Sid Roth - I'm Being Taken to Hell and Jesus Thunders These Words
Sid Roth: Jim Maxim was growing up in a dysfunctional home of alcoholics. Chaos was normal. No peace, no direction, but when he was 15, his mother rededicated her life to Jesus and he began to witness a new normal at home, for his mom, at least. But it wasn't a new norm for you.
Jim Maxim: No, not at all Sid. When my mother rededicated her life to Christ, things changed, the atmosphere in our home changed. She started to be serious about this relationship she had with her God. Somehow, it was as if she was really talking to Him every day back in her... we used to hear her back there praying for us. So things changed radically.
Sid Roth: But for you, your life was still a wreck, what was going on?
Jim Maxim: Yes. Well, I started hardcore drugs at 15 and I continued to drink and so by the time I was 18, Sid, I was a full blown alcoholic.
Sid Roth: Well, there is a date in history, it's your date, it shouldn't happen to anyone, but it happened to Jim. December 27th, 1971, what happened?
Jim Maxim: Well, I was completely drunk in an employee Christmas party. So drunk, my friend had to drive me home, his girlfriend drove his car and got me to my house and handed me the keys and said, "Max, I'll see you in the morning". I say, "Yeah, whatever". And they left and I hid on the side of the house until they left. And the reason for that, Sid, is when you're an alcoholic, you have something driving you, you have something pushing you, you don't drink just to drink, you drink to get totally obliterated. And so, as they left, I got back in my car, went out for some more. And I was at a red light in my town and I had an old eight track tape player in my glove box, and I leaned over to change the tape and one fell on the floor. And as I bent over to pick it up, I was so drunk, Sid, I passed out. I saw a car coming at me and then I passed out again and they told me my vehicle went up an embankment and came down and hit a telephone pole and I flew through the passenger side of the windshield. And after my face and head went through the glass, my shoulders hit the glass and then the weight of my body dragged me back down in, across the jagged glass, lacerating my face, like a pack of razorblades. They said that my face was on the passenger floor compartment, and when the cops came to get me, they braced themselves by putting their foot on the floor to pick me up. The cop told me later, he said, "Maxim, when I put my foot in the car, the blood actually came up over the top of my shoe, you had lost so much blood". He said, "We got you into the ambulance and by the time we pulled you out of the car at the hospital, my partner looked at me and said, 'Forget it, it's too late, he's dead.'" I don't remember this but they said, I looked at him and said, "No, I'm still with you". So he got me to the emergency room and they couldn't find a plastic surgeon at two in the morning, so they just got this intern to pull- started pulling shards of glass out of my eyes and my face. I called my mother, you can imagine a mother getting a phone call at one thirty- two o'clock in the morning. And they said, "Mrs. Maxim, your son, Jim has been in an accident," and she said, "Well, can I come down in the morning"? She said for her, this was nothing new. I had just gotten out of jail for minor stuff and between my brothers and myself, well, this was nothing new.
Sid Roth: I mean, not only was your father an alcoholic, but your brothers, some of them were alcoholics.
Jim Maxim: Yes, Sid. Alcohol and five out of eight of us eventually became alcoholics, it just ran in our family. And so, my mother jumped in the car by herself and she got to the hospital, and they said, "Ma'am, your son at this point has fallen into a coma, with the amount of glass in his left eye, we just don't know if he'll ever see again out of it. He has a cut across the top of his skull, it's very deep, possibility of brain damage is very real. His jaw was a compound fracture, literally came through his skin. And the intern is in there now pulling shards of glass out of his eyes". And so, you know, they said, "Ma'am, there's not much you can do now, you may as well come back in the morning". So, Sid, my mother used to tell me, "Jimmy, when I got in the car, Satan was relentless with me that night. The enemy of my soul just continued to hammer me and hammer me by saying to me, "Where's this God of yours now, Isabel? This all powerful Jesus Christ you claim to serve, where's He at, Isabel? Tell me about Him. Look at your husband, look at Jack, look at Jim. Tell me about it, Isabel, where's He at when you need Him the most?'" So you can imagine the discouragement, the fear, the doubt, the unbelief that Satan was trying to throw upon her. Since, she told me that when she got home, she just fell on her knees next to her bed, where we had heard her cry out so often before God for us. Sid, she told me she just started crying, "Jesus, please don't let him be blind, Jesus, please, when's it going to end? Jesus, please, when are You going to do something"? You can imagine a mother's cry. But Sid, it was then she told me that the Holy Spirit came alongside of her and said, "Isabel, that's enough now, Isabel, that's enough, let's