They planted seeds and I still was adamant about it. So that's how I was back then.

Shaun Tabatt:
And Bryan, what brings you to Tucson, Arizona. Uh, just curious why you decided to move there and then take us into that kind of day in the life before you had your NDE. Like in terms of all the people I've met in the past 8, 9 years, in terms of the thing that took you out, it's one of the more unique ones. I have never forgotten it.

Bryan Melvin:
Yeah. Well, what brought me here since years have passed and, um, I don't know if some of these people are still alive. I was involved in some heavy duty stuff. So, um, I remember this is why I took the geographic cure because things were getting too heavy. So I'm at work. I worked at a community college in the janitorial department. So my employer, my boss, uh, and my other supervisor and these nice guys wearing these nice suits from the FBI came in and said, we would like for you the head honcho over here is breaking in and stealing chemicals that make drugs. We want you to help him break in here.

Bryan Melvin:
But, but, you know, I said, what? Are you kidding me? You know, the feds are very persuasive and very forceful. I mean, if you never confronted by one, it's actually quite frightening, intimidating. And they said, well, you will be arrested with them. And, you know, basically, I'd be a snitch. I said, no, Thank you. So I called up the guy, was probably, phone was probably tapped. Anyway, I called him up and told him, hey, you got a snitch in there. It ain't me.

Bryan Melvin:
And these feds came in and they did this, that, and the other. They want me. I ain't doing it. I'm out of here. And I ended up, everything went fine. And he actually continued to break in to another place and was caught. So someone else, they snookered in for that. So he was serving time and But it was just the drugs, the alcohol, and the insanity of that environment that I just had to get out of there, especially when you had the feds questioning you.

Bryan Melvin:
And so I, the FBI, so I just took off. So that was, that was early, probably 1979 or '78-ish, somewhere around there when they questioned me. It was like '79 probably. And it was, it was, and so I waited around for almost not quite a year and I decided, you know, I'm going to fly to Tucson, Arizona. I have relatives out there. One's Pentecostal relatives, the others were, I think Baptist, whatever. I stayed with them. I found a job, found a place to rent.

Bryan Melvin:
And, uh, cause the jobs were scarce in 1980 because of the recession and stuff. So I was able to get an electrician's job, but I was studying to get to be an electrician. I was getting finished out my apprenticeship. So I found a place, I got a job there. And, and got a place. I had to be there in 2 weeks to go to work. So I talked to a friend and he wanted to take the geographic cure too. And for whatever reasons he had, because we kind of, kind of drifted apart a little bit when I was hanging out with all these other folks.

Bryan Melvin:
But anyway, he said, yeah. So we moved there and another friend from Virginia came later and I had a duplex apartment and there was no bedroom. There were 2 bedrooms and one laundry room, and one guy slept in the laundry room, and I had one room, and the other guy had the other room. So we had a full house, had my dog. That's how I got there. It's the truth be known. Now I tell people a little bit about it because it was kind of embarrassing. And looking back on it, you know, it's, it's, it's, I'm just glad I'm not in that lifestyle anymore.

Bryan Melvin:
I would be, I would not be here. Right. Right.

Shaun Tabatt:
Well, and I appreciate your willingness to just paint the picture of kind of who you were and the life you lived, because I feel like it's important context is on the other side of it, you know, in terms of so many of our friends who've shared their near-death experiences, most of you are very evangelistic, telling people about Jesus, and it's in stark contrast to the life you lived before you had your NDE. So at the time, right before your NDE, I remember you're, you're working construction. It's an extremely hot day. There's a water cooler involved that has some sketchy water in it. And that, that takes us into your story. So take, take us into that, that day. What, what started you moving towards having your near-death experience?

Bryan Melvin:
Well, just living the party life. Like I said, I was part of a chapter. It's a different bike club with a different name. And so I left that group and they were associated with the other ones. You know, you pay your dues, all that. But, and so I just came out and I had that lifestyle of just drinking. I was a heavy drinker and party and, and all the stuff. And so it was just total freedom.

Bryan Melvin:
I go to Arizona, I go into 7-Eleven or Circle K and there's liquor there. It's an alcoholic's paradise, you know? And so, you know, it's like, yeah, so that's what I was doing, working, partying, drinking, having fun, hiking in the, hiking in the canyons in the desert. It's out there. One night fell on a cactus and then landed on my hand and boy, that sure hurt. And, uh, but anyway, it was, it was a unique place. And we did caving there as well. There's some caves out there. We just, I did all kinds of things and just having fun.

Bryan Melvin:
And then, so in working, so I was working that day and we were doing underground work. I was, uh, they, the caliche, what they call the soil caliche, is rock hard. So a backhoe would come out and break it up and scoop it out. We leveled the trench out and we laid the pipes down to pull our wires through to the, for these apartment complexes. And so we get up around, I think it was at 4 in the morning, we had to be there. We get off in the early afternoon, like 12 or 1. It's just too hot to work. And so by probably, I would say maybe 9 or 10, maybe 10 o'clock, it was so hot we moved to go work inside where everybody else was inside the apartments where some shade was.

Bryan Melvin:
Our boss told us to come out and get out of the sun. So as we're walking up, I didn't, had no idea that my supervisor, who was a Turner-Burnett Christian who had bumper stickers and about the CBN Club and Christian Broadcasting Network and all kinds of stickers on there. And he always read his Bible right in front of us and we would throw things at him and make fun of him, make jokes at him. He never fired us. And that always left an impression upon me because he didn't respond. And that was another— it was another guy that you just couldn't get who was a Christian. You know, I would egg him on to do it. But anyway, he took his kids to Nogales, Mexico, just across the border there, and his truck overheated.

Bryan Melvin:
And that was the company truck, which was his truck too. And it overheated. So he used one of the company coolers to fill it up with water from, what do you call it, from a creek or stream or something from Mexico. And he brought it back over, inadvertently brought it back, didn't even think about it. And so, and so we had two coolers. Everybody had two coolers. So our truck. Had one cooler with fresh water in it.

Bryan Melvin:
Had no idea the other one had. He never told any, he never even told me at least not to drink of that water, but the other one was empty. So I picked up that big old thermos and, um, and just much more stronger and buff than I am now. I just picked that thing up and I was just guzzling that thing down and I handed it over to my coworker. He laid it on the, on the, um, on the truck, back of the truck, cuz it's too heavy for him. He took a drink, he, he took a short drink, he spat it out and And my supervisor was yelling, blood-curdling yell, don't drink that. And he was, I remember, I remember looking at him like yesterday, looking up, he's in the second floor or third floor or wherever he was, just looking down at me, yelling, and his eyes were big. And he comes storming down there.

Bryan Melvin:
By the time he got to there, we opened the cooler up. And so inside the cooler was algae. It was a reddish brown. Now it's no oxygen. There is like green seaweed type. Fungus type stuff in there. And the one thing that really struck me, and I have memories of to this day, is like a flat noodle, just one of those flat noodles, like egg noodle, but a little wider than egg noodle. And it was white.

Bryan Melvin:
It was swimming. It had eyeball on it, which was just swimming around in that. And all these little things floating around and swimming in it. Who knows what else was in there. The smell was terrible. I drank that. And he told us what, where he got it and all that, not to drink it. He did say I was, he kept apologizing.

Bryan Melvin:
I guess he thought, you know, he couldn't, that's the only thing he could do. I finished up the day. I thought, well, I'll just go home and drink some Jack Daniel's and José Cuervo, whatever I got, you know, take the John Wayne cure, the old Granddad or Cutty Shark or something and just wash down and I'll be fine in the morning. And did not work because the next morning I went to work. And that's one of the first symptoms. Later, I found out that I had cholera. I had a neurotoxin from the, um, which I can't remember the type. I wrote it down, but it's, um, I can't read my writing.

Bryan Melvin:
I found a piece of paper and, uh, it's also old and then the pencil's faded, but it's a neurotoxin, then some type of dysentery. So I had three, basically a concoction that could kill you. And cholera was, uh, the other combined as a number on you. And that's what happened. The next day, less than 12 hours later, the first symptoms hit and the rest is history.

Shaun Tabatt:
So you're, you're feeling deathly ill. I know you, at some point you end up back home and things begin to take a turn for the worse. So take, take us into what, what's happening when you're, because I think you go to, if I remember correctly, you went to work the next day and then you ended up going back home shortly thereafter because you just felt so awful.

Bryan Melvin:
Yeah. Yeah. I went in there. I was trimming out working inside that day in the model home or in the model apartment. And so I was putting in the bathroom and the GFI plug, installing it, trimming it out. And, and then nice, everything's nice. It's all set to go to show. And here they had no toilet paper in there.

