‘Jesus Answers Prayer’: Buddhist-Turned-Pastor Steve Kang Saved from Drug Overdose That Led to Hell

Steve Kang has a radical testimony, growing up Buddhist in South Korea, moving to the United States and getting into hard drugs, and eventually becoming a follower of Jesus.  

Kang is now a Christian pastor of Gospel Community Church OC in California and founder of the ministry “Revive the Nations,” but his journey is a dramatic one.  

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As a teen he would pray for eight hours a day in the Buddhist temple,  but he remembers that peace was only a fleeting feeling.  

“Unlike Christ, who gives us perfect peace, I don’t think I ever experienced the completeness or wholeness as a Buddhist,” he told Vlad Savchuk, the lead pastor of HungryGen Church.

At one point in 1998, Kang was up for eight days straight because of the combination of drugs he had taken. 

He thought he could go to heaven if he would kill himself with knife, and he heard an “Asian grandpa” tell him to slit his throat. 

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“I’m not doing this because I want to die,” he recalls. “I’m doing this because I want to go to heaven.”

Kang had an OBE, “out of body experience,” or an NDE, “near death experience,” at this point.

“My spirit leaves my body and I see myself, but instead of going up, I’m going down…I’m sinking, just constantly and I land and during this whole time, I feel so much fear, anxiety, just no wholeness at all,” he said. “So much brokenness.”

“It is a crowded place,” he said, describing the demons as huge.

“For the first time in my life, I knew I was a sinner, which I never thought of as a Buddhist,” he said. “I ended up in hell and I knew supernaturally, in my consciousness, in my mind that I was a sinner and No. 2, brother, I’m never going to get out of this place, that I deserve to be here forever.”

Kang said he would rather endure the worst kind of pain on earth than go to hell, “where the spiritual, emotional, physical pain is indescribable.” 

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He added, “It’s something that no human being should experience, I felt.”

At the time, he didn’t even believe in hell, even though he said he found himself there.

Kang said he got “tricked” into going to hell and knew he made a big mistake: “It was too late.”
But it wasn’t over for him.

“Thank God for praying Christians,” he said.

His mom had a Christian friend, who attended a Spirit-filled Pentecostal church. She prayed that he would get saved and preach the gospel.

“These amazing, unconditional, loving Christian neighbors and intercessors and pastors came,” he said, and they prayed over him for eight hours, the amount of time it took for his operation.

“Jesus answers prayer,” Kang concluded. “He’s alive and well and He’s living inside of us.”

RELATED: Saved in solitary confinement: ‘Jesus Christ came in my cell’

Before Kang opened his eyes, he said he heard, “I love you, Steve. No more drugs and no more Buddhism.”

Moments later, Kang accepted Christ and prayed the sinner’s prayer 10 times just “to be sure.”

The Christian author said God gave him vision of heaven, and it was confessing his sins to believers around him, he said, “supernaturally…by His Spirit, God would deliver me.” Check out his books on Amazon here.

WATCH STEVE KANG’S FULL TESTIMONY BELOW:

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Caleb Parke is a Newsmax correspondent. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and connect with him at calebparke.com.