Sid Roth

JOHN:  Yes, he led Egypt out of the audience, that’s what we’re doing right now! (laughter) I got a, when Moses led Israel out of Egypt where was their destination. Everybody say it really loud.

 

AUDIENCE:                 The Promised Land!

 

JOHN:  The Promised Land. No. What did Moses say to Pharaoh, what did Moses say to Pharaoh over and over again. “Thus saith the Lord: Let my people go that they might worship me in the desert.” Why do you want to bring them out of Egypt into the Promised Land without first bringing them to the “Promiser? Okay, if you bring the children of Israel out of Egypt into the Promised Land without first bringing them to the Promiser, you’re going to, you’re going to get a bunch of people that are going to make the Promised Land into a place of idolatry.

 

AUDIENCE:                 Wow, that’s good.

 

JOHN:  Okay? This is what we did in the 80’s and the 90’s in the church. We preached more of what Jesus would do for us rather than who He is. So we spawned disciples that started seeking God for what He can do for me not who He is, right, and that’s like a woman who marrying a man because he’s got a lot of money. She marries him out of love but for the wrong reasons. You see I find something so amazing. I look at Israel. Israel is abused by Egypt. Correct? They live in the slums, they eat the worst, wear the worst, they’re working all their lives to build somebody else’s inheritance. Their children are put to death by the Egyptians. They come out of Egypt and they’re constantly saying: “Let’s go back to Egypt, it was better for us.” But then I look at Moses. Now think about Moses. He’s raised in the most beautiful home on the planet “cause his grandfather Pharaoh is the wealthiest man in the whole planet. So that means he’s got a Maserati, he’s probably got a Lamborghini, he’s probably got a Porsche, he’s probably got an Audi, the top of the line Audi, he’s probably got every Harley in the collections, he’s got every “I-” this and “ I-” that. He’s got assistants. He can have any woman he wants in the whole nation and can even ask for other nations because he’s a prince. But he comes out of Egypt and he never once says “I want to go back to Egypt, it’s better for me back in Egypt.” And what’s the difference? He had one encounter with God face-to-face at that bush. Israel had a chance when he came down on the mountain. You see you have to remember, the burning bush was at Mount Sinai. So what Moses wants to do is he wants to bring these people straight to the One that he met at the bush. Because getting in to the presence of God, that took away his appetite from the world forever! He never, ever said “I want to go back to Egypt.” Now remember Egypt is a “type” [symbol] of the world. His appetite for the world was gone, because he had one encounter with God. You see we’re always trying to get people to pray a formula “sinner’s prayer” at churches. And don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to make a movement of people saying “well, you know that’s not what we’re going to do.” But what one thing I’m saying is that we should add on to that is why don’t we give the Holy Spirit time to minister in the presence of God to them so that now all of a sudden they’ve tasted the heavenly gift? Okay? Moses tasted, he saw, he tasted at the burning bush. He said I’ve gotta bring these people out there. So he brings them out to that mountain. God says, all right, Moses, you tell them the whole reason I brought you out of Egypt was to bring you to myself. Go look it up in Exodus 19, it’s amazing. The whole reason I brought them out of Egypt was to bring them to myself. It’s in there. Read it. It’s amazing. So He says I’m so excited I’m going to come down there and introduce myself to ‘em on the third day. So get ‘em ready the next two days and the third day I’m going to come down, which is prophetic, and I’m not going to go into that. So Moses gets them all ready, they wash their clothes, God comes down on the mountain and what do they do? They all run away, and they say Moses, we can’t handle God. You talk to God, tell us whatever he says, we’re going to hear and do it. And that’s amazing to me, right? And so Moses is heart-broken. And so his response to the people is Exodus 20:20, where He says, “Do not fear,” now look at me, do not fear because God’s come to test you. What’s the test? To see if His fear is in you so that you may not sin. Wait a minute. Do not fear, because God’s come to test you to see if His fear is in you so that you may not sin. He’s not contradicting himself, he’s differentiating between being scared of God and the fear of the Lord. As I said earlier, the person who fears God, well the person who’s scared of God, I should say it this way, has something to hide. That’s why Adam hides from the presence of the Lord. Okay? But the person who fears God has nothing to hide. Okay? They’re scared to be away from God. So the first definition of the fear of the Lord is to be terrified of being away from Him. You know I’ll never forget, back in the 1990’s, it was 1994, Jim Bakker had read a book that I had written called “Victory in the Wilderness,” it was the first book I had ever written. He read it in prison. He had been in prison for 4 years. When he read it he contacted his assistant from prison and he said    could you please find this author and ask him to come visit me in prison. So I remember I agree to do it. And I walked into the prison and he comes out in his prison garb and grabs me and he holds me and he hugs me and he won’t let me go. Finally he grabs my shoulders and he said “Did you write it or a ghost writer?” I said, “No sir, I wrote it. I’ve gone through a wilderness but not near what you’ve gone through.” He said “We have so much to talk about. Sit down.” And I remember he looked at me and he said this prison was not God’s judgment on my life, it was his mercy on my life. He said because John, honestly, if I would have kept living the way I was living I would have ended up in hell forever. When he said that to me I thought, okay, you have my attention, complete, total attention. So after about 20 minutes I felt very, very comfortable with him and I thought I’m going to ask him some questions. My first question was “Jim, when did you fall out of love with Jesus?” At what point did you stop loving Jesus? Because You have to understand as a little boy I grew up in Whitehall Michigan which was 15 minutes away from where he pastored in Muskegon Michigan. So I said, “When did you stop loving Jesus, how’d it happen?”  