Bryan Melvin:
And I had my first attack. It's like, it goes, ooh, you vomit and it comes out the other way. So I had made a mess of the trash can and the toilet and had no toilet paper., and so I apologized about using a towel. They said, you know, don't worry about it. And they looked at me and said, you get, you know, just, they sent me home really quick. I, I, I managed to drive home, but it was just coming so fast. The fever came shortly after that, high fever developed. And I remember sweating.

Bryan Melvin:
I remember getting chills and the pain was excruciating.

Shaun Tabatt:
And at any point did you feel like, gosh, I should go to the doctor or? Were you just so stubborn you were gonna take care of this yourself?

Bryan Melvin:
I was a stubborn, immortal young guy. I've been sick before and I will just suffer through and this will pass and I'll just get, I'll tough it out. You know, I'm a man. What is it about guys and doctors? I don't know. But that's, that's how I thought. And my two buddies, they wanted me to go to the hospital. They were, take you to the hospital. You need to go to the hospital and you gotta go to the hospital.

Bryan Melvin:
You know, and I refused. And so we also had plans. This was right around the 4th, before the 4th of July. This is June. So we had, I can't remember, it was the week before the 4th or the week of the 4th of July, but one of those two weeks of June, we had plans to go up to Phoenix, Arizona. And one of the guy's relatives had a small plane and they were going to fly everybody up to the Grand Canyon and see the Grand and then fly back. It was an all-day adventure. And I thought that would be neat, you know.

Bryan Melvin:
Take an hour flight to the Grand Canyon and see everything and then come back. And we were all planning on it. So the day that it was getting ready to leave, they were gonna take me to the hospital and cancel their trips. Um, I did not know anything about cholera and you can look it up in the medical journal and, uh, this happened, happens because when your body goes into shock before you, before you die, you feel great. My, my stomach felt like razor blades from my stomach all the way down to the end of my intestines. And it was just, The pain was excruciating and you just goes out both ends constantly. And by the end, you're basically dehydrating. So when your body goes into shock with cholera, you feel great.

Bryan Melvin:
You get up, you walk around. And that morning I got up and look, I'm better. I toughed it out. I'll shake this off. And I drank some water and took some sips of water for them. And they said, we're taking you to the hospital, called me a few choice names. I said, no, you guys go ahead and go, but They said, okay, we got our neighbor going to check in on you in a little while to see how you're doing. And he has the key and everything.

Bryan Melvin:
So that's fine. I'm fine. I'll be okay. Look, I'm okay. I'm walking around. I can let my dog out and I can do, you know, I can do things. So I talked them out. So they just went ahead, got in the, in the, in the truck.

Bryan Melvin:
I remember looking out the kitchen window and I remember my friend was looking at me, shaking his head, saying, I could read his lips. He was, what an idiot. And so, um, which I was actually, I should have went to the hospital, but you know, and then it hit me. I collapsed on the floor and it took me about 3 hours or roughly that to crawl about 30 or 40 feet back to the bathroom in the bedroom and lift myself on the bed. Because the pain was so intense, the fever hits, your teeth are rattling and you're shaking. And you know, I had a swamp cooler and it didn't really work in, in the in there. I think it was probably about 95 in the house. That's pretty cool in Arizona.

Bryan Melvin:
But anyway, and so I had pillows, I mean, I had pillows, I had blankets, I had a sleeping bag and other things on top of me cuz I was cold. I was just chilled and shaking. That's how I got there.

Shaun Tabatt:
Right. So, so you're like shortly after your friends leave, you collapse, you crawl and slowly, slowly and painfully make your way back towards your bedroom. You make it back to your bed. How long is it before you enter into your out-of-body experience from like from when you collapse? Collapse to when you realized you were outside of your body? Like, how long was that?

Bryan Melvin:
Well, the first time was I was in the bathroom and after I had an attack and I trying to clean up the stuff and whatever I did, I did manage it somehow, barely. But I woke up with my body and my head pressed against the door with my dog scratching. And for a second I thought I was standing looking down at my body, and then I was back in my body and I woke up with like a like a start, and then I opened the door and crawled out. I couldn't stand up. I crawled to the, into the bedroom. Just, yeah, my room was right next to the bathroom, so it was probably maybe 6 feet of crawling. Lifted myself on the bed and I wish I would've went to the hospital 'cause things were not right. I can't explain it at all.

Bryan Melvin:
It's just something wasn't right and I knew it. Being an atheist, you know, I was just gonna die. I'm gonna be a dead hunk of meat. That's how I always believed. But this, when the push comes to shove at that time is, and you have an awareness that it's coming or could come right quick. Those are things that, you know, I just wish I could have gotten help. I just wish somebody would have, my, somebody could have came in and got me. I wish my dog would have got help or something, but my dog is not lassie.

Bryan Melvin:
And, uh, so that's, I just laid on the bed with my, on my back shivering and things were getting surreal looking and echoey. A little dizzy, and the pain was too intense to really— it was this incredible nerve pain and gut pain. It's just, it's like something you have to experience the same stuff to know what I'm talking about. It's excruciating. And all I remember is laying on my back and I was trying to pet my dog, and then I noticed that I could see the ceiling. And without my glasses, I'm very nearsighted. And so I looked at my dog, I could see my dog clearly, and my hand was laying over the bed like, like so. And another hand came up outta my hand and went through my dog's chin.

Bryan Melvin:
And then, then something, air came outta me and I floated above my body and I was no longer an atheist because I was, as soon as I left my body, it was like waking up into an ultimate reality. In fact, I was more alive than I am now. That's exactly how it was. And I floated above my body. I could see, no, yeah, I did not look very well. I was sort of a palish with color with little blue blotches in my skin. I had no elasticity in my skin because cholera. You can take your forearm and you try to pinch it, your skin'll go down, but your cholera, you pinch it, it stays up.

Bryan Melvin:
And they tested me, of course, at the hospital and shit. And I remember them doing that. I was pretty much all totally dehydrated at that time. And I, I was gone. I was floating above my body, chilling out, felt great, felt wonderful.

Shaun Tabatt:
That's not an uncommon reaction where once somebody, especially who has been very ill or who has had a terrible accident or some kind of a medical incident, when we become untethered, our spirit becomes untethered from our physical body, often near-death experiencers will describe having immediate relief, feeling better than they've ever felt before, or like you said, you all of a sudden had 20/20 vision without your glasses. You could see things that normally you couldn't see with your glasses off. You know, you're one of the handful of people I've encountered who's talked about when they were in this, in their spirit body, they tried to pet their dog. And that's just really confusing and concerning when your hand goes through your pet. Probably, probably not something we're normally expecting. How long did you, were you able to interact with your environment, Bryan, before your body started rising? Like, was, was that a short period of time?

Bryan Melvin:
As soon as I left, I was no longer interacting with it. As soon as my hand went through my dog's chin, I call it my spirit man or whatever you want to call it, just went. And I just, I had a physical, I didn't have a physical form, I had a spiritual form. It's shaped like this, you know, but, um, couldn't tell you what my face looked like, but, uh, but anyway, I never, no mirrors, but anyway, I was just floating above my body and kind of rocking back and forth, looking at the room. I could hear pristine clear. I could hear the neighbors fighting. There's a young married couple. They always fought.

Bryan Melvin:
You can hear the dishes break sometimes, that type of thing. And then I could hear some kids kicking a can down the road and saw so clear and more clear, more. In fact, I saw colors in the room and hues of light I've never seen before. And there's no, I have no reference. I can't paint a painting and get those. I don't think our eyes naturally see those unless you're gone. I mean, it's the only thing I can say. Yeah.

Shaun Tabatt:
A lot of people describe it as having like 360-degree vision. Like it's, it's, we don't have something in our human body experience really to compare to it, but people can see like everything all the way around them.

Bryan Melvin:
Yep. I could see myself laying on the floor. Then I could see the ceiling and remember the ceiling was a textured ceiling where they troweled it. So they had a trowel. And so a fingerprint of the guy troweling or the painter was up in there. Under a fold of ceiling texture. So my face was stuck in the ceiling staring at it and I couldn't move. I could see the room behind everywhere, but I was just fixated on that fingerprint.

Bryan Melvin:
And then boom, went, went, kind of went above, right through the roof. I could see the kids kicking the can down. I went right past the swamp cooler. Well, the swamp cooler, I mean, I didn't know this about the swamp cooler, had a baling wire. And one access port where you put the screws in and there's a bandana wrapped around it, rigged up to hold it together. Later, a month or so later, I went up there and I changed the filter and that's exactly what I saw, the bandana and the wire. And being an electrician, I have the tools. I fixed it for the landlord for a little bit of money taken off the rent.

Bryan Melvin:
So, you know, it was, you know, to see that and then just, you go real quick. I just went by it. I just, my eyes were fixated on the, object and this one above, and then I was in black darkness.

