Shouldn’t we Run TOWARD the Light?

Seems like I am constantly reminded that I can’t trust anyone who claims to represent God.

Years ago, when I was an armorbearer at Miami’s Trinity Church, inadvertently helping “pastor” Rich Wilkerson and his son, Rich Wilkerson Junior, in their efforts to con the poor out of what little money they had, a man named Bill Wiese came to speak at the church.

Wiese wrote the book 23 minutes in Hell. He says God took his conscousness out of his body and put it in hell so he would be able to come back and warn other people.

Wiese was a pleasant, soft-spoken, sincere-sounding guest. He didn’t clamor for money or promise people God would make them rich if they gave him offerings instead of paying their electric bills. In this respect, he was unlike the Wilkersons.

I read his book, and the story seemed plausible to me. It appeared to be consistent with scripture as well as the things God had revealed to me. I figured the story was probably true.

He has a Youtube channel, and he has put up a lot of material my wife and I have concluded was helpful. I subscribe to his channel.

A while back, though, after he refused to answer a question I asked him, I started to wonder about him. Yes, he seems sincere, but then he’s a professional salesman. Before he wrote the book, he sold real estate for a living, and I believe he still does. The best salesmen are the ones who can convince you they’re pure and meek, regardless of what’s going on inside them. I’m not Jesus. I can be fooled. The fact that a man seems innocent and guileless to me doesn’t mean much. Wiese seems earnest and humble, but who knows what’s really in his heart?

He does not respond to comments on his Youtube channel, but he encourages people to submit them on his website. I had a question, so I submitted it.

In his book, he says hell is filled with the sound of screaming and crying. That makes sense to me. He also says there is so little air in hell, you have to gasp for every breath.

It occurred to me that it would be hard to scream continuously if I couldn’t breathe, so I submitted the obvious question.

I wasn’t trying to catch him in a lie. I thought maybe he had some kind of explanation. I can think of one myself, but I’m not going to mention it here and give people ideas.

Months have passed, and neither Wiese nor his wife have responded.

It’s a very reasonable question, and if he’s a truthful person, he should be eager to answer it. I would if I had been to hell. I would thank the person who asked it, because I would realize other people might doubt my true story if I didn’t explain.

So that looks bad.

He’s not Ryan Reynolds or Taylor Swift. He’s not a big celebrity. He doesn’t have a huge following, so I know he’s not inundated with questions. He or his team saw my question, and they chose to ignore it. Either that, or they ask for questions but don’t look at them.

He recently put up a video asking people what their lives say about them. In the video, he criticized people who criticize preachers, suggesting it’s a bad thing to do.

Naturally, I had to comment.

If you took the New Testament and removed the parts where the writers and Jesus criticized religious authorities, you would end up with a pamphlet. I exaggerate, but Jesus went after them many, many times. So did Paul, naming names. Jude went after them. I’m sure other authors laid into them, but I can’t remember the entire New Testament in order to name passages.

What about the Old Testament?

The prophets criticized priests, prophets, and kings, in addition to other people. This is why the Jews killed so many of the prophets. Eli was the high priest, and his sons were priests, and God sent a prophet to tell Eli God was going to cause them to die.

What would Bill Wiese have thought of that prophet? Would he have shamed him in a Youtube video?

The idea that it’s bad to criticize preachers is not found in the Bible anywhere. In fact, it’s extremely important to vet them. We are taught to test the spirits.

It’s extremely important to rip dishonest preachers PUBLICLY, before as many people as possible. Lying is different from other sins. You don’t have to expose a murderer or a burglar who did bad deeds in the past, but a liar has to be exposed, because if he isn’t, his lies will continue to hurt people.

In my comment, I named prosperity preachers who destroyed countless lives, and I gave my testimony. I said I had criticized them openly by name on the web and, instead of being cursed, I received lots of money I didn’t work for, a wife, a wonderful farm, and good Christian friends. I don’t have to work.

If you read my blog, you’ve read the story already. Preachers turned on me. People told me I was going to get it for touching God’s anointed. Meanwhile, my blessings did nothing but increase. And my last pastor, Alberto Lee Santiago, who denounced me and told people to shun me, went to prison for molesting a little girl, beginning when she was 6. While he was awaiting sentencing, his abusive wife, who also hated me, died from a brain tumor. His church vanished. His son is a job-allergic atheist who promotes drugs and posts blasphemy on the web.

Rich Wilkerson has artificial knees, terrible back problems, kidney stones that require lithotripsy, some kind of weird stones that grow in his chest, a rare blood disorder that requires regular draining, and diabetes. His church is going nowhere. He has had a problem with the young men in his inner circle running through the local girls. His megachurch pals rake in the dough and write bestsellers, but his Youtube videos never seem to break 300 views, his church can’t pay its mortgage, and no one knows who he is.

If what happened to me is punishment, perhaps I need to look the word up. If the “anointed” ones who denounced me are blessed, I need to look that word up, too.

Today my wife tried to look up my comment, and she could not see it. Wiese or his wife, or someone on their team, had muted it.

Muting is a sneaky tactic. You fix a person’s comment so he can still see it, but no one else can. It’s dishonest. It’s like the social media dirty trick known as shadow banning. You think you still have a voice, but it goes nowhere.

It’s a slimy thing for a preacher to do, especially to a person who is giving his honest testimony.

So, if Bill Wiese would do this, what other dishonest things has he done? Did he make up his hell story?

The web says he sold a million copies of his book, so that means he made at least hundreds of thousands of dollars. He speaks at big churches that take offerings. He speaks at prosperity churches, and they commonly make deals with speakers, dividing up the spoils of collection. Is Wiese bringing home bundles of tax-free cash? Could be. He may have made himself rich with his story.

I don’t know the answer. Maybe he pays his own expenses when he speaks, and he doesn’t accept offerings. I do know that muzzling other Christians who provide honest testimony is not something you would expect an honest person to do. It’s disgraceful. My wife thought it seemed crooked, just as I did.

I won’t accuse anyone of lying without proof, but he did mute my comment. That’s a fact, and it’s hard to imagine a good excuse for it. It’s hard to imagine a legitimate reason, but other possible reasons are obvious.

Christians should not run from the light. You know who runs from the light? Cockroaches. It’s not a good sign, and when people see you doing it, they suspect the worst.

I hope he has some kind of explanation, but I don’t think I’ll ever find out. I am presenting my story here so other people can pray and judge. It would be great to find out there is some explanation that absolves him.