And he looked at me and he said “I didn’t.” What? What do you mean you didn’t fall out of love with Jesus? I said, Jim, you committed adultery with Jessica Hahn, you did all this mail fraud, all this stuff you’re in jail for. What do you mean you didn’t fall out of love with Jesus? And I’m perplexed and he sees I’m perplexed. And he looked right at me and he said, “I didn’t fear God.” And he said, “There’s millions of Americans just like me. They love Jesus, but they don’t fear God.” You see, you have to understand the New Testament teaches that He is Abba, Daddy. But the same New Testament says He’s the consuming fire. Okay? So you have to understand something. If you don’t have the love of God and you don’t have the fear of God you’re going to end up in a rut. How many of you know that Jesus said the road to life is a narrow road? Right? How many of you know that every road’s got two ditches on both sides? Right? So the first ditch is called “legalism.” Now the church in the 1960’s was in a legalistic ditch. Now I wasn’t a Christian back in the 60’s, I didn’t saved until “79. But let me tell you something, I saw the remnants of this legalistic move. Because women would wear their hair up in a bun remember, they didn’t cut their hair and wore it up in a big bun, and they didn’t wear any make-up, and they had dresses down to their ankles. You know you can have a dress down to your ankles, you can have your hair up in a bun, you can have no make-up but still have a seducing spirit up to your eyeballs. Okay? That’s not holiness. Okay? So it was all about an outward form to try to hide a deficiency that was in our hearts and we were in legalism. Right? So what happened in the 60’s? God brings a revelation to the church. You know what the revelation was, he used one man to do it. God is a good God, and something good can happen to you. The man was Oral Roberts, right? And then the Charismatic move began. Right? And we found out our Daddy loved us. What did the love of God do? It delivered us from the ditch of legalism. But you know what we did? We said I went so far from that ditch I’ll never fall in again and we went to the other side of the road and fell into that other ditch. And the other ditch is called lawlessness or lasciviousness, which is an excessive, fleshly, worldly, disobedient lifestyle. And God’s given us a force that keeps us, keeps us out of that ditch. It’s called the fear of the Lord. So you see it takes the love of God and the fear of God to keep us healthy. Okay? It’s like two sides of a coin, you got heads and tails, if you don’t have tails you don’t have a coin, you need ‘em both. And so when we understand that God is Abba, Daddy, but He’s also the King, He’s also the consuming fire we understand that yes, we can jump in His lap, there are times for that but then there’s other times, let me tell you, I didn’t feel it was the time to jump in His lap when He came into Brazil like He did. You understand what I’m talking about.   When I was in Malaysia and those girls, those women were getting baptized in fire. That’s just not a time you’re jumping in his lap. And so there is a right way to understand that God is so much greater and more complex than our simple little, well He’s Daddy and here’s grace and it doesn’t matter how you live you’re going to get to heaven. That is a complete lack of the fear of the Lord. And you see if you’ve got the fear of the Lord, Paul says, it will perfect holiness. We work out our salvation, in the New Testament it says, with fear and trembling. If you look at the church in the earlyÖ in the Book of Acts, you know what? They were all drunk on the Day of Pentecost. I mean they were experiencing Daddy’s love, so they got a little too familiar, they got a little bit loose, and so now this couple who’s in good standing, they’re members of the Church of Jerusalem bring up an offering and it’s a big offering, it’s a big chunk of the land they just sold, and they lay it at Peter’s feet, and the next thing you know they’re dead. And if you read in Acts, chapter 5, verse 11, it says “So great fear came upon the church.” Not upon the city. Yes, it said somewhere else great fear came upon all those who heard these things. Great fear came upon the CHURCH! So what is the fear of the Lord? So first of all it is to be terrified to be away from Him. The person who fears God doesn’t say how close can I get to the line of sin and not fall in. The person who fears God says I want to be so far away, so close to Dad, so close to my Daddy, that I’m so close to Him I can’t even see that line of sin. Okay? That’s the attitude they have. You understand what I’m saying, they’re not saying how close can I get and not, and not fall in. What is it to fear God? It is to venerate Him. That’s a big word which means to honor, to respect, to esteem, to value, to reverence, to stand in awe of Him more than anything or anyone else. We firmly embrace God’s heart so we love what He loves, we hate what He hates, what is important to Him becomes important to us, what is not so important to Him is not so important to us. Remember Jesus said there are weightier matters. Are you with me? What is the evidence that somebody truly has the fear of God in their life? Okay? Now remember, the Holy Spirit, one of His manifestations is the fear of the Lord. Remember He’s the Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of counsel, the Spirit of might, the Spirit of understanding, the Spirit of knowledge, and the Spirit of the dear of the Lord and Jesus delighted in the fear of the Lord. What is the evidence that somebody truly has the fear of the Lord in their life? Okay? Well, number one, they reverence His presence. I talked about that in Brazil. But the second thing that you see in their life is they tremble at His Word. Do you know how the Bible talks about trembling at His word? What does it means to tremble at His word. Number one it means that you’ll obey Him instantly. Okay? Huh? I, I still see some looks and I want to make sure you’re really clear, [and] you who are watching this video. When I say what is the evidence of the fear of the Lord, let’s put it to you like this way: let’s say I’ve got an outlet and I want to know is there, is that outlet is it live or is it dead? Well if I put a brand new blow dryer in and it’s a working blow dryer in that outlet and I turn the switch on and hot air starts blowing, that’s evidence that that is a good outlet. Correct?

