I Saw the Second Coming of Jesus… and I Was Left Behind

This is the extraordinary testimony of Brandon, a former drug dealer who experienced an open vision of Christ’s return just seven days after his salvation. His account, featured on the YouTube channel “Touching The Afterlife,” offers a sobering glimpse into what it means to be unprepared for the Second Coming.

Watch the full testimony here:

The Moment Everything Changed,

Brandon wasn’t living the life of a saint when heaven opened before his eyes. Just seven days earlier, he had been saved on the side of a road after finding a Yu-Gi-Oh card that read “Righteous Justice.” But on October 19th, 2018, while operating a skid steer at his construction job, everything changed in an instant.

“I see two angels and I saw the heavens open up and it was so beautiful yet so terrifying all at once. I had never seen anything like it.”

This wasn’t a gentle, comforting vision. The beauty was overwhelming, but it brought terror, not peace. Brandon describes seeing cherubim with feathers so detailed and pure white that earthly comparisons fall short. Between these angelic beings, he witnessed the glory of the Lord—a glory so intense it filled him with fear rather than joy.

His coworkers thought he was hallucinating from drug use, but Brandon knew this was different. His eyes had been opened to see into the spiritual realm, and what he saw would haunt him forever. The Lord was chastising him, showing him the consequences of treating grace as a license to sin.

The Fire in His Legs

What happened next defies natural explanation. As Brandon looked into the sun, he saw Jesus carrying the cross, the image moving like frames in a flipbook, bringing the Word to life before his eyes. Then came the command that would test everything he claimed to believe.

“I hear the Lord say, ‘Crucify yourself.'”

Standing in that field, Brandon stretched out his arms in the position of crucifixion. That’s when the fire began—waves of burning pain rising through his legs unlike anything he had ever experienced. The intensity was so overwhelming that he collapsed to his knees, remembering the scripture that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

But the Lord commanded him to stand again. And again. Each time, the fire returned, testing his willingness to die to himself. Brandon tried twice to endure the pain, but each time he gave in to his flesh, unable to complete the spiritual crucifixion that God was calling him to experience.

The third time should have been different. He felt his body being lifted not by his own strength, but by the Spirit. He was ready to go through with it, to let the flame overcome him completely. But then his phone rang.

The Choice That Changed Everything

In that critical moment, with eternity hanging in the balance, Brandon’s mother called asking for a key to a storage building. It was such a simple, mundane request—the kind of interruption that happens every day. But this interruption came at the worst possible moment.

“As my phone rings, it’s my mom. And instantly, I take my mind off what’s going on. And I go to answer the phone for my mom.”

The choice seemed innocent enough. Help his mother. Be a good son. But in that moment of distraction, Brandon took his focus off the cross and placed it on the cares of this world. He chose the temporal over the eternal, the familiar over the frightening call to complete surrender.

As he looked up from his phone, still talking to his mother about the key, he saw Jesus on the cross looking directly at him. Then everything changed. Jesus descended from the sun on a white horse—not a physical horse, but a spiritual one of the purest white imaginable. Behind Him came other spirits: sheep, chariots, arks filled with people of different glories and colors that Brandon couldn’t even describe.

The most heart-breaking part wasn’t just seeing the Second Coming unfold before his eyes. It was realizing he was watching it happen while being left behind.

“No, Don’t Leave Me!”

The desperation in Brandon’s voice is still palpable when he recounts what happened next. As he watched spirits ascending into heaven behind the Lord, the reality of his situation hit him with devastating force.

“I’m running around and I’m terrified. I’m like, ‘No, what’s happened? No, don’t leave me. I’m ready. I’m ready.’ But it was too late. I had got left behind.”

For ten hours—though it felt like twenty minutes—Brandon remained in this supernatural state, watching the glory of God manifest in ways that confirmed everything he had read in Scripture. He saw the two witnesses, the interceding hand of prayer, the cloud of witnesses passing over the sun. Everything was biblical, though he didn’t fully understand the significance until later study revealed how perfectly his vision aligned with prophetic Scripture.

His mother arrived at the job site, unable to see what Brandon was experiencing. To her, he appeared to be having a drug-induced episode. But Brandon knew the difference. This wasn’t a hallucination—this was divine revelation, and it was terrifying because he understood his spiritual condition in that moment.