begin to praise God, Isabel, because He's holy and He's worthy". Isabelle praised God. So as hard as that is, Sid, in the midst of a crisis like that, my mother said, "Jimmy, I broke out in praise, I broke out in worship and adoration to my God, I started to see the scriptures, like a movie screen in front of me, the Holy Spirit was putting in front of me to quote back to God that He is holy, that He's righteous, that He's true, that He can do anything". And she said, "I just began to worship and worship Him," and said, she used to go like this to me, she said, "Jimmy, it was like this, that when I was praising God, I saw His index finger come down and touch your left eye and when I saw that, to me, I knew you were going to be okay, I knew that God was doing something". But Sid, what she didn't know was that as I was in my coma and I was falling through darkness and Sid, it was as real as me talking with you right now, I reached out my arms on both sides, Sid, to kind of break the fall, I was looking for a railing or something, but there was nothing there. And as I kept falling, I was completely scared. I'm a big guy, Sid, I could usually take care of myself, but I knew this time I had gone one step too far. I was in a place, Sid, that was not meant for mankind and I knew it, I just didn't know what it was, I had never read the Bible, I'd never been to a prayer meeting or Christian Church, as we know it, I didn't know that there were wicked spirits in high places, demonic forces that were living inside of me, I had no knowledge of that. But Sid, as I was falling through darkness, my fall stopped and I was in like a black room, and I looked over my left hand side for the first time in my life, I saw two creatures that were standing right there and I knew they were going to do something to me, I had no idea they were demons, I had never understood that concept, Sid, how could I? I'd never read the Bible, not exposed to that. But those two things, whatever they were, they were real and they were going to hurt me, they were- there was a pull, like a magnetic pull, trying to take me back behind this wall back there, whether it was hell, I don't know, but I know they wanted to hurt me. I had no understanding, Sid, but those were the demons I learned later on, as I studied the Bible, they were living inside of me, the Bible says, give no place to the devil, well, I had given them every place, so they had every right. They had a claim on my soul and Sid, as my mother was home praying for me, as she said that she saw this God's index finger touch me, as she was home crying out to God, for the value of the power of prayer. Jude tells us, have mercy on those who doubt, snatching others as though taking them out of the fire. That's what she was doing through prayer, Sid, that's why prayer is so powerful and Sid, as she was praying for me, it was then that Jesus came to me but as He came to me, the essence of the discussion, what He didn't say is what shocked me the most, Sid.
Sid Roth: What?
Jim Maxim: "Why should I help you now, you loser? You fool". He laughed.
Sid Roth: He didn't say that?
Jim Maxim: No, you know, I might've said that, you mocked your mother, you mocked me, you mock people. But Sid, it was like a liquid sea of love when I looked at Jesus and He said to me, "Jimmy, you've been playing around long enough, do you want to continue"? And I said, "Jesus, I don't". But I prayed that prayer in jail, "Get me out of this jail and I'll go straight". Well, here I am again. I said, "Jesus, what do I got to do? What must I do, Jesus? What do I got to do"? And Sid, Jesus looked at me, He said, "Jimmy, if you ask Me to cleanse you, and if you ask Me to forgive you, I will, son, and I'll never leave you nor forsake you". He said, "Jim, I will be your best friend, I will give you the power to overcome the drugs and the alcohol. Jimmy, I will walk with you all the days of your life but you have to ask Me, I won't barge my way into your life". And I said to Jesus, "Jesus, please help me". I knew I was screwed up, Sid, I knew I was. I said, "Jesus, please help me, please forgive me," and Sid, the moment I said that, the interesting thing about those two things, those demons, they froze in their tracks when Jesus showed up, they stopped dead. When Jesus came in, it was as if they knew who He was, I know what it was like to be in a street fight and friends show up at the right time. Well Sid, when they were coming to get me and Jesus, my mother's interceding for me, she's calling down the love and the power of God upon my life. Jesus came to me, He heard her cry. They froze in their tracks but the moment I said, "Jesus, please help me," they vanished, they vanished, they left.
Sid Roth: When you came out of your coma, what were the first words you said that your mother knew something was up for sure?
Jim Maxim: Sid, my mother told me, "Jimmy, when you came out of your coma a few days later, dad and I were standing next to you, your jaw was- had to talk like that, your jaw was busted and wired shut". But she said, "Jimmy, the first words that you muttered through your broken jaw was, 'Mom, Jesus is here, Jesus is here.'"
Sid Roth: Can you picture his mother? I understand she was five foot two of the fire of God.
Jim Maxim: Yes!
