Sid Roth

Sid:  I have on the telephone a friend of mine most of you are familiar with him his name is Rick Joyner. Rick is known really for his 3 most famous books are called “The Final Quest” which is shortly to be a motion picture. I believe in Heaven’s history the thing He’ll be known for is the revival that’s going to be sparked from his latest book “The Power to Change the World.”  Now on yesterday’s broadcast Rick we were talking about the two greatest revivals in all of history the Welsh Revival and Azusa Street.  And there are many things that people think of when they hear revival, but the thing that I see emphasized in these men and women of God is a word that is not a normal Sunday morning message, humility and a word called obedience.  How did this play out in these two great revivals?

Rick:  Well, I think they were essential foundations in those who I think probably sparked the greatest revivals in church history and that is Evan Roberts and William Seymour; but both of them were incredibly humble, of not only of humble backgrounds, but and very poor people but they were you know by the world’s standards but they were humble before the Lord.  They wanted God more than anything this world…almost more than their next breath they wanted God and you know God gives His grace to the humble. You know if we really grasp that; you know one moment, one tiny touch of God’s grace is worth more than all the labor we could do in a life time.

Sid: You know this isn’t false humility on my part but the older I get the greater I get, the more I realize I’ve got nothing to do with anything as long as I just stay out of the way.

Rick:  Well, that’s I believe true maturity, spiritual maturity and it’s rare, it is truly rare.

Sid: It’s well if you knew about all my pimples you’d understand why I know it’s all God.  But any way bigger and better things, How does someone get this humility? We’re not taught it, we’re taught the opposite of it be it within Christianity or the secular arena.

Rick:  Scriptures are full of exhortations for us to humble ourselves. I believe there are things we can do to humble ourselves and ways that we do that.  But I think also if we really behold the Lord, when the king came in even the twenty-four elders cast their crowns at His feet.  You know who could presume glory or possession in His presence and I believe if we would really behold the Lamb, Behold the Lord whatever crowns we think we have, or even that He’s given us we would gladly cast at this feet.  It’s by beholding who He is that I think we’re truly humbled.

Sid: You know the pendulum always seems to swing in Christianity. The pendulum has always swayed to God is my magic lamp, like Aladdin and the magic lamp, and if I rub the lamp the genie will do anything I want; he’s my buddy, he’s my good friend.  Whatever happened to something called the fear of God, the reverence of God.  The Holiness of God, the respect of God.

Rick:  Well, you know in a lot of Christian circles it is you know sadly lacking enough think that you don’t find much of God there either.  (Laughing) You know you can have all kinds of great preaching you can have you know all kinds of great things happening.  You know the Lord will bless almost anything done in His Name but He won’t inhabit it and the church is supposed to be His temple  that He inhabits and you know He blessed Ishmael made him a great nations.  He’ll bless works of the flesh even, but we’ve got to learn to distinguish between the things that God is just blessing and what is He inhabiting.  And that’s what Moses prayed for he said “Lord if Your presence doesn’t go with us don’t send us up from this place because how can we be distinguished from all the other nations on the face of the earth except by Your presence being with us? And Christianity is not just a better way to live; it is a better way to live and it’s not just another philosophy, it is a relationship with God almighty.  I believe if we would just start trying to build our churches with a goal of attracting the Holy Spirit instead of just trying to attract people we would have more people than we would know what to do with.

Sid: Listen in your book you literally show document that Evan Roberts who was one of the leaders in the Welsh revival violated every principal of church growth.  In addition to not having a good education or being eloquent.

Rick:  Well, you know I think that we could have accused John the Baptist with doing the same thing. You know he started his church in the lowest place on the earth the Dead Sea; he didn’t dress for power, I mean he was probably repulsive to watch him eat. I mean he was doing everything wrong but he was so anointed it says “All Judea came after him.”  He didn’t have to go to Jerusalem everybody knew if he wanted to be heard or you want to have religious voice you go to Jerusalem.  He was so anointed Jerusalem came to him.  And that’s what we need is the anointing…

Sid: Now did he have Madison Avenue drawing his crowds?

Rick:  I don’t think he would have had a clue; I think if he had known about such things he would have been repulsed by them.  He wasn’t out to promote, he was so anointed he had all the business he could handle. But his goal was to prepare the way for the Lord.  His goal wasn’t to build his own ministry it was to point to Jesus and prepare the way for Him.

Sid: Rick I’m reminded of a generation of Jewish people that could not even enter the promise land, Israel. It was only the young that could go in and Joshua and Caleb.  Is our current generation going to be willing to throw out the model that has evolved for God’s model?

Rick:    Well, that is the big question you know. I know I have friends that take both sides of that and I personally believe there are going to be many Joshua’s and Caleb’s from the present generation that are even going to help lead the coming generation into the promise land.  And you know and we are in the age of grace you know and the Lord can transform, renew anybody and…

Sid: I’m reminded of John Kilpatrick at the Great Pensacola Brownsville Revival. My spin is the reason that it really even got started was because he was flat on his back knocked out by the Spirit for several weeks and when he came to his senses the revival had started.

Rick:  Yeah, yeah he had to kind of run to catch up didn’t he?

Sid: Maybe that’s well I know that’s the only way God could have gone into a good charismatic church and started revival.  So maybe He’s just going to do that all over the world, let it happen quickly Rick.

Rick:  Yeah, I mean to me one of the most sad scriptures is where Jesus is standing at the door knocking to come into His own church you know.  And one thing is that He would do that, God Almighty would do that.  But you know it wasn’t those that heard the knock who opened to them it was “If anyone hears My voice and opens I will come in.”  And to know the voice of the Lord, His sheep know His voice, they listen to Him, they follow the shepherd.  And it’s a very personal, you know the sheep become very personal with their Shepherd, very close very dependent.  And yet you know so often we drift off into religious performance and projects and everything else and…

Sid: Why do we do all of these projects?

Rick:  Well, you know I think many of them are in the purpose of the Lord and many of them but even so Adam learned to walk with God in the garden and he learned to that was his job, he was put in the garden to cultivate it.  We need to walk with God in our job, walk with God in our ministry; I know you know the studies that show that the average pastor in America spends less than 5 minutes a day in prayer.

Sid: I can understand it; they’re too busy doing religious things.

Rick:  Right we forget to walk with Him daily, in our ministry and we lose that, we lose it but one touch of His presence…

Sid: I mean Evan Roberts walked out for a week because God told him too and he’s the leader of one of the greatest revivals the world has ever seen.  Could you picture a pastor being in that position and say “But God what will happen to my church?”

Rick:  Yeah, I mean Evan Roberts was far more fearful of losing the presence of the Lord than he was the people.

Sid: Now, I’ve been to your church up in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. You do something outrageous you close the church for a month and tell your people to go to other churches.  I’ve never heard of that before.

Rick:  Well, you know one reason we do that we know we’re just a tiny part of the body of Christ and we want our folks to have a vision for the whole body.

Sid: Now aren’t you afraid your people will like these new churches and just say goodbye Rick?

Rick:   Well, we hope some of them do actually.

Sid: You want a membership drive you want to drive out the wrong members, okay.

Rick:  Not really.

Sid: We’re going to stop this right now because we’re out of time.