Sid Roth - Satan Murders His Wife, Instantly Regrets It
Sid Roth: My guest operated in an amazing realm of healings and miracles. This made him a threat to the realms of darkness. Satan tried to obliterate him with a cold, calculated assault by murdering his wife.
Chad Gonzalez: It's been an incredibly difficult week, a week of time, circumstances I'd never dreamed, imagined I would ever be dealing with on a personal level. And we're dealing with it. Like I said in our Facebook post, I'm a man on a mission. Now, I've got a chip on my shoulder. We are going at this thing with a shotgun, and now I'm going at it with an Abrams tank. It was clearly an attack of the devil against me. He went after my wife. But we will go forward, and I'm going to make him pay.
Sid Roth: Welcome, Holy Spirit. Go and flow. Chad Gonzalez has devoted his life to helping believers look at Jesus' life as their floor and not their ceiling. His gift of healings and miracles were advancing to greater levels. But this made him a threat. Satan had a sinister plot to defeat his ministry's momentum and Chad's faith. Chad, what happened?
Chad Gonzalez: Well, my son, Jake, and He's 14 years old. We went to a ministry trip to Dallas, Texas. It was the first dad-and-lad ministry trip we'd ever taken together. We're heading back from Dallas to Tampa, got about a 7-hour time frame. And we get on our first flight, and about an hour into the flight, somehow my phone rings 30,000 feet up in the air. It's the county sheriff. And he said, "Mr. Gonzalez, I don't know how to tell you this". He said, "9-11 was called, arrived at your home, and your wife was unresponsive. We tried to revive her and couldn't get her back". And he said, "We didn't want you waiting this entire time trying to figure out what was going on. We wanted to prepare you ahead of time". And you can imagine. You're stuck on the plane. You can't call anybody. You can't go anywhere.
Sid Roth: And you have your son next to you to explain it to.
Chad Gonzalez: I've got my son right next to me. I'm trying to protect him. And so for 7 hours, I took Husband Chad, and I put him in a box. I refused to allow my son to have to go through what I was going through for 7 hours. I'm controlling my soul. I'm controlling my emotions because everybody that knew me, my plan was simple. We're raising her up. There's only one other option. And I get to the Tampa Airport. It's 3 o'clock in the morning. I've got to tell my son because we've got to go back to the house. The police are there. So the next morning, they do the autopsy. We found a tumor on her colon, and that tumor had punctured her small intestine and caused her to go into septic shock. And that's what took her out. And so as you can imagine, here we are. I'm a healing guy, faith guy. We're seeing miracles all over the place, and this happens to my wife. And so we're just in shock and numb and trying to figure out what's going on. I've got questions. Man, for what I believe, what we're doing, going after, I've got serious questions. I go to sleep at night, and I have a dream. And in that dream, I'm standing, and there's a lion. And the lion is kind of walking around. It doesn't see me just yet, staying very still. All of a sudden, the lion looks up. It sees me, and it begins to charge at me. Well, instead of me retreating, I began to run toward the lion. And as I got very close, the lion stopped, stood up on its back legs and grabbed a zipper and pulled the zipper down, pulled off the top, and it was a man in a lion outfit.
Sid Roth: Hmm.
