Sid Roth

Sid: We want everyone everywhere to be red hot for the Messiah. As a matter of fact if you’re not red hot for the Messiah your actually in reverse; neutral is reverse you’re going the wrong way. There’s only one gear in the Kingdom of Heaven from glory to glory. I have to tell you I love all of the guests that I have all the information that they present to you. But there is something special about my next guest wherever you are in your walk and you adventure and your search for God, wherever you are, it’s going to dramatically change some of your paradigms when you die. In fact I want to ask you a question “Do you have a fear of death even if you’re born again you know that you’re going to heaven; do you have a degree of a fear of death?” Let’s face it it’s an unknown, most people are fearful as to the process and things like that. But I’m going to tell you something after you finish hearing my guest Dr. Reggie Anderson he’s a medical doctor, award winning medical doctor. He’s going to totally demystify death to the point where I’m going to get a little ahead of myself. Dr. Anderson are you afraid of dying?

Dr. Anderson: Not at all Sid I am actually looking forward to it.

Sid: Now how much are you looking forward to it; I mean those are words but what does that really mean?

Dr. Anderson:   Well I know for a fact that after being with 100’s of people that have crossed through the veil that that last moment, that last breath here on earth is our first breath in glory. It’s our first breath in our forever home and I really with my experiences I cannot wait for my own first breath in heaven.

Sid: And to me that should be normal but it isn’t by the time they finish listening to us it’s going to normal for them. Well let’s just kind of go back in the history of how you got to where you got to. And you went to a family where you were in church every time the doors were open. And as a matter of fact as a young boy you were watching a show called Popeye, we have it today. And there was a contest and you had a dream and what were you told in that dream?

Dr. Anderson: Well like you said I was raised in a very strongly Christian home and knew that God is as real as clay under my feet at that time in south Alabama. And there was a show called the Popeye’s shows hosted by Cousin Cliff. He was kind of dressed in a sailor outfit and they announced one day that they were going to give away a pony to a lucky little boy or girl and all you had to do was send in a post card. And I was only about 5 years old at the time, and of course for a 5 year old boy a pony would be like the best thing that could ever happen in your life. And so my mom who is a school teacher decided to use this time to teach us a lesson on how to send out postcards and stamp things and the mail system. So we each were filling out a postcard and she was going to take us to the Post Office the next morning; my brother and my sister and I. The night that before we were to take the cards in I fell asleep with anticipation that I might win the pony but then I started dreaming. And I dreamed that God came to me and said to me “Reggie, you’re going to win this pony.” But when you win it you’re going to half to share it with anybody that wants to ride it. And I could vividly see myself riding this pony and the next morning we got to the post office and I told my mom that she didn’t have to take my brother and sister’s card in because God had told me that I was going to win the pony and I didn’t want them to be disappointed.

Sid: Now this you didn’t come from a charismatic type of home it was a good evangelical home. This doesn’t happen in evangelical circles where people have dreams and they know what’s going to happen in the future. Did your parents try to make sure you didn’t fall to big and be too disappointed so to speak and try and say “Well they’re a lot of people in this contest?”

Dr. Anderson: Right, that was exactly what mom said. She said “Don’t be disappointed you know if you don’t win you have to know that God is still real.” And I said “Okay, but He told me and I’m just going to trust.”

Sid: It sounds to me you know Dr. Anderson, it sounds to me you had what the Bible refers to as “Childlike faith.”

Dr. Anderson:   I agree I did at that time.

Sid: Okay, your family’s watching the TV show and they announce you’re the winner; “How did they react; how did you react?”

Dr. Anderson: Well they all looked at me you know like “Well I know you said that but they were still surprised and I was sort of like “Well I told you God told me that I was going to win so why are you all surprised?” So I mean it was one of those moments where I just knew that God had spoken into my life at the time. But you know we kept that pony all the way until I graduated from high school and then gave it to another family when I went off to college.

Sid: Now everything is picture perfect until… you spent summers working in a farmers market and sometimes it would be 24 hours a day 7 days a week with a family that were distantly related but you felt like they were almost uncle, a father a close relative because you were with them so much. They were called the Aldie’s and during the summer you were about 15 years of age it was a tragedy, it was the worst mass murder actually in Georgia history your friends their entire family they were brutally murdered. Explain the impact.

Dr. Anderson: Yeah, Jimmy and Jerry were like brothers and uncles to me at the time and their family was family to me. I mean we were all from very small community in South Georgia and you know we were all you know took care of each other. If somebody needed help building a barn then the whole community would come together to have a barn raising. That’s how this community treated each other because we were all you know one big family. We knew that God oversaw everything that we did and that He was our Father and that we were all siblings under the roof of His guidance. And so when the murders happened it was as if my entire world had crumbled and it had fallen down on me. I was devastated I could not really understand how a good God could allow such a horrible thing, all six of them murdered, even Jerry’s wife had been brutally murdered and raped. You know at that time I was 15 years old and I felt like God had abandoned us and had left us. Actually to the point where I didn’t believe that God existed; this was going to happen in this world.

Sid: So would you say you literally became an atheist at that time?

Dr. Anderson: I did, I ran as far and as fast as my feet could carry me and you know I just abandoned the whole concept of God and religion because it had failed.

Sid: Okay, so your life goes along you get to college; you want to be a pilot but you have a problem with your eyes you take the dental exam and that was plan B and it didn’t work out to well. And then you decide to take the exam to be a medical doctor and a miracle happens, you become… you’re accepted and you’re studying to be a medical doctor and the first crack in atheism occurred when you have your opportunity in anatomy to look at a dead body, a cadaver. And it was a beautiful woman but something began to work at you, what was that?

Dr. Anderson: Well I looked down and you know we were taught in biology that we were kind of the whole idea of evolution. You know that through random acts of chemistry we became this being in front of me. But I realized that there was not an explanation because that broke way too many rules of physics. Because in physics they taught us that order became disorderly unless there was a creative force into the system. So I was therein engrossed in anatomy lab, it was like an epiphany, I saw the human body then I looked at the eye itself you know I could not explain that just happened by accident. It was not a set of randomness there was order to it; so order out of chaos could only happen by a creative God and that was my first crack in my….

Sid: But then it gets even better than that; wait until you hear about his visit to heaven.