Shaun Tabatt:
And that's something you hear from different people's experiences where they will see something that's in an odd place, you know, shoe on a ledge somewhere or something strange sitting inside of a light, you know, something you can't see when you're just in your body and looking up at something. So I love that, you know, when you went to fix the swamp cooler, you verified You're able to verify what you saw as you rose through the ceiling and through the attic and whatnot. So once you rise above your roofline and you're able to see what's happening around you, were you pulled towards a tunnel or a light? Was it that kind of a traditional NDE transition? Or what was your transition like from kind of being in the sky, if you will, into what I would likely guess is kind of that second heaven realm?

Bryan Melvin:
Well, for me, I just, I knew nothing about, about these type of things ever happening. So I never, I, at the time in 1980, you just didn't hear about them. And plus being an atheist, I wouldn't have believed them anyway. But so I have no reference point. All I know is as soon as I went above the swamp cooler, I entered into, I call it a pleasant darkness, pitch black, like inside of a cave, blacker than that, darker than that. And I was going, I could see a pinprick of light way off in the distance and I was being propelled toward it. And that's exactly what I saw. It was, I had no more pain.

Bryan Melvin:
I was chilling out and I felt, this is what confuses people. I felt great love and mercy. I felt all this stuff. And all of a sudden I began hearing this beautiful music. Being amateur musician, playing guitar for, you know, oh wow, a long time, 50 years or so right now. And I heard instruments I can't even describe. And the singing was in a different language, but I could understand the words and they were Um, if you go in your Bible and you hear that the Lord is righteous, holy, just is he, things like that, that's what they were singing. But when they sang it, you had understanding about the attributes of God's character traits in a way, in a depth that, that we, we, we lacked.

Bryan Melvin:
I, I still carry a lot of that in me. There's no way I can express it. And it's, it's like explaining the majesty of the Lord. It's like I, I always said, it's like having the mysteries of the universe displayed in grandeur. Every question is answered. All the whys are, why is evil answered? I was just floating through that. And some of it is erased from your memory, but I do, but I do, I remember I wrote a lot of it, some of it down. And so you intuitively, it's through your intuitiveness, it just engages that.

Bryan Melvin:
And I could also feel, felt like a voice was speaking to me from the light. And I was being propelled toward it. And I felt great love and compassion, but I didn't know the love and compassion that I felt and what was being spoken to me was gonna judge me. I was being judged by God's love is the only thing I can say. And basically you are without excuse. And some people reach this place, other people just go immediately judge. The judgment comes in different forms for different people, but mine, I just was floating toward the light. I could, and as the voice was speaking to me, it'd have like we call it life reviews, but it takes longer to tell about it or write about it than it did when you had it.

Bryan Melvin:
It's almost like an instant little views of your life. I was from my birth on up to a little kid, you know, at church and with the baptism thing to, I told you about earlier, and then growing up and falling away. And I had good parents, I had the best parents in the world. And I learned in life that most people don't have good parents. And so it's, it's, or no parents. And, but here I am, the Lord was showing me all the stuff he helped me with. He showed me things. I was in this life review.

Bryan Melvin:
I don't know how many times I drove drunk and almost got killed myself or other people. One over, went over Gallows Road in Northern Virginia there over a hill and went airborne in my station wagon with all my friends in and girlfriends and everybody else in it. Went airborne and the car literally moved missed a tree, missed oncoming traffic, and stayed in the right lane. I didn't— I had no control of the car. Something controlled it. I remember when I got to the bottom of the hill, everybody slapping me on the back and wanting to do it again. Nope, not me. And another time, you know, I was in junior high school and I didn't go to the school that we were supposed to.

Bryan Melvin:
We were shipped to another school, part of some government program that I can't mention. I don't want to get anybody in trouble. And so I was severely beaten with severe concussion, almost to the point of death in a junior high school by people of other skin color because I was a minority, um, in there. So I remember, this is what the Lord showed me. I got out of the gym area, got up into the main hallway between classes, and they're beating on me with these wood pallets shaped like a fist. And the two, principal and the associate principal, walked away, turned their back and walked away, and they surrounded me and they, and they hit me in the back of the head. I saw stars. They said, that honky has a hard head.

Bryan Melvin:
That's the last I heard. I saw stars. And then for the life of me, I don't know how I made it to the stairs and walked up the stairs. But in the life review, it showed there was an angel grabbed me and got me up there. And I had a severe concussion from this. And one thing they told my parents, he got hurt in the gym. Yeah, right. Concussions are not, not fun.

Bryan Melvin:
And so that's That's the type of things he showed me. Then he showed me, you know, how I hated God, how people debated, how he sent people to me, and how I'd go hiking in the mountains. I could see the nature's and nature's God or whatever you want to, as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, nature's and nature's God. I remember a lot of times thinking about nature and nature's God as an agnostic. And but I denied it all. He was showing me that. He showed me how good he was, how many times he'd spared my life from getting shot several times to, to, um, literally shot, almost killed. But you know, just, just things like that.

Bryan Melvin:
He showed how good he was to me despite myself. And I was, I was basically abusing God's love without knowing it. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do means a lot to me when Jesus said that. They just don't know how they're abusing God's love and his mercy and his goodness. I sure did.

Shaun Tabatt:
And as that, as that life review wrapped up, like, how did it make you feel? You know, I think a lot of us assume having a life review would, would make us feel shameful, but like for a lot of people, the life review is one of the most transformative parts of their near-death experience, their encounter on the other side. Like at the end of the life review, like I want to say what was going on in your head, but I don't know if that's appropriate, you know, or I want to say what was going on in your mind. We'll use the best words we have. Like, how did you feel when that was over?

Bryan Melvin:
Well, it was going through the void, going toward the light, and the light was getting bigger. I thought, I'm gonna— this is okay. I can chill out. I'm gonna be in heaven. That's what I was thinking. That's exactly what I was thinking. That's what it felt like. Oh, I had these bad raps.

Bryan Melvin:
That must make, may earn me brownie points by having all the bad raps. That's exactly how I was thinking. But that wasn't so because I went a little longer than what most people do. Saw the light and it was, looked like a rock. Rock suspended in space and light was coming from a person upon the rock. And he was sitting on this, this is rather good-sized rock. And I could see like a beautiful city on one side with a wall, then it just went totally dark. Then I could see, look like a pancake, like a burning inverse off would be to my right.

Bryan Melvin:
And I didn't know what was going on. I had no clue. I just felt great. And this must, I must, I'm going to heaven. I mean, heaven must be real. Whatever, you know, I was chilling out. That's how I thought. And I didn't have any fear, nothing.

Bryan Melvin:
I was at peace. I think I was more at peace with myself and felt the best I've ever felt. And through the life review, but when I saw the person, he was sitting on, there's like a rock, a wall, and he has a little like seat sticking out of this rock wall and he was sitting on it and he was so bright, light just flowed through him. And again, I cannot describe, I say snow, color of snow, that, that type of white is even more different than the whitest white you can possibly think of. And with the sun shining on it, it's just bright. And then it, your eyes adapt to seeing him and he got up and he walked down to some stairs and I just floated feet first in front of him and I landed and then I saw him. I fell face forward, flat on my face. And I don't know, this part just stuck in my mind because someone picked me up.

Bryan Melvin:
They didn't apply any pressure on my back. It was like they had crazy glue or something. They stuck it on my hand and lifted me up. And then they, with force, right in front of them. And this is a part that most people who have after-death experience don't go beyond. And, you know, mine, I always wondered, well, Lord, why did I have mine? I mean, Why, why is this? Why did I see what I see? And never in a million years ever thought that all these years later I'd be in debates with people who had these NDEs, but they never went beyond into the judgment, the further judgment, or they went to a place they thought was heaven, but it's not. And so anyway, I stood before the Lord. I could see the holes in his wrist and he had a hood over his face and I, and my eyes adjusted and I could see like cakes of blood.

Bryan Melvin:
On his beard on this end, and I didn't see his face, but he was— the intensity of his stare, you felt it. And it was— this was more frightening than, than hell, standing before the Lord, because what was shown me was my real sin nature, what I'm really like on the inside. I have no excuses. He gave me good parents. All the stuff began to make sense. I abused what God gave me, and this is it, proved by my life, how I live my life. I determined what good and evil was. I determined what love is and what love is not.

Bryan Melvin:
I put, I even put God, I made terms with God. If you're really real God, you would turn stones to bread and help all the poor. If you're really God, you would let everybody into heaven. There's hell stuff, you know, and if you're really God, I was guilty of making a God in my own image. All those things is pretty much what I was doing. And it was like being judged in a silence. And he was speaking to me by thought. And when you speak a few words, it was like paragraphs of meaning, totally without excuses.