Chad Gonzalez: And the man turned around in the lion outfit, began to run, tripped over, hit his head on a rock and began to bleed out, and I woke up. Immediately, two Scriptures came to my mind: Number one, Satan goes about like a roaring lion, seeking who he may devour. And number two, you resist the devil, and he will flee. And some of the Christians think that we're on defense when it comes to Satan. No, no, no. Jesus made us more than a conqueror. He made us a victor. He put us on offense, and we have to know who we are because you don't run from a lion. You become the lion, and you run after the lion, especially the fake one. And I found out in that moment, number one, this was an attack ultimately against me and the ministry that we stood for, the call that was on our life, for what we were going after, the mission that we had. But, number two, I realized I was in the position spiritually that I needed to be, to handle the situation because I ran after the lion. So my intent, we're going to raise this girl up. We've got a job to do. And so I'm not allowing myself to feel. I've taken all my emotions and put them on the side. I've got a job to do. The funeral home wasn't going to allow us to be there until Thursday. We have had no contact at all because of all the legal stuff. So I told my very best friends. They come down, and we go to my ministry office. This is on a Wednesday afternoon. And we begin to pray. I'm not seeking after anything, just direction. I've been praying in tongues for an hour and a half. I'm sitting on the ground. I've got my eyes closed, and all of a sudden, and I know this is going to sound so strange, but all of a sudden, I felt her. I felt Lacy. And I said this with my eyes closed. I said, "You just got a whole lot closer to me than what you were". And immediately, the Lord gave me a vision. And when I say I saw her, I saw her like you right here. But she was standing behind this translucent veil. And she's wearing this long gown, white gown, and I can see her behind this veil. It's got kind of a shimmer, a blue and kind of purple to it. And she's standing there, smiling at me. And all of a sudden, she walks up to the veil, and she presses her face up against it. And she takes her hand, and she sticks her hand through that veil and pushes all the way through until her face and her shoulder up against it. And she's got her hand out. And I open my eyes, and I told my friends, I said, "Guys, I've got to tell you what just happened. She was here. I felt her, and I saw her". I told them about the veil and her hand. Well, we instantly took that as, "This is going to happen. We're going to raise her up". She's standing there, waiting for us to pull her out.
Sid Roth: I would have taken it that way.
Chad Gonzalez: Yeah. That's your soul. That's what you're wanting and desiring. And this sense keeps coming to me. You interpreted that wrong. She's not waiting on you to pull her over. She's waiting on you to come.
Sid Roth: Hmm.
Chad Gonzalez: And I fought it. I was like, "Devil, shut up". I fought it and fought and fought it, and I finally had to come to the realization that God was trying to show me this was her decision, that she was staying. Well, as you can imagine, I grab ahold of that, realities. I brought husband Chad back, and so many times, we see ministers, and we think, oh, they're like superheroes, Superman, don't feel anything. Everything is great. No, no, no. You're human, and you have emotions and feelings and family and loved ones. But it was like somebody just took half of me and just ripped it out. I was numb. I didn't know how to feel. For three days, I'm not eating anything. I'm not feeling anything. Well, then, one of my other best friends, David Porter, he calls me. This is on a Sunday. He said, "Chad, I've got to tell you something". There's a pastor named Nancy Dufresne over in California, and there was a meeting on Wednesday night. Now, remember, I had this vision.
Sid Roth: Mm-hmm.
Chad Gonzalez: And I saw Lacy behind that veil on Wednesday afternoon at around 5:39. Nancy Dufresne is preaching a conference at 7 p.m., and she begins to relay this vision that Clare Grace as prophetess, back in the '60s had. She said, "God allowed me to see that there were people that had gone before, standing behind a veil, a veil of Glory".
Sid Roth: Mm.
Chad Gonzalez: "And He would allow some of them to cross that veil and come into this realm and bring things from Heaven, and He would allow those that were mature men, women and children that were in this realm to cross through that veil into the realm of Heaven and take things of Heaven and bring them back". Sid, I can't tell you what that did for me because you have something supernatural, sovereign act of God like that, but you also have the emotions that are involved. And for days, then you start to kind of question things. And then you see the grace of God in this entire thing. And it instilled a fire on the inside of me. And so people began to look at me and like, "How could you be like this? How could you have a smile on your face"? You don't realize what God did for me, that this isn't talked about enough in church, about grief and sorrow and this and that, because I began to look at Jesus. And there's a powerful story with Jesus, and nobody pays attention to it. It's when He finds out that John the Baptist was beheaded. This was His cousin.
Sid Roth: Mm-hmm.