The vision began to fade as the sun set, and darkness fell. Brandon found himself afraid of the dark in a way he had never experienced before. He would stand under streetlights, seeing demonic figures and birds with red eyes, understanding that he had missed his moment of grace.

The Scripture That Broke Him

When Brandon finally made it to his father’s house that night, he opened his Bible and his eyes fell on Hebrews 10:26: “He who continues to sin willfully after having received the knowledge of truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation.”

The words hit him like a physical blow. He realized that he had been living a lie, telling himself and others that as long as you believe in Jesus, you can continue in sin. He had been treating grace as a license for disobedience, and God had shown him the terrifying consequences of that mindset.

This wasn’t about being perfect or sinless—Brandon’s testimony makes that clear. It was about bearing fruits of repentance, about genuine transformation, about taking seriously the call to die to self and live for Christ. The vision was God’s way of showing him that faith without works is dead, and that true salvation produces a changed life.

The fear of the Lord that Brandon experienced that day wasn’t meant to drive him away from God, but to drive him toward genuine repentance. As he explains, some people need to be saved with compassion, but others need to be saved with fear. For Brandon, who had been taking God’s grace for granted, fear was the wake-up call he needed.

The Transformation

Brandon’s story doesn’t end with being left behind in a vision. It ends with genuine transformation. Though he struggled for nearly two more months after the vision, by December 15th, 2018, he had completely turned from his old life. He’s now been sober for almost seven years and serves as a pastor, helping others experience deliverance and encounter God.

The vision that terrified him became the catalyst for the most profound change of his life. He learned that God’s chastisement comes from love, not rejection. Like Peter, who denied the Lord three times, Brandon was given the opportunity to prove his love through obedience rather than just words.

Today, Brandon ministers with the urgency of someone who has seen what’s coming. He performs deliverances, prays for the sick, and shares his testimony with the desperation of someone who knows that time is running out. His encounter with the Second Coming wasn’t just a personal experience—it was a commission to warn others.

The Warning for Our Time

Brandon’s vision carries implications that extend far beyond his personal story. He saw the Second Coming during the Feast of Tabernacles, a time prophetically significant for God’s dwelling with His people. The number seven appeared repeatedly in his experience—seven days from salvation to vision, representing completion and the fullness of time.

The vision revealed that we are living in the days that the book of Revelation describes. The signs are all around us, but like Brandon before his encounter, many of us are too focused on the cares of this world to recognize them. We’re living as if we have unlimited time to get serious about our faith, unlimited opportunities to truly surrender.

But Brandon’s experience suggests otherwise. There comes a moment when the door closes, when the opportunity for half-hearted commitment ends, when God requires complete surrender or nothing at all. The parable Jesus told about the servant who beats his fellow servants while the master is away isn’t just a story—it’s a warning about the consequences of presuming upon God’s patience.

A Call to Examine Your Heart

As you finish reading Brandon’s testimony, the question isn’t whether you believe his experience was real. The question is whether you’re prepared for your own encounter with eternity. Are you living as someone who truly believes Jesus could return at any moment, or are you living as if you have unlimited time to get serious about your faith?

Brandon’s phone call from his mother represents all the distractions that pull us away from complete surrender to God. Work demands, family obligations, entertainment, comfort, security—none of these things are evil in themselves, but they become deadly when they prevent us from answering God’s call to die to ourselves and live for Him.

The fire Brandon felt in his legs represents the refining process that every believer must go through. Our works will be tried by fire, and only what is built on the foundation of Christ will remain. The question is whether we’ll endure the process or give in to our flesh when the testing becomes intense.

The time for playing games with God is over. The signs are increasing, the birth pangs are intensifying, and the day of the Lord approaches like a thief in the night. But it doesn’t have to take you by surprise if you’re watching, waiting, and living in readiness.

Don’t wait for your own terrifying vision to take God seriously. Don’t wait for your own “left behind” experience to understand that grace without obedience is not grace at all. The same Jesus who showed Brandon mercy in his rebellion is extending that mercy to you right now.

But mercy has an expiration date. And none of us know when that date arrives.

What will you choose today? Will you answer the call to crucify yourself, or will you let the phone keep ringing?

The choice is yours. But choose quickly—time is running out.