Sid Roth

Sid:  This week I promise you will make you “Red Hot” for the Messiah.  I have been interviewing all this week, Bill Wiese.  Now Bill was a successful realtor in southern California.  Making over a half a million dollars a year, strong Christian, married, good marriage, never had a drug, doesn’t drink,  never been drunk, I have character references on him from his pastor, from the chief of police in his community that has known him for over a twenty-five years. Never had a supernatural experience , by the way, went to a prayer meeting with his wife, his wife went to bed after the meeting.  He stayed up for a little while and on November 23, 1998 at 3:00 AM in the morning Bill Wiese’s wife heard something and she went to find her husband.  Her name is Annette, I have her on the telephone right now.  Explain exactly what happened at about 3:00am.

Annette:  Thank you Sid, for having me on.  Yes, we went to bed after a prayer meeting and I awoke to screams coming from my living room.  And the first thing I did I looked at the clock and it read 3:23.  And Bill had woke up at 3:00 AM to get a glass of water and that’s where the 23 minutes in Hell comes from.  I proceeded down the hall and I found my husband in a state that I have never ever seen him in.  Anyone that knows Bill, knows his nature is calm and conservative and keep in mind that we’d been married for only one year at this point and I found my husband in a state of complete torment, screaming out in terror.  And he began to scream out pray for me, pray for me!

Sid: What did you think was going on?

Annette:  I thought at first he was dying or having  a heart attack.  I was about to call 911.  But when he screamed out pray for me, pray for me. The Lord has taken me to Hell something inside me and I know was God gave me a peace and I just began to pray for him.  I did believe him right away and I began to pray for him, after about twenty minutes or so he calmed down and he began to tell me what happened. 

Sid:  Well, when he began to tell you what happened, did you believe everything he said at that time?  Did you think that he might have begun to hallucinating?

Annette:  No, not at all because I knew his character and his integrity from all the people around him while we were dating. I knew Bill and I knew that he was not even given over to something like this, he would never make up something like this.  He would never lie and he was traumatized Sid.  He was complete trauma while I was praying for him until the Lord took the fear and the torment from his mind.  When God did that, he left the memory.  He left what the experience was but he took all that fear away just like he can divide soul and spirit.  That’s what He did.

Sid: I found out how it changed Bill.  How has this changed your life.  You were a strong Christian at the time, correct?

Annette:  Correct.  We were both serving in our church, normal Christians.  We had never studied Hell, never looked at this topic and we both had witnessed and shared the Lord in our jobs and so forth.  But it rocks your world, to say it honestly.  It totally rocks your world.

Sid: By the way, what type of work were you doing at the time?

Annette:  I was selling new homes for a builder in Irvine, California and I had been doing that successfully for fifteen years.

Sid: Okay, how’s it changed you?

Annette:   It first of all Sid, made me examine my life.  It made me ask questions to God, what am I doing here?  Why am I here?  What will please you Lord?  It first of all..

Sid:  You know, I believe it’s almost like most Christians are asleep and people are dying every day all around them and I know they say they care but their actions speak louder than their words, their doing nothing. 

Annette: Yes, that’s right.  That’s exactly right.  It gave me a complete, I had a desire and hunger for God but it gave me a complete passion for God including my prayer life.  Thinking about all the people I know who are going to this place.  Now we are not called to beat them over the head with the Bible but we are called to share when we have opportunity.  We are called to love them, were called to be an example and we are called to pray for them and pray passionately and fervently for people and not give up and fast and yes its inconvenient and yes it’s a sacrifice but you know what, just like you said these people are dying and everyday around us and if we don’t open our mouths they might never hear the gospel.

Sid: It’s almost the devil has put spiritual scales over the eyes of Christians that really know God and really love God. 

Annette:  Exactly, and it also causes, the enemy wants us to stay distracted.  He wants us to lose our focus and he wants us to become self absorbed.  Well I’m depressed or I have this issue or I, I, I that’s all he needs to do to get us off the course to stop helping people to stop praying for the lost, to stop seeking lost and calling them to repentance and to the love of God.

Sid: Let me talk to Bill again, thank you so much.

Annette:  You are very welcome.  Thank you, Sid.

Sid: Now Bill, you sounded like before this event, as you are now you were a very stable person, but just out of curiosity your human you have problems like everyone else.  But do you worry much like most Christians worry today after that experience?

Bill:  No, not at all.  I mean, those things seemed very minor comparison to the big picture.  You know this gave us a better overall eternal perspective on what’s really important in life.  You know when you understand eternity that what we do for God living for Him is what counts.  These small little things that we go through are not really significant and its going to pass but what we do for God will last for all eternity.

Sid:  Now you’ve done a lot of secular talk shows of all the questions that they ask you what would say was the most important question they asked, and tell me the answer.