Chad Gonzalez: And the Bible says that Jesus withdrew into a boat, and they crossed over. But as soon as He landed, people found out that He was there. And Jesus didn't retreat from the mission. People were telling me, "Oh, you need to take off. You need to take a year off, take months off from ministry. The grief hasn't hit you. The sorrow hasn't really hit you". But I went back and looked at Jesus. I don't care about anybody else's example. I looked at Jesus. Jesus withdrew for a moment, but as soon as He lands, you know what He does? He has compassion on their sick, and He heals the sick. And then one of the greatest miracles ever recorded was the feeding of the 5,000, and it happened right after John the Baptist was beheaded.
Sid Roth: Hmm. Jake, your son, he said some pretty profound things to you.
Chad Gonzalez: I've been so impressed with him. He's just, he's a champion. And I'm having to tell him that his mom was not here anymore. We're crying and holding each other and just tears flowing. And I told him, I said, "Hey. You know what we believe, and you know what the plan is," and he said, "Yeah, Dad. I know". He said, "I know this wasn't God". He said, "I know this was the devil". And he goes, "Dad, I know that you would never let Satan do anything to you, and I know that you would never let him do anything to me. But you couldn't control Mom's thoughts". And then he said this. He said, "Mom was a sitting duck". Not many people knew it, but for the prior 2 years, she had been struggling with some pretty serious depression, anxiety, and I had never told anybody. But for years, it didn't come up all the time, but every once in a while, there was a fear in her that she was going to die young and not be there for Jake. And I was amazed that in the heat of this situation... He just found out his mama just moved to Heaven and has a spiritual insight to understand that we've got the authority. And it wasn't a criticism against Lacy at all. I was so proud of her because she was winning, and she was fighting back. But it was the fact of, we've been talking about her soul. We've been talking about our imaginations, and we've got the authority over Satan. But he's coming after our soul. He's coming after our thoughts. He brings these thoughts and ideas and deceptions, and he's trying to get us to connect our soul to the curse. And so just the fact that Jake realized that, it just amazed me. And I told him, I said, "Well, look, buddy". I said, "We're going to learn from this". I said, "From this moment forward, no fear in our house, no fear in our thoughts, and we're going to take every teachable moment from this situation and not allow Satan to get any victory out of this, and we're going to make him pay for what he did for our mom and my wife".
Sid Roth: Chad says our battles can become divine catalyst to propel us into greater glory. Explain this.
Chad Gonzalez: Well, I already had a fire burning on the inside of me. We've got a mission. And Satan brought this attack, and he brought it to try to make me quit. But all it did was tick me off. It was like somebody poured gasoline on the fire that was already in me. It was just a few weeks after Lacy had gone on to Heaven. I watched the movie "Braveheart". I've watched this movie many, many times. But I'm watching it for the first time a different way. You have this great Scottish warrior, and the English are trying to do some things. And so what they do is they murder his wife. And he had a choice there because it really... It wasn't against his wife. It was against him. And they murdered his wife, and instead of him quitting, it just fueled a fire, and he led a revolution and got their independence. And it hit me: This is me. It just, it fueled something even greater. And I watched as we were walking out this story over this last year. It was just the grace of God, the grace of God and what He did for my son. And then God just did a miracle in and of itself, another supernatural story, and He brought us a wonderful woman named April. And it was just an absolute miracle in what happened and brought her to Jake and I. And we got married, and she became my wife. She became his bonus mom. And with her, there was... She's got a wonderful daughter and son named Savannah and Logan. And just watched the grace of God in blending a family. And now things have just increased even more. And just to see where God took a tragedy and turned it into a triumph, where Satan tried to make you quit. And this is my attitude. The Bible says if Satan would have known what was going to be the result of crucifying Jesus, he wouldn't have done it.
Sid Roth: Ever.
Chad Gonzalez: My goal, my endeavor is that every single day, Satan regrets touching my wife.
Sid Roth: Now, are you ready to make the devil's greatest regret that he ever touched you?
Sid Roth: Chad found renewed determination after Satan's attack. Instead of retreating, it pushed Chad to advance beyond his comfort zone and to ponder the question why we settle for less when we're called for so much more.