 

AUDIENCE:                 Yes. That’s right.

SID:                 It ‘s like going to a football game!

 

JOHN:  Yeah! So I’m sitting there going “this’ll calm down.” Well it doesn’t! They get through with the praise and worship and the leader comes up and starts reading out of the Bible. I’m still seeing people sitting there looking around, people looking down like this, people are whispering to one another, and you can actually hear “em mutter from the people whispering to one another. Now I’m angry, okay? I mean I am really angry. So they introduce me. First time I’ve ever spoken in Brazil, 1996, publically. I walk up, I walked up to the podium with my interpreter right beside me. And I just put my elbow on the podium and I just sat there and stared at “em and didn’t say a word. Now, now, now picture this, okay? Friday night, national conference, the guest speaker’s introduced and he’s just glaring at you for 45 seconds!

 

SID:                 Not too cool!

 

JOHN: That gets people’s attention, right! So when I knew every eye in the whole auditorium was on me, this is the first words in public I’ve ever said in Brazil, I said I have two questions. Question number one: you’re sitting across the table talking to somebody and the whole time you’re talking to them they got their hands in their pocket looking around like this, or they’re looking down like this, or they’re whispering to somebody sitting beside them, next to them at the table. I said, “Will you continue to talk to them?’

 

SID:                 No.

 

JOHN:  They said, “No,” right. I said, “What if every time I go,  you go over to somebody’s house and you knock on their door and they open up the door and they go, “Oh, it is you, again. Come in.” I said, “Will you continue to go to that house?” They went, “No.” So I said, “I’ve been in this auditorium for an hour and a half and I have, or an hour, and I have not felt one ounce of the presence of God.” And I said the reason is He’ll never come into an atmosphere where He’s not held in the utmost of respect. I said if Pele you’re, well first of all I said if your President, the President of Brazil would have walked onto this platform tonight he would have gotten ten times the respect you gave the Holy Spirit. You, you would have listened to every word he said, you would have given him your attention. I said if Pele would have walked on, Pele’s the greatest soccer player ever in Brazil, would have walked on this, out on this platform, you would have been on the edge of your seats!

 

SID:                 Of course.