Bill:  How can a loving God allow a good person go to Hell?  That’s the most common question as a matter a fact it was a 2006 Barnum poll that showed that 54% of American’s generally believe if you are a good person you will go to Heaven.  If you are bad you go to Hell.  That’s the common misconception.  It’s not based on being good.  It’s based on a relationship and I think an analogy would help people for them to see this because it’s such a common misconception.  Sid if you went and found the most expensive home in the country and knocked on their door and you said excuse me, I’m moving in with you because I’m a good person.  What do you think the people would say?

Sid:  They’d close the door on your foot.

Bill:  Right, because and you wouldn’t expect them to because you have no relationship with them.  Yet people go through their whole life having nothing to do with God, they deny Jesus is the Son of God, which he says is the only way to His house then at the end of their life they have the nerve to come knock on His door and demand to live there because they are a good person.  Good has nothing to do with it, you have no relationship with Him.  You don’t know Him.  He’s your creator but He’s not your Father until you invite in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then He becomes your Father, now you have a right and  a privilege to live at His house.  But until then, that’s unreasonable to expect to live at someone house you don’t know.  So you see why good has nothing to do with it but yet, that’s the common misconception.   I’m good.  Good has absolutely nothing to do with it.  And the second reason is none of us are good enough according to His standard, you might be good compared to people but not according to God’s standard.  His is absolute perfection.  If we lie once, if we steal one thing, if we have one lustful thought, anyone of those things would keep us out of Heaven.  So we can’t  stand there and say I’m pretty  good, let me in.  You know you can’t even get into another country by saying I’m a good person.  You have to have you passport or visa you know and yet we expect to go to another kingdom and just enter by saying I’m good.

Sid:  Now, you’ve done over 200 secular radio talk shows, many television shows, tell me about one interview you had and pick someone that was almost making fun of you at the beginning and how they changed.

Bill:  I had one where it was syndicated across the nation people would know the name if I even said it,  but he started of saying Bill, I don’t want to hear one Bible verse on my airwaves don’t you give me that’s scripture.  I said no problem.  And he said you know I submit to you that your God’s unloving and mean because he doesn’t consider my viewpoint only your Christian view point.  I’m a good person I have a good viewpoint I should go to Heaven.  Your God’s actually guilty of a hate crime so what do you have to say for yourself?  And Sid that’s where I gave the analogy of a house, if you found the most expense home where you wouldn’t expect to live there because you have no relationship, so people can see it that’s unreasonable to expect to be good.  Then he said, well you Christians are narrow minded, you think that you are the only ones that’s right.  I said well, can I give you another analogy?  And I said say you invited me over to dinner and you said I want you to go south on 95 turn right at Main Street, go up the hill you’ll come to my house, that’s the only way to my house.  And I say to you, you know what I’m going to go north on 95 I am going to get off at Beach Boulevard because I think all road lead to your house that’s what I think.  Well you’re going to tell me Bill you’re not going to get to my house, I’m trying to give you clear directions.  The same way God gives us clear directions to his house.  I think God knows where He lives, all we have to do is follow His clear directions we will get there.  That’s being narrow minded, that’s being specific.  He’s specifically giving us clear instructions on how to get to His house.  He is not trying to keep us out He is trying to get us there.  And so it went on like this I had to give about five analogies like that for Him to start seeing and then he opened up the questions.  And Christians were calling in with questions and they were mislead Christians saying there’s no Hell and nobody’s in Hell, our God is a loving God and he allowed me to give scripture to refute some of their false accusations and so forth.  Anyway by the end of the interview he totally was on my side saying, Bill give them some of that scripture stuff, fire away at them.  Because, I was using a lot of verses so it opened Him up to see and He understood because I responded with love and kindness with these people even though they were really mean to me, a lot of the people on the air were real rude and he said is that some of that Christian love?  I said yeah, actually it is you know because people will share what they have.

Sid: But what about someone in deep Africa that has never heard the gospel would a loving God send them to Hell?

Bill:  Well, yes actually but there’s five ways God gets through to that person.  1. He gives us Roman chapter 1 says: Creation is all around us and evident.  You look at the human body, you look at the animal life,  and you look at plant life, the universe, stars.  There’s evidence of the design everywhere.  Well, that points to a designer if there’s a designer that’s a God.  All you have to do is say God, you’re real.

Sid:  Oh listen,  there’s four more points.  You need all of this information on this course called “Whatever Happened to Hell” it explains the afterlife.  It’s three books, one DVD, it’s his full testimony.  It will give you such a passion for God.  You’ll understand the power of God like you never had before.  It’ll give you such a passion for souls.  It will change your destiny, were making the entire course “Whatever Happened to Hell.”