Chad Gonzalez: Yes. If you look at our society, there's advancement all over the place. Look at technology, how it's continuing to increase. You look at the business world. There's advancement everywhere. But if we're really honest, we humble ourselves and take a step back and look at the church, there hasn't really been much advancement. And you even see with denominations. Lester Sumrall made this statement. He said, "The vast majority of Christians, they never progress past their first revelation of God".
Sid Roth: That's so sad.
Chad Gonzalez: It's so sad, but it's so true. You look at, every major denomination started off with a great revelation of God and then stopped.
Sid Roth: Mm.
Chad Gonzalez: And so many times, we see these moves of God. Instead of using those to propel ourselves to the next one...
Sid Roth: Mm-hmm.
Chad Gonzalez: ...we make a camp there, and that's where you die. You're either advancing, or you're dying. And we see Jesus. Here's Jesus doing life as a man, yes, anointed by God, filled with God, united, one. Yes, He's God, but He's doing life as a man filled with God. And Jesus makes this statement in John, chapter 5, and this has been a foundational Scripture for me. He said, "For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all the things that He Himself does". And He's going to show Him even greater things than these just so you would marvel. Here's Jesus. Jesus is expecting greater, but it also shows me that the greater wasn't going to come just from knowing more Scriptures. It comes from knowing your God. And yet you also see He says it's because the Father loves the Son. He loves Me. And you see Jesus is pushing. He's pushing for greater, pushing for greater so that the world would know Him. Well, you have to ask yourself the question: Does God love me? Well, yes. Jesus says in John 17, "For as the Father loves Me, He loves you". Well, if He loves me just as much as He loves Jesus, that means I'm in the very same position to see the secrets of God. God isn't hiding things from us. He's hiding things for us. But it's the fellowship piece that's been missing in our faith walks, this intimacy with Him to hear from Him and see from Him not so we can go around and have more followers on Facebook. I'm so fed up with the fame and fortune of the ministers and stuff today. It's not about that. It's about Him. It's about fellowship with the Father so we can manifest the Father manifest the Father to a world that doesn't know Him. Even Jesus said, "This generation is seeking a sign". Well, I don't take that as commendation. I take it as reality. We have a very carnal world that needs to see and hear and feel, experience Him, to know the reality of Him. And yet Jesus goes on in John 14:12, and He says, "Whoever believes in Me". He didn't say, "The apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor," whoever, "the teacher, the lawyer, the doctor, the landscaper, businessman". "Whoever believes in Me will not only do the same but will actually do even greater because I'm going to the Father". And people say, "Well, how is that possible? How could you do greater than Jesus"? It's because Jesus, He came to live in me. And so the Christ, because I became one with Him, I became His Body. You became His Body. We become the hands and feet of Jesus so we can advance and do even greater. And that's what we've been telling people, and we've gotten flak for it. But the fact of the matter is that the works that Jesus did on the Earth, people look at that as the ceiling for what's available for the church. No, no, no. It's the floor. We've got to change our perspective and get hungry and begin to spend time knowing the Father and hearing and seeing from Him so He can show us even greater things so we can turn around, and we can do those things. We've got to go after it.
Sid Roth: Chad, explain storms and pharisees.
Chad Gonzalez: Well, I've experienced this, and all of those that are determined to go forward will experience it. We see where Jesus gets on the boat, and they're going across the sea. This great wind storm is a demonic storm that arises, and we see Jesus speak to it, calm it, still it and then cross over the other side. And much of our focus on that story is the authority of Jesus over the storm.
Sid Roth: Mm-hmm.