 

JOHN:  Okay? I said you’ve given no respect to the Holy Spirit. So I speak to them for 75 minutes on the fear of the Lord. At the end of that, now this is amazing what I am about to tell you. I said every person in here, you say you’re born again but you lack the fear of God, stand up, and you’re willing to repent, stand up. 75 percent of the whole auditorium stands up. Now this is what’s amazing. The moment they stand up the presence of God comes in. First time in two hours. And people are weeping, right? So it lasts a few minutes and it lifts. And the Holy Spirit speaks to me and says lead them in a prayer of repentance. So I led them in a simple prayer of repentance. Forgive me for my lack of reverence, for Your presence, Your work. All of a sudden another wave of His presence comes in. It’s even stronger, lasts 3 or 4 minutes. It lifts. So now we’re all there and the Holy Spirit speaks to me and He says I’m coming one last time. Now what I’m about to tell you I got emails on this 8 years after it happened. Okay? The only way I know how to describe what happened is you’re at the end of a runway and a Boeing Jet’s taking off right in front of you. That kind of a sound of a violent wind came blowing in to that auditorium. When it did, the people started screaming. Now can you imagine thousands of Latinos screaming? You know how loud that would be. The wind was louder. So that same thing that happened in Malaysia happened to me there. I’m like, “Oh my God!” There are like goose bumps on my goose bumps. And I’m standing there frozen, and I’m like “Whooooa…..” because it’s awesome! …what’s going on, and terrifying. And I remember it lasted for about 90 seconds and it left in its wake people collapsed on the chairs, people weeping and I’m like, “God, what do I do? And the Lord’s like, “I’m through with you.” (laughing) So I turned and I looked at the leader and I said “It’s all yours.” So he comes up, they walk me out into the car. And the singer, the national singer and her husband get in the car. She screams, I mean literally, you know how passionate Brazilians are, “Did you hear the wind!?” And I said, now I didn’t want to say it, I said, “Maybe it was a jet airplane flying right over the building.”

 

AUDIENCE:                 (LAUGHTER)

 

JOHN:  And she got angry at me. She said, (yelling) “What are you talking about? I saw fire all around the building.” And her husband’s a lot more analytical and quieter. He quieted her down, he said, “Sir, that wasn’t a jet airplane above the building. I said, “How do you know?” He said because there were union security men all around the outside the building. He said most of them aren’t even saved. He said when the wind started blowing they came running in to see what was going on and they started saying to our leaders “what’s going on?” He said I was at the sound board, because I had to check the levels for my wife. He said the decimal beaters were at zero the whole time the wind blew. It was 90 seconds the wind blew. He said “not one ounce of the sound came through our sound system.” I said, “My God, take me to my hotel room.’

 

AUDIENCE AND SID:             (LAUGHTER)

 

JOHN:  No kidding, I didn’t even go out to eat that night. And I remember I just sat on my balcony and worshipped until 1:30 in the morning. And so you’ll never find the Lord in an atmosphere where He’s not held with the utmost respect.

 

SID:                 ÖI want to ask you to do something.

 

JOHN:  Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

 

SID:                 I would like you to speak just a little while on the fear of the Lord and then lead us in repentance. Would you do that, John? Thank you.

 

AUDIENCE:                 (CLAPPING)

 

JOHN:  Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Okay. So, what, what is the fear of the Lord? All right. Let me say this. And I’m, I’m going to say to you tonight, I’m going to repeat some things I just said on this program because I need to lay a foundation again. What is the fear of the Lord is NOT to be scared of God. And as I said, when Moses led Israel out of Egypt, and let me ask you as an audience, when Moses led Egypt out of the audience, or out of, excuse me.

 

AUDIENCE:                 (LAUGHTER)

SID: I am going to take this wonderful opportunity to ask a couple of questions to John Bevere that I’ve really wanted to hear from him the answers. John, you said something when I interviewed you on television. You said there was a season in your life where you were praying in the Holy Spirit two hours every day. But then you made a switch and tell me what the switch was and the results that happened.

 

JOHN:  The switch was, I kept, if I’m, if I’m remembering, I’m going back to our radio interview. I was praying everyday “God use me.” Use me to win multitudes to Jesus, use me to cast out demons, use me to heal the sick people, use me to restore people’s lives, restore marriages. And I was praying this way for years. And one day the Holy Spirit spoke to me, and He said, “Your prayers are off.” And I said, “What!” He said, “Your prayer are off target.” And I said I’m asking you to use me win multitudes to Jesus, to heal people, to heal marriages, to heal bodies. How can they be off? And He said this to me, He said, “Judas cast our devils, Judas healed the sick, Judas preached repentance, Judas led people to me,” because when He sent the 12 out He sent the 12 out. He said, “Judas left everything he had to follow me.” He said, “Judas is in hell.”

 

SID:                 Uh!!

 

JOHN:  When He said that to me, I literally started trembling inside. I said, “Then what should I be praying?” And then He said to me, “What Paul prayed: that I might know Him.” And so those who know their God will be strong and do exploits. So He said, “You can use me.” He said, “I don’t use people. I transform them into the image of My son.”