Bryan Melvin:
It's frightening to see what you really are like, the parts that nobody else sees. You know that's in there, but no one else sees. Because I was a good old boy, never meaning no harm. I just, you know, boy, did I do all kinds of bad things and all that stuff, but thought I was a good old boy.

Shaun Tabatt:
And Bryan, did you realize that was Jesus right away?

Bryan Melvin:
Did you know who it was? Absolutely. Yep. It was a knowing. You just know this is Jesus. This is, this is, he's the judge. I know other people don't, don't see this part. Other people, they just, I think they probably do, but it's taken out of their mind, but it's, it's a pretty powerful thing to be judged like this.

Shaun Tabatt:
Sure. Absolutely. Like I said, kind of the, the whole life review phase tends to be one of the most transformative parts of a person's near-death experience. So Bryan, your, you have this life review, you're with Jesus. What happens next? You know, this, yours is not just a happy, warm, fuzzy, go to the gates of heaven, see your welcoming committee and go see God in the throne room. You, you, you, you take a different path. Tell us, tell us what happens next.

Bryan Melvin:
Well, he was judging me and then he had, he pulled out all these keys. He had all these keys on, and they're geometric shaped keys. And he just kind of pointed it. It would be to my right toward his left. This, everything is symbolic. And this, this thing opened up like a, like a scroll. It went into, looked like a tunnel. And he began to, and he spoke to me and I wrote down the words, you know, told me, he says, uh, you'll see a land unknown that's best forgotten.

Bryan Melvin:
And he went on to kind of explain at a point in time, you may tell people about this. And then he said, when you come to this place and you feel a sense of overwhelming, say my name and my title, which I knew who it was. He gave me permission to say his name. And then he, then he said, but remember, an option, option for your return is yet to be decided. That kind of even shakes me up to this day. It just kind of, it really feels it inside right now. I just, it's like option for, and at the time I didn't know, I didn't really know what it meant, but I do now. And so thank you for the option.

Bryan Melvin:
So I went inside of a dark tunnel. Sorry, my eyes are watering because it's kind of hard to Think of this. Imagine you standing for Jesus, being judged, and he said that to you, and then you come back, right?

Shaun Tabatt:
I think any of us would be—

Bryan Melvin:
tears me up to this day. I'm sorry.

Shaun Tabatt:
I just—

Bryan Melvin:
no, let me get myself together.

Shaun Tabatt:
I think if we try to put ourselves in your shoes, any of us would be hoping against hope that we'd be able to stay there with Jesus and not, not go in some other direction.

Bryan Melvin:
Yeah. So I went, lifted up. I was, and I noticed I was wearing this like filthy— to me it looked like a judo suit. It had little pants legs and, and there's a robe and, and it was filthy, moth-eaten, yellowish brown, stinky, awful. You smell. And, uh, I didn't smell too good. It lifted me up and carried me to that opening and it went through into a tunnel. So I'm going in this tunnel, but all of a sudden the tunnel changed into the inside of a vortex of a tornado, yellowish green colors.

Bryan Melvin:
I putrid colors I've never seen. If this is the Pale Rider's colors, that would be very difficult to try to sing. Most greens, it just, this, it was just twirling like the inside of a tornado. And I was going through the tunnel, going to another light, strangely, oddly enough. And I knew I wasn't going to a good place. I knew that I was going, I guess what they told me about hell is real. So I was headed there. And so I had all the images that you learn throughout, you know, Sunday school or whatever you learn images and cartoons about hell and flames and devils and pitchforks and all that.

Bryan Melvin:
You know, all of a sudden I could hear all this slurping noises and hissing, spitting. I heard guttural languages, hellish language and shrieks and cries and moans and the heat like a furnace blasting out at you. And I could just, and, uh, and I was just going toward this light and it wasn't pleasant. Then I hit the light and I bounced, I hit the ground, then I hit the ground real quick and I stood up. And it was a dreary, dry area. And it looked like I was on one hill, then on the other hill they made a crevasse, like a real steep slope. There was a hill on the other side and a tree without a few leaves on it, but it just looked dilapidated, looked sort of a brown color and seemed to lack life. And, but I didn't see flames or devils with pitchforks.

Bryan Melvin:
I just saw people coming out of the house, running down the hill, and more came up. This crevasse and surrounded me and welcomed me and saying, welcome to paradise, Bryan. You're going to enjoy here. Can't you feel the love here? I just remember them saying that over and over again. Can't you feel the love here? Can't you just, this is welcome. So I saw some people who I know have died and others who did not die. And I confronted those people, said, you can't be that. And they were trying, and these other people were trying to jostle me and trying to distract me.

Bryan Melvin:
But one guy came up. He was at a party at my house one time and he left the house and he got killed. He mouthed off to somebody and they drove by with a shotgun and blew his guts out. And so, so that's, I saw him there and I said, you can't be in paradise. That's exactly what I said. Then he began to transform into another person right in front of me. And then all of a sudden, all their eyes looked like alligator eyes, yellow irises, alligator-like. That's the only thing I can say.

Bryan Melvin:
It's like remind me of alligator eyes. And, and then they began to circumambulate, just started to go real slow around me. And it was almost getting like dizzy at first. And then they changed into what they really were. Then I remembered him saying to me, say my name and my title when you feel a sense of overwhelming. And I sure did, because I had permission to. So I said, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, nonstop the whole time I was there. I did not relent from it one iota.

Bryan Melvin:
It was like a machine gun. You don't breathe like you do here. You have to take a breath. It just comes out naturally. And when I said that, they stood back. They could poke me, they could touch me, and some of their touches were ice. There's an icy coldness to it. It's almost like a shock of electricity of evil.

Bryan Melvin:
They touched you, but they could not, they couldn't latch hold of you as long as I said the name. And they wanted to shred me to pieces. They wanted to tear me up. So this one creature came out that I later named, nicknamed Lizard Breath, you know, sort of a, um, it's just my, uh, phrase for it. And, uh, he looked like a little dinosaur. And later on in 2007 there at the Sentara shopping mall and out here east of Loveland, Colorado, um, they have a sculpture park and they actually have a sculpture of the, of the entity I saw. The closest representation I ever saw was in the African art section called The Traveler. And it was on opening day, that's when I saw it, opening week, whatever.

Bryan Melvin:
They had it described, who made the statue as well as the story behind it. It was the, so I read it with my relatives who read my book and said, this is, they said some name and they call it, translates to traveler, the one who escorts you into the afterlife.

Shaun Tabatt:
Pretty creepy. It seems rather fitting.

Bryan Melvin:
In this. Yeah, it does.

Shaun Tabatt:
It's scary.

Bryan Melvin:
Kind of. Yeah. And the stories, they, they, they grab people and they take 'em to the underlife. So they take their journey in life, like medicine men or whatever, stuff, or whatever, or people who follow their religions right there. That's what I was getting. And so anyway, when I read that thing, but anyway, so that was what, 27 years after that happened. Anyway, he just walked a few steps and stuck his hand to it and looked like the sky and ripped it open. Like a veil, and he stood up and climbed out of there and he motioned me to come with his short stubby arms.

Bryan Melvin:
Arms could get long too, if you want it to, but they were sort of stubby. So I climbed up and he was staring at me and speaking to me. His breath was so foul. I never could tell you how many eyes he had because it was like steam coming off of a hot road in the summertime. He just distorted. Smell was awful. And, and he was, he was speaking in a different language, but then I could understand it. And he was telling me it was granted me to see this place.

Bryan Melvin:
He hated my guts, I know that. And he offered me half the kingdom of hell. He offered half the kingdom. If I curse God, curse myself, curse this, curse that, curse the devil, curse anything, just curse, curse, curse, then I can have half the kingdom here. And I was too scared. I didn't know what he's talking about. And then he starts showing me this place called, the Bible calls it the pit, the pit of hell. It's found in the scriptures, mentioned in Revelation, the bottomless pit, which it is as well.

Bryan Melvin:
It's a different spiritual dimension. It's inside the earth, but it's a different dimension. And there are— Ezekiel chapter 32 talks about hell being roundabout with cells stuck in there. So I came out of a chamber of death, a cell that is mentioned in the Hebrew translations. They talk about the chambers of death are the cells or the dungeon cells. So there's cells there, they're embedded in the wall of the pit and they grow. It gets, it grows, they keep growing back further recesses of the pit. Pretty everything.

Bryan Melvin:
The Bible is the only place I found that described the place I saw. There were no other. I looked, that was the only place, was the Bible. First started reading it and started looking at it. I go, wow, this is what I saw.

Shaun Tabatt:
And that's not an uncommon experience. I mean, I've met a lot of near-death experiencers who maybe weren't as familiar with God's word or didn't really read the Bible, and then they'll find confirmation of what they encountered in heaven when they're simply reading God's word.