Sid Roth: Now, it didn't take long for Jim to discover the one thing that Satan wanted from him the most, he wants it from you too. Be right back.
Sid Roth: So Jim, you're out of the hospital, you joined the Marines, it was kind of a family thing to be in the military and you're at the bus station, and you find what you called a secret weapon, it was almost waiting for you. Tell me about, that.
Jim Maxim: Yeah, Sid, my dad dropped me off the bus station, downtown Pittsburgh to go to Paris Island and I was sitting there and I looked over and I saw these little black books sitting there, I said, "Well, why not? What are they"? And I picked it up and here it was a Bible, a New Testament, Gideon, New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs and those small ones. And in the front of it, it said, "When afraid, when lonely, when leaving home, turn to page"- such and such, well, it guided me over to this book called Revelation Chapter three, verse 20.
Sid Roth: Oh, after seeing those demons-
Jim Maxim: And I'd never read the Bible in my life. So it got me over to this book, Revelation Three, verse 20, it says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into Him and dine with Him and He with Me". And that's what Jesus basically said to me, the essence of our discussion when I was unconscious, then it guided me over to Romans 10:9, "That if thou shall confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus and believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, you can be saved, for with the heart, man believes resulting in righteousness, but with the mouth, confession is made resulting in salvation". And so I understood that for the first time in my life, this little book had some kind of power in it because I was weeping. The Spirit of God had just overpowered- I grabbed that Bible, Sid, I put it on my chest at that bus station and I said, "God, get these Words in me, Almighty God, get them in me"! I knew for the first time in my life, I've got a track to run on, I've got some kind of supernatural thing going on in this book.
Sid Roth: Well, right now, I want you to look in the camera and help people have that same encounter you had right now.
Jim Maxim: Jesus Christ loves you so much, He gave His life for you on that cross. I don't care how far you've gone, I don't care what you've done, it doesn't matter. The blood of Jesus Christ is all sufficient, it washes all our sins away. If you've never asked Christ to be your Savior, if you've been around Christianity, if you've been around Christians, but if you have never asked Christ to be your personal Lord and Savior, say this prayer with me. "Father, in the Name of Jesus. I come to you. As a sinner. And I confess all of my sin, God. And I'm asking you to cleanse me and forgive me. Break the power of sin in my life. Forgive me, Jesus. And help me to love You. In your Holy and precious Name, I pray. Amen.
Sid Roth: Amen.
Jim Maxim: When Jesus said in Matthew 6:6, "Go into your secret place and close the door and your Father that sees in secret will reward thee openly". Jesus used to come to me early in the morning, He would come to me. God, the Father would say, "Jimmy, come, Jimmy, I'm here. Jimmy, come, come away with Me". In other words, Jimmy, get out of bed. "Jimmy, I want to speak to you, I want to love you, I want to teach you things that you don't know anything about. Jimmy, if you come with Me, I'll begin to speak to your heart". And so, Sid, I started to get up when the Lord would come into my room, even in the Marines, I would get up and I would just walk out in the woods somewhere, I would get away, I'd take my Bible and I didn't know anything about Christ, how could I? But Jesus started to speak to me and then I read that little story that Jesus said, "It is expedient for you that I go away because unless I go, the Holy Spirit can't come". And then I started to say, "The Holy Spirit, what do you mean"? And then the Holy Spirit, I learned was a person, not an it, not a thing, but a person. And so, as I begin to talk to the Holy Spirit, He began to talk to me, He began to teach me the scriptures, He began to write the scriptures on the door of my heart and in my mind I was having like, I could see the scriptures in front of me. And as I was telling the guys in the Marines, I'd look at my face, my face was totally distorted. I'd had to have six months of plastic surgery, which is a miracle, don't have time to get into today, but the Marines did. But they'd look at my distorted face and ask me, and I knew why they were asking because the Holy Spirit had set that time up. I didn't even know what witnessing was, Sid. All I knew was I had to tell them about my best friend, Jesus. God wants to shower you with His love, His blessings. Prayer, prayer is the greatest gift God's given to me next to my salvation, the intimacy with Him, He wants to love me, He picks me up in His arms every day and infuses me with His power, with wisdom and knowledge and understanding. Why? Because He says, "If you being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will I give good things to those that ask"? Prayer is simply my fellowship with my Dad, prayer is my fellowship with Jesus, and my fellowship with the Holy Spirit, the three of them every day.
Sid Roth: Jim, the important thing for a believer, according to the Bible, is prayer. But most believers don't spend much time in prayer, they say it's for the people that are quote, intercessors.
Jim Maxim: Yes.