 

AUDIENCE:                 Mmmm, huh!

 

JOHN: I mean can you just see me coming into my, or my wife coming in to me and saying, “John, use me to make babies for you! (pleading) I want to make babies, Ohhh, I want to make babies. Give me babies or I’m going to die!

 

SID:                 Ha!

 

AUDIENCE:                 (LAUGHTER)

 

JOHN: Okay, so what would I look at my wife and say? Oh my gosh, who did I marry! Okay? (Sid and audience laugh) But we’re intimate and out of our intimacy came four really great boys. And He said, “I want you intimate with me.” So my whole prayer started changing. “God, I want to know You intimately. I want to know You intimately. I want to know You like You know me.” Well you know what’s interesting? This was back in 1984-85. And in this time period when I started changing my prayer, I started getting free. I was bound to pornography and here I was in the ministry. And I asked Lester Sumrall to pray for me. I opened up to him, I said, “I’m bound, will you pray for me?” He prayed a very strong prayer and nothing happened. Nine months later I’m on a four day fast, and May the 6st, 1985 I get completely delivered from pornography. Okay? So I’m walking in my freedom a couple a years and I said to God, I said, “I don’t get it.” I mean I humbled myself. I asked one of the strongest men of God I know on the planet to get me delivered, and I don’t get delivered. And then nine months later I’m on this fast and I get delivered.     And the Lord showed me that what I was praying, I was praying that “God use me, God use me” and I was afraid that pornography was going to keep me to the preaching ministry I know I was called to. He said, “But then you changed your prayers and you said I want to know you, I want to know you intimately. And He said, “You had sorrow, but your sorrow was worldly when you opened up with Dr. Sumrall.”  He said, “Nine months later your sorrow was godly because your heart was breaking because you knew your sin was breaking My heart.” So if you look at the difference you can see it in two kings. Saul says, “I’ve sinned, I’ve sinned.” But he’s embarrassed, so he says “Now honor me by worshipping with me in front of my elders.” You’ve embarrassed me in front of my elders. David, when he gets nailed, falls on his face and said “I have sinned and against You only I have sinned.” He couldn’t care less what his elders thought. So that’s the difference between worldly sorrow and godly sorrow.          Godly sorrow the focus is on Him, worldly sorrow the focus is on what’s going to happen to me. And when we pray that we can know Him intimately, that we can please Him the best a man or woman can please Him, now it’s all about this relationship over everything else and that’s what pleases the heart of God. See Psalm 89, verse 7 says:  “God is to be greatly feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be held in reverence by all those who surround him.” So you’ll never find the presence God in an atmosphere where He’s not held in the utmost of respect. I remember when I learned this experientially. Back in 1996, I was asked to speak in Brazil, the nation of Brazil. There were thousands of people at this conference, it was a national conference. I’m the Friday night speaker. They drive me to the auditorium. There’s cars parked everywhere. And as I come into the auditorium I can hear the worship coming from the inside of the building. Because in their big auditoriums down there, if they have a ceiling on it, there’s like a six foot gap between the upper wall and the ceiling, and it’s for air ventilation but you can hear what’s going on inside. So they walk me in, they put me on the platform. There’s not a seat open anywhere. Thousands of Brazilians, right? So there’s no presence of God. There’s no presence of God in the whole auditorium. Now when I say this Sid, as we know there are 2 types of the presence of God. There is the “omnipresence” of God. That is where David said “where can I go from your presence? If I go to the highest mountain you’re there, if I make my bed in the lowest valley you’re there.” That’s the presence of God that says “I’ll never leave you nor forsake you.” That’s the omnipresence of God. The other presence of God the Bible speaks about is the “manifest presence” of God. “Manifest” is to bring from the unseen into the realm of the seen, the unheard into the realm of the heard, the unknown into the realm of the known. It’s when God reveals Himself to our senses. Okay? That is a very real experience in Christianity.   Jesus said, “I will manifest Myself to you,” right? So that presence was totally void in thatÖ and I’m sitting there going “this is a believer’s conference.” Place is packed, best worship leaders in the nation, why is there no presence!? So I asked the Lord, I said, “God, why is there no presence?” And all of a sudden God open up my eyes and I’m looking at the people. And they’re standing there with their hands in their pocket looking around like this, they got their arms crossed looking down like this, they’re whispering to one another, they’re fumbling through their purses, and they’re walking in and out of this auditorium getting concession stand stuff, okay?