Bryan Melvin:
Well, that, that's what happened to me. I didn't know anything about it. It's just that afterwards I came back and I would be reading and studying the Bible. When I came back, I was, I was driven into the Bible and I kept finding answers and it was like opening up to me. And later when I came to Ezekiel 32, looked at a Hebrew study of it, it was like, wow, just very—

Shaun Tabatt:
in terms of some of the things you encountered in hell, having heard your story numerous times. You had the experience of encountering people in what we, I think what you might describe as cells. And that's not everybody sees that when they have a disturbing or distressing near-death experience, but it's rather common for people to describe what looks like prison cells or jail cells. I'd love to hear, Bryan, just like kind of what did those look like? Like what size were they? And give us a couple of examples of the people you saw. Or I guess better to say the souls of people and what was happening to them in those cells?

Bryan Melvin:
Yeah, I'll give you a brief description. This pit was shaped like a spiral staircase. The bricks in the wall would be the cells and the stairs would be this slowly, you know, this spiral down or up. And you know, I knew this, the people above me were not getting the recompense in the degree that I was and the people below would get far worse. It was different degrees of recompense.

Shaun Tabatt:
So the deeper you were in the pit, the worse your experience was going to be?

Bryan Melvin:
Yeah. And in all these cells, I wrote in my book 10 by 10, but they're actually about, you know, 14 or 15 by 15. I took the liberty and I have to take responsibility for it, but 10 is easier to spell multiple times than 14 or 15. Please understand that.

Shaun Tabatt:
You saved some word count in your first book.

Bryan Melvin:
Yes. Yes. Save some word count. Yeah, so, you know, 8 letters versus 3. But anyway, yeah, and they were in there, and what was unique about them is that what was inside their mind, as the preacher said, whatever's inside their mind supplies what they see. What you're getting is recompense of things they did in life coming back to them, and to the degree or measure, the same measure that you measure will be measured back to you. Just like that. And the demons would give the illusion of people, tables, chairs, everything.

Bryan Melvin:
So when I looked inside the cells, for some reason I was granted to have, uh, like a voice from above. I wrote in my book, would, would be talking to me. And then this thing talking to me, this, it was like these people, I had a download on them. And it's the only way I can describe it. Back then in the day, I didn't know what a download was, but that's a better term for it. I just knew in an instant their life history, who they were. And they, you know, some people, I saw different types of people in there. And there are people who think that they're very good, but they can't maintain goodness for any indefinite period of time.

Bryan Melvin:
That's impossible because of our nature. But it's what's in the heart of people that's being judged. And so gossip, slander. And so they would be, some of them would experience gossip and slander. When I first arrived there, most of the people I saw, were bored out of their skull. That was their torment. It was like they're bored. It was hot.

Bryan Melvin:
And some of them were in the environment they knew about, or the era of time. A lot of them entered into just was pure darkness. And slowly, I remember standing in front of one cube. I looked inside of it and the darkness got lighter and lighter and I could see in it. There was a guy in there and all these spiders chained to the wall. They weren't spiders. They were just yelling at him and mimicking and mocking him. Of things, his lust and his ideas that he had and he harbored inside was coming back to haunt him.

Bryan Melvin:
And so I saw people instantly in flames. The editors took out all this stuff, references. I put people in holes and in pits and stuff. I kept seeing some stuff was edited out, but it's in the, uh, it's in the original draft in the Library of Congress. So, so that's what I was seeing. And I saw, you know, I told so many different people and depending on what they did, this one guy who died in the 1950s and he had the typical furniture there and he was an alcoholic and he beat his kids with his fist and his mouth and abusive and everything, just sitting there and all, everything he would say to his son, get me a beer or whatever, son. And then he would hear the beating and stuff and he would be growling. You think people would get reformed there.

Bryan Melvin:
They don't. It's there. It's, it's, it's like what Job says in chapter 26, hell hath no covering, or the Abaddon, this place of destruction has no covering. Everything is being uncovered. Your real sin natures, you're becoming that. It's like the demons would be, if you had demons in the cell, which that guy did, he thought those are the tables and chairs. But anyway, they would, you know, it would be like We'll make it stop if you become more like us. It's the best way I can describe it.

Bryan Melvin:
And, and that, but they don't deliver. They don't deliver. And that's exactly what I was seeing. And, you know, uh, so a lot of people, the one I remember the most and I put in the book and for, you know, for years I didn't even know why I put it in there, but it stuck out was the chapter on Dear Pudding. This lady, tornado dropped in front of us. We walked down to her cell. She knocked. She thought, well, she's what? I could see what they could see.

Bryan Melvin:
Don't ask, don't ask me how that is. She thought that she was in paradise as soon as she didn't know she was in a pit. She couldn't smell the smells or feel the heat. She stood in front of her cell and knocked on the door and her grandmother opened and welcomed her there. And then we walked up and I'm looking inside the cell, watching everything transpire. And she goes, and her grandmother goes, welcome dear pudding. Cause he called her pudding. Welcome dear pudding.

Bryan Melvin:
Welcome to paradise. Can't you feel the love here? Oh, grandmother, I do. And there's Uncle Joe and this, all this, all these people there meeting her and giving her hugs and all that stuff and very just loving and kind. You know, we have medical resuscitation now. I want people to think hard and heavy about it. If she were resuscitated back to life through medical means, what would her testimony be about? What would be mine if I got resuscitated and I'm floating through the void going through the light? I'm feeling all this love. What would my, you know, their death is a lot longer than most people think.

Shaun Tabatt:
Yeah. I mean, that's, that's one of the challenges. I mean, we're, we're all thankful for our modern medical technologies and just, just our ability to resuscitate people so much better, I believe is one of the reasons we hear so many more of those near-death experience accounts. But like you're saying with that young woman who, uh, you know, we'll call her the, the deer pudding story, or even your story, you know, whether it was going towards the light or when you were on that, the landscape before, you know, the house that looks like the house you grew up in, like you would've thought you were with your welcoming committee welcoming you into heaven. You would've never thought you were entering into a hellish experience.

Bryan Melvin:
Nope. Not, not at all. I kind of had an inkling of it cuz I was judged, but it was like, at first it was kind of like, huh? I almost got took in by it really. It's very, I learned something from the experience is how deceptive the demonic world is. And that's what people don't realize even in Christian churches, how deceptive they are. And they go at any lengths. To capture a soul.

Shaun Tabatt:
Well, it's kind of the opposite of what God is doing because we've heard those near-death experience accounts where people are turning to Jesus in the midst of their, like they're having a car accident and everything goes in slow motion. Or I think of like our friend Ian McCormick where he's in the ambulance and his mom is praying for him back home in, I want to say New Zealand. And he's seeing the Lord, the words of the Lord's Prayer in the air in the ambulance. And he starts praying and gets saved in the ambulance. Um, and so, you know, on the one hand, we have God pursuing his way in every moment, and it almost seems like Satan's trying to pull people down into the pit, uh, in his own way as well. Like both, both sides are, uh, pursuing us, if you will. I know we, I know you've shared this in other interviews. I know we didn't share this in my interview last time.

Shaun Tabatt:
Um, it's not uncommon for people who have hell experiences to see famous people or notable people. I've had people claim to see famous preachers and people throughout history and different folks in hell. But you, you saw Hitler in hell in, in his cell and experienced torment. I know we never got into that with my last interview with you. I'd love to have you get into that a little bit this time, just because it's a pretty unique aspect of your story and what you saw.

Bryan Melvin:
Yeah, when I was— I always kept it to myself. I didn't want to sensationalize anything, but anyway., I was doing a docudrama and I didn't realize the cam— I thought the camera had the red light on, but they were filming me and I just saw a red light. Then I, they start asking me some questions. I didn't know they were filming it. They asked me if I saw anybody. I said, you know, Reinhard Heydrich, and I, which I kind of hinted at in, in the book. And I saw Adolf Hitler and quite a few other people, but I didn't want to sensationalize it. So I didn't, so the word got out through the docudrama and then I can't do anything about it.

Bryan Melvin:
It's fine. But anyway, um, yeah, I saw him there and he was inside of a cell. It was, reminded me of an oven. He was being burned in an oven and it was like next. I know it sounds strange, but when the cells would move at a certain time, the scenes would change. So I'd imagine that he would be reliving every person from through the gas chambers, being gassed, bussed, shipped there, stand up through 300, 400-mile train ride in freezing weather in a boxcar, then go out, then they go into some shower room and gas, he would experience every single person that was killed in World War II that he's responsible for, as well as some of the people he did as well. And so it's— so that's what I saw. And so that's— and, and, uh, yeah, and he wasn't getting worse.