Chad Gonzalez: But what we forget about is the purpose behind that storm. And the purpose of that storm was to stop them from getting to the other side. Jesus went with the intent to deliver the mad man of Gadara because that mad man was controlling that region of the country. Nobody could pass through. Nobody could do it. The kingdom couldn't be manifest there because of demonic activity. And the purpose of Jesus crossing that sea was to set that man free, and the purpose of that storm was to stop Jesus. He took authority of it, and we know why. He had a mission. And that's why people look at me, and some people judge me. And I'll be honest. It's ticking me off because they see me happy. They see me continuing to push forward. And some people have even made the comment, "Oh, he must have not really loved Lacy". If you want to tick me off, tell me I didn't love my wife. But what people don't understand is they're looking at it from a very sinner, carnal, earthly standpoint and not looking at life from a Kingdom perspective, is that we've got a mission to fulfill. And it doesn't matter if you've lost a loved one. It doesn't matter if you've lost this and lost that. Those things do not change the mission. We've got a mission to fulfill, and you've got to look at it from a Kingdom mindset. And that's where Jake and I, we've told people. You've got to look at loss. You've got to look at death. You've got to look at it from a Kingdom perspective that when that person dies, really that person didn't die. They just left their body, and they're very much alive. And that's what that vision did for me. And seeing her behind the veil, I saw her more alive. I saw her smiling, and that's what drives me every single day as I study, I pray. I want to know more. Why? I'm not concerned about being famous. I want to be faithful. I want to fulfill the Mission. I want people to know Him.
Sid Roth: Give us a few pointers that will make a difference so we can advance.
Chad Gonzalez: Well, we just mentioned about the storms. You've got to know, the storms are going to come. So don't get dismayed about the storm. So many people, the storm comes, and they think they did something wrong. No, no, no. I've found out when you're doing something right, that's when you become a target. So when the storms come, that doesn't upset me because I'm such a rebel. When the storm comes, it just invigorates me because I know I'm headed in the right direction. But you also have to understand there's going to be pharisees. There's going to be critics trying to give you advice. There's always going to be people that know a lot of Scripture, but they don't know Him. And they're going to tell you, "you did this wrong. You did that wrong". And so that's where you've got to learn to block out the critics and not be worried about, I could care less. I love people, absolutely love people, but I don't care about their opinion about me because if you're moved by the praises of people, you're going to die by their criticisms. You also have to understand the fact that it really is this: Either you're advancing, or you're dying. And that's why there's been a lull in the church for decades. There's no advancement. Why is it that the world doesn't want anything to do with the church? Because the church doesn't have anything visibly that the world thinks that they can have. During COVID, everybody is screaming, "We're essential. We're essential". You're not essential unless you have something that they don't have. So we've got to be essential. You know how we're essential? We manifest the Glory. How are we essential? We continue to advance. How do we become essential? We manifest Jesus like the world has never seen before.
Sid Roth: Well, the way to be essential is to have what Chad has. And that is the Messiah Himself living inside of you, talking to you, directing you, guiding you. I want you to say a prayer and mean it to the best of your ability: "Dear God, I've made many mistakes and I'm so sorry. I believe Your Blood, Jesus washes away my sins and I am clean. Jesus, come and live inside of me. Make Your home here. Amen".
Sid Roth: Chad, pray for people right now.
Chad Gonzalez: Friend, I just want to pray for you right now. I want to encourage you. If you're going through a storm, you're going through a trial, and you know what? I understand, been there, done that. But here is the deal. I came through it, and I won. And if you feel like you're going through hell, here is my encouragement to you: Keep going through because there's always victory on the other side. And if you've gone through a loss, you've gone through experience like that, you know what? I've got good news for you, too, because Jesus, He not only came to heal a broken bone. He came to heal a broken heart. And no amount of counseling can do what Jesus came to do for you. He'll take it out in a moment where you don't have to grieve like the world grieves and sorrow like the world sorrows. You can have a heavenly perspective and heavenly mindset. And so, Father, I just pray for them right now that you would open their eyes and help them to see things from the perspective of Heaven, that the realities of Heaven become a very real reality for them and that the peace that surpasses all understanding would begin to mount guard and garrison around their heart and around their mind and You would open up to them the plan that You have for their life. So that would be the food that drives them every single day to one day stand before their Jesus and hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant". In Jesus' Name, amen.