SID: Hello. Sid Roth here with Dean Braxton. And Dean, you’re dead, dead, dead for an hour and 45 minutes. You instantly leave your body because you know the Lord and you find yourself in Heaven. Who was the first person you saw in Heaven?
DEAN: Well when I first got there I was at the feet of Jesus and I can remember looking at him and saying these things to him, Sid, I said, “You did this for me?” And then all I could say was, “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.” And at that moment I came to really understand that the only reason I was there is what because of what Jesus Christ had done. It wasn’t because of what I had done, but what he had done. And then I came to realize even the works I did in life, even the works I’m doing right now is him working through me. So I couldn’t even take credit for those things. And all I could say is, “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.” I tell people everything about me. My body wasn’t there. It was my soul and my spirit. That’s what was there. Everything about me was praising him. And I tell people if I didn’t open up my mouth and praise him everything else would have kept on praising him. I could not stop thanking him.
SID: What did his eyes look like?
DEAN: Oh his eyes, you know, they’re just like what we read in the Bible, the fiery red and different colors. But what got me about his eyes is I literally saw the love for me, like I was the only creation of his that he loved, knowing that he loved everyone else, knowing that he loves you and everyone else on this planet. But I came to understand that in his eyes when he looks at me he loves me like I’m the only creation that he loves. People got to really understand that. Sometimes we don’t understand the deepness of his love for us.
SID: It’s a different type of love.
DEAN: It’s a different type, yes, yes. It was created just for me. The love for you is created just for you. So I can’t take his love away that he has for you away from you and you can’t take his love he has for me away from me. His love that he has for you, understand this, Sid, is created literally for you.
SID: Tell me about when you would just look at a part of his body, like his feet.
DEAN: Oh when I looked at his feet, when I’m talking about this love that’s created just for me, if I didn’t see another part of him and his feet, just like it said in Revelation. If you read it, it talks about his feet looking like brass, it’s really the glow off of it that looks like brass. You got the nail prints still there. But that’s what didn’t get me about his feet. What got me about his feet is that his feet loved me. And what I mean by that, if I didn’t look at any other part of him, if I didn’t see any other thing but his feet I would experience the fullness of his love for me through his feet. Same thing happened with his hands. Same thing happened with his entire body. Any part of his body I looked at, his hair, the crown on his head, everything that I looked at literally screamed out how much he loved me like I was the only thing in all creation he loved, knowing that love is there for everyone else, but that creative love that he had created just for me was coming through him in such a way. It seemed like I was literally turning into that love as he was looking at me. Someone asked me one time, they said, “Did you need any food?” No. As I was receiving that love I was being fulfilled in every manner you could imagine, even in the sense of saying, no, I wasn’t hungry. I didn’t need anything. That would satisfy me much more than I could ever explain to you.
SID: Now you saw some loved ones that had died and gone to Heaven.
DEAN: Yes.
SID: Who was the first loved one you saw?
DEAN: The first one I saw was my Grandmother Mary and I have to tell you, before this happened to me I didn’t think that that would be that important to the Lord that you would really see your family members there. But when I got there Jesus was standing to the left of me about 10 or 11 o’clock to the left of me, and pass him to the other side was my Grandmother Mary. Not only my Grandmother Mary was there, but other family members that had accepted Jesus Christ the Messiah as Lord and Savior, they were there. And it was something. It wasn’t just a one-side view, but generation after generation, after generation, after generation of those that had accepted Jesus Christ and the Lord and Savior that helped to make this man who I am on this planet right now, they were there to great me in Heaven. I mean, I tell people you will have the biggest family reunion you would ever think of.
SID: Now what did you grandmother say to you?
DEAN: My grandmother said something to me. She said really two things to me. One thing she wanted me to know and Jesus said the same thing, that this was not my home and that I’m just passing through. That’s what one of the things that Jesus Christ really wants me to get across to people as I talk to them. You’re just passing through this. You are not staying on this planet. The other thing Grandma said to me, which really impacted me really greatly, when Jesus was telling me leave, she said to me, she said, “Bring as many of us back with you as you can.” And I came back with the understanding of how important family is to God. And it seems like you should have known that beforehand. But see, I had accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. I was the first one in my family. The rest of my family, my immediate family of three brothers and a dad, and a mother, they didn’t come to know Jesus Christ when I came to know Jesus Christ. Ten years later, my mom accepted Jesus Christ. And so it was only me and her that were what we would call Christians at the time. The rest don’t know. And here I am. I had separated myself, not only in the sense of spiritually or physically, but I also moved up to Seattle and they all lived in California, and I had very little to do with them. And here’s my grandmother saying to me, “Bring as many of us back with you as you can.” And I have a renewed understanding of going back and making sure my family members know about Jesus Christ.
SID: How important is family to God?
DEAN: Oh it’s very important, even to the point that we don’t look at it that way sometimes. But that’s why the devil is attacking the family and tearing up the family. I think if you look at even the Jewish families, and I’m gonna bring this in here because I think it relates so closely to Jewish families, and how keeping that bloodline, as the Jewish people try to keep that bloodline here, because they understood how important family was to God. We sometimes have gotten away from that. Still, God is saying the same thing to everyone that comes to know him as Lord and Savior, “Your family is important to me and so much, that I literally want you to go back to your family and make sure they know who I am.” I really believe that each and every one of us that are born again, that if we go back just to our family and reach out to them we’ll be ministering and evangelizing more people than we’ll ever come to understand.
SID: Have you reached more of your family since you’ve been back?
DEAN: Oh yes I have. I have reached out to my brothers. My dad came to know Jesus Christ about a year and half ago. You know, he’s 78 years old now, and so, good father. But he made that commitment. He says he’s a believer now. Do you know how much joy that brings me?
SID: But how much joy does it bring the Lord?
DEAN: How much joy does it bring the Lord? I was there when people got born again. I was there when people asked Jesus Christ the Messiah to be their Lord.
SID: What happens in Heaven when you see someone born again on earth?
DEAN: When I was there what happened was literally their name is shouted from one end of Heaven to the other.
SID: Oh, I didn’t ask you the most important question. The shock he had of who wasn’t in Heaven and the shock he had of who was there. We’ll be right back after this word.