Bryan Melvin:
He was getting— he was— he wasn't getting better. Excuse me, I should rephrase that. He wasn't getting better, he was getting worse. He was— what a vile, hate-filled man. Utter, utter devoid of feeling, could be yelling and screaming while he's on fire, obscenities and yelling at God and then spouting off hate and just the vileness of it. How do you know what he's saying? You speak German? No, you just know. You hear, you just know what they're saying. Right.

Bryan Melvin:
I can't explain it. It's like I heard different languages and I could understand them. It was like granite to me. For that. That I can't explain. His was on the— the cells were stacked 6 high, so his upper level, but they go back to the back wall of the pit where most of these people are. You gotta understand, there are places with cavernous openings that would go off in the distance. You would see our great openings, and I didn't write all that in the book, where I could see just, just like from you walking from just out of your kitchen into your living room or something, that fast, seeing a big open area where a bunch of people were, were groping around either in darkness or semi-flames, but they couldn't see each other.

Bryan Melvin:
And you can see a big, big wall. You can see these creatures up there laughing. I don't know what that was about. Some people who've seen hell, they, that's what they see. I only wrote about what I saw and stared at. I didn't, I, I couldn't write everything. It's too, too difficult to. When I was writing the book.

Bryan Melvin:
I should have wrote that in there. Kind of gave an allusion to it, but about the, uh, the cathedral hallway that I was in for a little bit.

Shaun Tabatt:
So you're, you're in hell with the, the sights, the sounds, the smells, all these things, you know, that you're experiencing. It is odd how we, when people are in their spirit body, they describe all the same senses that we have from our physical body and kind of that, that knowing, that spirit to spirit communication, like you don't even have to ask questions. Like everybody describes, like you just understand communication is instantaneous. Like you just know you can communicate. There's nothing you have to, uh, try to do there. So you're seeing other people being tormented in cells. What's happening to you? Are you being taken towards what, what might be your eternal resting place or place of torment? Like what, what, like where, where are you being taken after you start seeing all these things around you?

Bryan Melvin:
At the time I didn't know. I was too scared. I was very scared. And the memories are embedded in your mind. I remember seeing all kinds of people, but I was going down further into the spiral to another location. And looking back in hindsight and knowing that, that there's a thing I always talk to near-death experience or after-death people who, who've come back. How do you handle this, this feeling of eternal time? You know, it's like you can't, there's no time, but there's there's a flow and an ebb to it. And I remember, you know, that's the only thing I can say.

Bryan Melvin:
And everybody seems to agree. It's like a flow and ebb to it. It's there. I even feel it right now. It's just there. But it's like people don't know with this thin veil that we have stepping into eternity is right there. But anyway, I don't want to get off the subject, but anyway, that feeling, when I look back on it, it would explain how John Who wrote the Book of Revelation could see Ezekiel measuring the temple and vice versa. So that's what I'm talking about.

Bryan Melvin:
So I saw where my cell entered, where I entered and where it would be, cuz they, they kind of slowly drift down to lower levels and you kind of go on like a conveyor system. It's real slow and it clicks and moves and the people inside don't know they're going lower, but the torments increased. And so this would be where my cell would be. That's what I saw. Saw my own cell where it would be.

Shaun Tabatt:
And how do you, how do you, like, what was your ticket out? How do you exit out of hell? Because obviously you're back here with us all these years later sharing your story. And there's, there's, there's a range of circumstances, it seems, you know, for why God will pluck people out of hell, you know, as they're being pushed toward their place of eternal torment, if you will. I feel like a lot of times it has to do with prayer. Like if I had a dollar for every time it was their grandmother, their mother has been praying and interceding for them, often for decades. That's a very, a very common reason that they either are told specifically or understand why they're being released from hell or given a second chance. I always got to comment and say, dads, grandpas, we got to step up our prayer game because I have yet after 8, 9 years to hear that's because of a father's prayer. Like we got to do better, guys. It's always the mother or the grandmother.

Shaun Tabatt:
And I've heard that quite a few times from people who've had distressing NDEs. Like, for you, Bryan, like what was the circumstance for you being taken outta hell and coming back?

Bryan Melvin:
Well, just from coming back when I, parents, I told my parents I got found Jesus, and then I found out my parents were praying for me, grandparents, a lot of pastors and preachers on both sides of the family praying for me. I had people from the early days of Campus Crusade of Christ praying for me, the Jesus People, you know, the, that move of God. Those people were around that time, people I knew who got saved and they were praying for me. I knew there were a lot of people praying for me. So, um, so yeah, there was that. There were quite a few. I was kind of visited by— my mom set me up with this pastor who got out of seminary school. And at the house, I'm drinking a beer, playing a board game with him, and, um, he's trying to witness to me.

Bryan Melvin:
He's one of those guys I just couldn't stump, but he left a good impression on me. And so, you know, but I'm sitting there drinking a beer, but that guy was praying for me. So I know all these people were praying for me and And the only reason I actually came back is just by God's grace. It's definitely not me because I deserve hell. I mean, I know that. I saw what I am really like on the inside and Jesus does change you from the inside out, thankfully.

Shaun Tabatt:
And what was, um, I don't remember if we covered this in our conversation last time, Bryan, but this is a question I like to ask. What was reentry like, uh, for you, uh, returning to your body? You know, some people, they've told me how it's kind of traumatic, almost like their spirit. Heidi Barr talked about like, it felt like her spirit didn't fit inside her body and Jesus had to like smooth her out so she could fit again. I've had other people be like, oh, it was like, it was a complete reverse. Like I was, went through this light and down this tunnel and then I was back in my body. And you know, others it's simply like, oh, I just woke up, you know? And that's the whole thing. For you, what was it like returning to your body? Uh, normal, traumatic, in between?

Bryan Melvin:
What'd that look like for you? It was very traumatic. First is that when I saw where my cell would be, it was open. And then I realized that half the host of hell would be there to torment me. And then I was at my wit's end. And then I won't get into how I— Jesus actually came and rescued me from there before I was thrown in this place. And he carried me in his arms and he carried me back up and I was crying on his shoulder. I'm gonna give you the shorthand edition of this. And then we went back up to where my cell was when I entered.

Bryan Melvin:
It went into that one and went through the tornado vortex and he came out to that big huge rock and where it all started. He sat my feet on there and he spoke to me some things and he blew on me and I went backwards. I went through the back, through the black void. Light got, the light got dimmer and dimmer. Then I came to a point. And for a split second, it was like I was floating downwards like a leaf, like this. I went through the ceiling, came in, and I could see my body for a second. And then I went rock back and forth.

Bryan Melvin:
I went feet first, and my feet, then my body laid back in me, and I could not breathe. I was in excruciating pain. The fever, everything hit. My neighbor must have found me. This part's very cloudy. I don't remember. I couldn't breathe. I was going, and I, and then, and I, and my neighbor must have found me.

Bryan Melvin:
And so, you know, 4 hours later, I remember standing outside. I'm not quite sure how I got outside. I don't remember too much, but he got me in the truck. I'm dying on the way to the hospital, floating above the cab of the truck as he ran red lights. And I would describe him the event and he'd go, how do you know that? Your head's banging against the glove box. Just chilling out above the cab of the truck, it was like getting my body, the pain there. And so, uh, and one time when I was in the hospital, I remember hearing, hearing the heart monitor go flatline and then I heard starting to leave and all of a sudden went back in real quick. They were, I don't know, the doctors doing all kinds of things and I snapped out of it.

Bryan Melvin:
So, um, came back. I remember it's all cloudy.

Shaun Tabatt:
So like, like big picture, you had like, 4 or 5 out-of-body experiences across this whole journey.

Bryan Melvin:
Like you left your body multiple times. Yeah. I don't really consider those really out of body because I didn't stay anywhere. I just floated above and back down.

Shaun Tabatt:
Yeah. Your spirit left your body, even if it was short. I mean, that's the classic textbook definition of an OBE, an out-of-body experience, is your spirit left your body. So a lot of people may have once or twice, but I don't think I've had many NDE testimonies where it's like 3, 4, or 5 times. So, Although it sounds like, sounds like being out of body was probably more comfortable than being in that truck on the way to the hospital.

Bryan Melvin:
It definitely was. It was no pain. When you get in your body, the pain, the fever, the rattling of teeth, your teeth. And then I realized that, you know, when I was coming back to, and this sounds, and people don't have to believe me at all. I don't, doesn't matter to me, but, um, I just want to, you know, serve Jesus. Just the fact is, is that they were saying my blood was viscous and and I described my symptoms to people. Says, you had the beginning stages of rigor mortis. I did.

Bryan Melvin:
I'd gone for 4 hours. So they say. And so I had no elasticity in my skin. And a doctor from India is one who was the ER doctor who, when I came back, he goes, Mr. Melvin, tell me who was running for president. No, Ronald Reagan. Who's president? You know, um, Jimmy Carter. Where do you live? Phone number.