Sid Roth: Would you tell us why? And before you even say that, the one thing that Satan wants from us the most is what will happen in prayer. What is the one thing Satan wants the most?
Jim Maxim: Satan wants, the number one thing, the most is our intimacy with our Dad. I've been saved now for 50 years, Sid, and He has kept me for 50 years from drugs and alcohol and all that stuff. Why Sid? Because the one thing I do daily is I answer the call when my Dad comes knocking. Sid, every morning, they come in my room, my three best friends every morning. I know that I'm a sinner, I know that the wickedness in my heart, I can't serve God unless He enables me. But every day, Sid, He's waiting to infuse me with a fresh touch of His power. Every day, He's waiting to speak to me, to talk to me, to love me, why wouldn't I want to fellowship with God, the Creator of the universe? Why wouldn't I want to ask Him to get into my business dealings? Why wouldn't I want wisdom and knowledge and understanding beyond my capability? He's only God, He's only the Creator of the universe and He wants to fellowship with me. Jesus wants to love me, the Holy Spirit wants to walk with me, why would I turn that down, Sid? If you want a real supernatural power in your life, then pray, it's the one thing that Satan does not want you to do because he knows when a child of the Most High cries out to Almighty God, he has no answer for that. Prayer is the answer to all of your issues.
Sid Roth: I have to tell you, he walks in the most amazing miracles. Tell us a few other things that have happened to you.
Jim Maxim: Well, Sid, I was in a prison once the experience that comes to my mind is this experience in prison. And so, as I was walking up to the prison, I had my notes with me and the Holy Spirit said, "Jimmy, put your notes down". And I knew enough, I've been walking with God long enough to know, okay, I don't know what's going to happen, but I know it's going to be great. And so, I put my notes down and I got up to the pulpit and I just started praying and as I was interceding and afraid, I said this to the guys, I said, "Guys, what you did isn't who you are, what you did isn't who you are, you're here to pay the price for what you did, which you have to do. But what you did, isn't who you are, Almighty God loves you just the way you are". And I said, "Today's the day, you don't have to go back to that cell block with the guilt and the fear and the doubt and unbelief and the voices from Satan telling you, you're no good, you're never going to amount to anything, there's nothing good about you, there's never been any good but no," I said, "Today is the day you can receive salvation and cleansing and healing and get rid of that guilt because God, the Holy Ghost is here to touch you". And Sid, it was as if I said, the first one up here gets to get out of jail free card. Sid, I'm telling you, I said, "If you want to receive this Christ I'm talking about, come forward". Sid, there was about 150, 200 guys in the chapel. And it was as if there was a herd. They ran to the alter, Sid, ran.
Sid Roth: This all comes from his prayer life. If you read and listen to his materials, you'll get that impartation but I need you to pray over everyone right now that they have the same hunger for prayer, the same hunger for intimacy that you have. Look in the camera and pray.
Jim Maxim: Father in the Name of Jesus, we come to you right now. First and foremost, forgive us, God, cleanse us, cleanse us God, please, for taking you for granted, for not understanding your Holiness, but Father, in the Name of Jesus, thank You, thank You for forgiving us. And now, Lord, impart to us a fresh presence from You. Please God, every one of my brothers and sisters listening, God, God, You see our cry, You see the emptiness of our soul. Father, Your word says that out of our innermost being will flow rivers of living water. Father, please release the power of Your Holy Spirit upon us right now. Please God, don't let anybody leave here the way they came, allow the Holy Spirit to fall amongst us right now. God, we worship You and praise You. Praise Him, begin to praise Him. Praise God, worship Him. Praise Him, praise Him and worship Him. Praise Him.
Sid Roth: Pray for deliverance right now.
Jim Maxim: Yes. Father in the Name of Jesus Christ, Lord, You said the weapons of our warfare in our natural, man-made are carnal, but divine weapons for the pulling down of demonic strongholds. So God, according to Your word, we just quote Your word back to you. God, You know every one represented here today, every one that has a loved one, a friend, a daughter, niece, nephew, husband, whatever it is, God, You see that person right now, Father, we're asking You right now in the name of Jesus, please God allow the Holy Spirit to break the of alcohol, drugs, pornography, sex, whatever it is Almighty God, let that sweet presence of Your Spirit minister to them right now. God, let them know that this day they've received their deliverance, let them know God, like December 27th, 1971 was mine. Let them know that right now, God, this has been broken in the Name of Jesus Christ. Satan, we bind you and all the demons of hell, we bind you right now by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We rebuke you over these souls in Jesus Name we pray.