Bryan Melvin:
So I gave phone numbers to some relatives that were in town. Pentecostal relatives, and so numbers of how to contact people. And they were just working on me and stuck IVs in me and saline solution. Electrolytes were nil and they pumped all that stuff into me and they did get the blood thin enough to do the blood test. So it was, yeah, it was looking back on it at the time, I thought there was nothing. I really did. I thought I just, you know, I came back. I'm glad to be alive.

Bryan Melvin:
I'm blowing on my hand, blowing on my hand. Why would you do that? Because you don't breathe in hell. You know, I didn't wanna, I wanna make sure I'm not in a cube. That's what I told the doctor. Am I in cube? No, you're in the hospital. And I shut up after that.

Shaun Tabatt:
Did you feel pretty disoriented trying to figure out what was going on in the hospital?

Bryan Melvin:
At first it was later. I remember recuperating. I don't have any memory how long I was in the hospital. It could have been overnight, could have been a day. I mean, I was, I don't know. I was too weak and they pumped, they filled me up with all kinds of stuff. To get me going.

Shaun Tabatt:
Well, and we're running out of time here, so I got a couple, couple places I want to go before we wrap up. Obviously, anybody who has a near-death experience, it's, it's going to transform you. On average, according to Dr. Jeffrey Long's research over at endurff.org, it takes about 7 years for somebody to really come to terms with all that they experience. I always say it's because our finite human brain can't handle the, the heavenly download they got, you know, while they were on the other side. So it takes 7, 7 years to come to terms. Two, two things I'd like to have you touch on quickly, Bryan, before we wrap up. How were Were you initially transformed on the other side of your NDE? Like what changed? And then take us into how God helped you overcome the trauma and the PTSD, because God wasn't done working on you yet immediately following your time in hell.

Shaun Tabatt:
So initial transformation and then how to bring further, how did God bring further healing for you later in the journey?

Bryan Melvin:
I just remember when I got out of the hospital, it was early morning. Guy, that roommate, my guys I rented rooms from, They were back and they were leaving for work and I had to have electrolyte, like Gatorade and stuff. I had different stuff. I had Paragoric, you know, so they stop you up and, you know, you had all that. I only take it at night, so I was, had 2 doses left. You take it at night, so I wasn't even on anything. But anyway, and belladonna, they give you this Donnatal stuff and all kinds of stuff. I tell people what I was taking, oh, that's, that's, that's basic cholera treatment back in the day.

Bryan Melvin:
And so, um, recovery. And so that's what I was doing. And so I sat in a beanbag chair, they, they left and my dog was really happy, German Shepherd, all over you. Couldn't get enough of me being back. I couldn't get enough of my dog either. I was, I was, people knew I changed. I wouldn't tell anybody what happened. They go, what happened, Bryan? What happened? Something happened to you.

Bryan Melvin:
What happened, Bryan? You died. What happened to you? Nothing. I don't, nothing. I'd get fear in my face trying to You know, and stuff. So I didn't want to say anything. I didn't know what to do with it. I just sat in the beanbag chair and I said, Lord Jesus, I never want to go back to that awful place. Take me, I'm yours.

Bryan Melvin:
I owe you my life. That's exactly what I prayed. Because I did. I did. I owe my life. I can't ever pay it back. I never could, never will be able to. But I know I deserve hell.

Bryan Melvin:
I know I deserve God's wrath. I don't deserve mercy, but I found grace instead. And I, so I have a unique perspective of God's grace and it changed me. And it took me a little while to change because I had, you know, I was alcoholic and drinking all the time and I didn't know how to be sober. So right after that, I noticed that when I was drinking, all I got was a headache and I never got drunk, never got a buzz, and I just felt miserable. And then I caught God's sense of humor. And so when I started going to a church, they I had my tube of toothpaste to cover my breath, but they, they didn't condemn me. They loved on me and they helped me get off the alcohol.

Bryan Melvin:
It wasn't for them people. It would— God just set things up. And so I was going to church and my life dramatically changed because like I said, when I was hearing the Bible read from the pulpit, it was alive to me. And, and then I got into it and started reading. This was a Southern— I went to a Southern Baptist church. That's what I did. I didn't know where else to go. So I went to the Southern Baptist Church in Fort Collins there.

Bryan Melvin:
In here where I live now. And they, um, I told my pastor about what happened. He was the first person I told. He said, you should write a book. And then I felt a little relieved, but then these people were, they had a big, a big debate if I should, in this men's Bible study, because they're studying the book of Jeremiah, and if I would be able to handle it being a new believer. And one guy stood up, I was there, and he stood up and he stood up for me. So they, all the deacons voted me in. I think I got in by 2 votes.

Bryan Melvin:
And so my first book I actually read from COVID to cover is the book of Jeremiah, which was an— I actually enjoyed it. And after that I started getting into the Bible and this guy taught me to do Greek studies, Hebrews. And I got another church where I was studying to be in a ministry type thing. And you take these, you know, they have these, uh, church classes, basic, you know, your foundational Greek Hebrew stuff. The rest you, you just work on your own. So yeah. I just, everything, I started reading the Bible primarily, and then I found answers of what happened to me, but I kept it quiet. I told some pastors, two other pastors told me to write a book.

Bryan Melvin:
And finally in 19, I think '86 or '87, the pastor of a church allowed me to share my testimony. You know, he says, I'm gonna give you your testimony in 10 minutes. I took 13 minutes to do my testimony shorthand. 34 people ran up to get saved. Literally ran out of their seats. I said, this is what I'm supposed to do. This is, the Lord had it all planned and I just didn't, just kind of walking into it. And so I kept it quiet for some time.

Bryan Melvin:
It takes time to process it. It does. It does. And coming to terms with what you see.

Shaun Tabatt:
Well, that's impressive for you to do any form of your testimony in 13 minutes because you have so much to share, uh, from, from your experience. Before we wrap up, Bryan, I'd love to hear about Jesus bringing you back to heaven and why he did that and what he healed in you. What were the things that were still bothering you? You know, was it, was there unresolved trauma? Because, because again, you know, we kind of gloss over sometimes the results of the, we always talk about, oh, the positive impact of an NDE, but for people who have these disturbing or distressing, we call them a DNDE, they often have a lot of trauma, fear, PTSD that has to be dealt with. Yeah. Is that some of the stuff Jesus healed for you when he brought you back to heaven?

Bryan Melvin:
Yeah, absolutely. This is early 1980s when it happened, 1980, and, um, then started going to church. I did not know anything about PTSD, did not know anything about trauma. I didn't know any of these things. And so I just, um, had no clue about it. And I was going through stuff. I had Post-traumatic stress. I had all the symptoms.

Bryan Melvin:
Sights, sounds literally make me drift back into the, into the event. I'm just only now coming to terms with some medical condition that I've been having for some time. And it's actually from drinking the bad water. It's nerve damage to my gut. I found out that the neurotoxin in the cholera can cause gut nerve damage. And as you get older, it really flares up. It just mimics the symptoms again. It's like a reminder this happened, but I had to come to terms medically with stuff.

Bryan Melvin:
I had to come to terms with the post-traumatic stress, nightmares, dreams, walking in a mall, watching them changing a mannequin. I'd flip out. I sweat, I'd shake, I'd grab hold of the rail at, it was a Cherry Creek Mall, looking down at the bottom floor there, you know, and echoey. And I'm, I'm back in hell for a split second, literally can't, and I'm shaking and people, all my friends in the, in a Bible group there were asking me what was wrong. Oh, nothing, nothing. I just don't feel real good right now. I'll be fine. I'm going to get a soda or something.

Bryan Melvin:
That's, that's what it was. Nightmares, night things. And I always, I remember, I remember when Jesus says, say his name and his title, Jesus Christ. I remember when I had the nightmares of being in hell again, the nightmares that would come of different events there. I'd wake up shouting, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ. That's, and that's what I did. To help get over it. And I had no idea this also drove me to work.

Bryan Melvin:
I got involved in a church where you could lose your salvation type of doctrine was there. And I'm not trying to get on anybody's case now, but I didn't feel eternally secure. I thought, oh, I don't want to go back to that awful place. I got involved in this church and the pastor liked how I prayed. I was the head intercessor. I was in the praise band. I ran the soundboard. I did street witnessing.

Bryan Melvin:
We had a ministry started with street kids coming to where I lived at the time. And we had 24-hour ministry, deliverances, the whole bit. I was constantly busy. I kept myself— I was driven to be busy. I just couldn't— I worked. I was also starting a business washing windows at the same time. That's— I was frantic. I know that's the only way I can describe it.

Bryan Melvin:
I don't know if that's similar to other people who had this. That's just what you do. And so about 2 and a half, a little over 2 and a half years later, and I know I got a picture of me after it happened. And when I flew back home to see my parents, they bought me this nice suede jacket for church and a nice tie and shirt, you know, back in the day when you wore that stuff. But then, you know, so just, just before that, the Lord allowed me to see heaven to calm me down about seeing hell. I've determined this, Shawn, that a lot of people have seen hell will be allowed to see heaven one way or another, either afterwards or sometime after their experience, they're taken. I find that to be pretty much— I wasn't aware of it until I've been talking to you and others on this, and that's quite common for— to calm you down about it. Because that's what I— when he took me up to heaven, it was literally to calm me down about hell.

Bryan Melvin:
And plus, there's a lot of things I learned up there. I wrote it in my Heaven Beckons book, try to put it in there in a way that can understand it.

Shaun Tabatt:
So But anyway. And would you say Jesus allowing you to see heaven a second time, did that give you that assurance that you were longing for? It sounds like you just, you wanted assurance that you weren't going back into the pit again.

Bryan Melvin:
You better believe it. I was adamant. And what happened was, was John 10. No one can snatch you out of my hands. Are you greater than I am, Bryan? You think you, a mere human being, can jump out of my hands? Ha ha ha. This type of thing. No, you can't. I got you.

Bryan Melvin:
I rescued you from hell. Okay, I got it. Yeah, Lord, I'm a mess.

Shaun Tabatt:
Yeah, I know you are. It sounds like God addressing Job. Were you here when I created, you know, the foundations of the earth? I mean, come on.

Bryan Melvin:
You see, so I said, okay, then I'm eternally secure in him, and I can't jump out of his hands. I found out in heaven, this will sound strange, but God is the author of choice. He gave humanity a choice in Genesis chapter 1, verse 26. Have dominion, exercise it, raise a family, said name animals, take care of the earth, don't eat of this tree, don't do, you know, he had to make choices. He's not a slave to our free moral will at all. He had to violate it by sending his word, Jesus, to give us the ultimate choice when before we had none. He can't, he's not guilty at all for foreknowing everything and what we will do with it.

Shaun Tabatt:
Well, that's, and that's so hard for us to grasp because as you had alluded to earlier, uh, when you were on the other side of the veil, you're outside of space and time. And it's very difficult for us here in our physical body that's time-bound and earthbound to even begin to grasp what does it mean for people who are in heaven or hell and God just to be outside of our normal space-time existence. It's just, you know, other things. You see other things. I think a lot of it beyond what we can understand right now. Bryan, in terms of your story, whether somebody reads, you know, well, really either of your books or they watch some of your interviews, like what's the takeaway you want every person to get from your story? Because I feel like it's easy to fixate on like, oh my gosh, you know, Bryan saw Hitler in hell, or oh my gosh, Bryan had this false welcoming committee showing up and, you know, the demons were trying to deceive him. Like you've got so many unique beats to your story that I've never heard in other near-death experience testimonies. It's easy just to focus on one of those things when we tell other people about this amazing testimony we heard.

Shaun Tabatt:
But like for you, like what's that takeaway you want everybody to get from your story?

Bryan Melvin:
Well, um, just that I want to see people get saved, born again, and also disciple, train them. And I like to share some of the things I learned, not to make myself out to be somebody or not. I'm not out to make a million dollars. I'm not any of those things. I don't want a name for myself. And I know I look a lot younger than I am. My gene pool, my dad's side of the family, all the men don't look their age. But anyway, but I just want people to know Christ.

Bryan Melvin:
I'm not trying to make myself out to be somebody. You need to know Jesus, who Jesus is and what he went through on the cross for us and what he went through just before the cross too is what stuck in my mind. I learned a little bit of it when I was coming back. From hell. And then when I got the full revelation in, and when I saw heaven of the cross and the event, and I think a lot of that is left out. We reduced the gospel message to bullet points. There's nothing wrong with the bullet point method or the Romans Road. I'm not against any of that.

Bryan Melvin:
That does get people saved. But when you make it real that people have, um, we're like, just like Judas. We sell people out for 30 pieces of silver. We are just like the scribes and Pharisees plotting to get rid of somebody. Who got in your way, who's maybe taking your job away from you or whatever. Yeah, we bear false witness. Oh yeah, we abandoned people in the garden. We denied more than 3 times and we spit on people, maybe not physically or beat people physically.

Bryan Melvin:
We sure do it with contempt in our hearts. We put burdens on people that can't bear. We go to somebody and we make God, if you're, you know, like Herod, we're like Herod. We want to see the Lord do some miracle just to make them dance for us. We all guilty. And then Jesus says, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Now you do. Now he wants to forgive you.

Bryan Melvin:
When you accept that, he resurrects you out of this death. We live in this world, to put it mildly, where we only have the knowledge of good and evil. Sin entered the world, so we have this knowledge of good and evil. And how in the world are we gonna hate evil unless we live through it and make a decision if we're gonna abide in it or not? And that's the ultimate decision Christ asked each person. Do you want to continue living in this mess? Or do you want him to change you from the inside out and resurrect you from your dead?

Shaun Tabatt:
Yes, and become that new creation where even what we see with our eyes is different than we saw it before we knew Jesus. Bryan, just to give people context, you've got two books, A Land Unknown and Heaven Beckons. Describe what parts of your stories are covered in each of those books.

Bryan Melvin:
The Land Unknown book is my first book that has my hell testimony in it and gives you I didn't know how to write it. I wrote my first draft of the book was like 80 pages and it was bad and I didn't do anything with it. So I had notes and stuff and I just, after I got outta college and started working in criminal justice field, I mean, I started to write my book and I had enough now to know what a creative nonfiction. So both of my books are in creative nonfiction, which means they're true stories, but certain events of my life in both books I mix up into one thing and I had to change the names of people and stuff. Those all, all happened in the book. So I wanted to, in the first book, I wanted people to know what I was like beforehand. So, and it was a mess, and what he did afterwards. And so when I saw the delayed writing in my Heaven book, and as I tried to tell you when I wrote it, it's a mess.

Bryan Melvin:
It's a mess. And I'm thankful that the Destiny Image editors cleaned it up. I'm very appreciative of it because I could not clean it up. I didn't know what to throw out. I mean, I just was so hard to write because it's, there's so much there. And so it was really good to work with some good editors. And so then I saw second book that came out was about heaven and some of the things I learned from that experience when I came back. And so in the heaven book, I just explained my background going to several different churches, but I put it all in one church.

Bryan Melvin:
Just things actually happened, how I took drug addicts and drunks to church. I hadn't had a reputation. Of street evangelism and dragging people to church and praying for people and all this stuff. And so I wanted to bring that out. And also I wanted to stress primary importance, how I thought I was going to lose my salvation, but you're not. And, um, it's, it's— what was that? There's a song called Holy Water. I'm just trying to remember the verse. It says, Lord, I never want to abuse your grace.

Bryan Melvin:
I need it every day. For by it, for by it, it is the only way I really want to change. The only thing that really wants me to make me change, something like that. Grace makes you want to change. It's not a license to sin. So people need to get over that. We all need that grace.

Shaun Tabatt:
And we'll make it easy like we do with every episode. We'll have links in the description and show notes too, where you can pick up both of Bryan's books. Bryan, for the listeners and viewers who want to connect with you, what's your website? What's your YouTube channel? Like, where can we find you and your content on the web?

Bryan Melvin:
Yeah, my website, I'm waiting to someday I get enough money to redo the thing. I'm trying to work on that, but some more, you know, bills always come up. But anyway, so I have my website, it's afterhoursministries, plural, afterhourministries.com. You know, that will give you to a bunch of links, but it's old website. Bear with me on that. But you can contact me by email at bryanelvin1@gmail.com or bryanelvin1@aol.com. You can try to contact me that way. I have a YouTube channel called, um, and Rumble channel, it's called @YouTube is @TheChristianMarauder.

Bryan Melvin:
And, um, it was a nickname someone gave me when I worked on the side doing some side work with computer gaming companies. They called me Marauder Mel. So I said, well, I'm Christian Marauder. I go behind the lines and get people saved.

Shaun Tabatt:
Well, and, uh, and we'll be sure to link to Bryan's website again. Give him grace. He's going to get that updated eventually., and also link to his YouTube and Rumble channels. Bryan, always a pleasure to see you, my friend. And thank you for sharing a longer form testimony with us today. I always love hearing your story. I know that as, as I've seen with other interviews we've done, I know viewers are going to be impacted. People are going to be finding Jesus from this interview and just always honored to get to spend time with you.

Shaun Tabatt:
So thanks for pouring into us today, man.

Bryan Melvin:
I really appreciate it. Yeah, I appreciate it too, Shaun. It's good to see you again.