Sid Roth

Sid: Hello this is Sid Roth here with Tommy Reid. Tommy before we went on the air I was talking to you about your experiences with Dr. Cho. You went there just as was really getting started. And he had never… when you met him did he really tell you he had never seen a miracle?

Tommy: Well he had seen some healings that they interpreted for him but he never seen a great miracle, he never seen a miracle that was kind of earth shattering to him.

Sid: He’d seen a neck being healed from pain which if someone has a pain in the neck and some people do right now you’re being healed. But he had never seen a blind person see, a deaf hear, a dead person come to life that’s what you’re talking about.

Tommy: Yeah, and he look at me and he said “I don’t even know if I believe this.” Now he had been healed as a young man about 18 or 19 so he saw his own healing but he had never seen a miracle take place in church before. I remember I looked at him I was just a young evangelist and I was probably not too kind sometimes maybe. And I looked at him and said “Bother Cho you will see great miracles during the next few weeks” because he was going to travel with me all over the nation. And we did see that, I mean I would look out at the audience I have pictures that I can’t find right now some place in moving they got lost but a lot of people would… every night there would be a cripple walk, there would be a blind eye see, and that’s why so many people came to our meetings. I mean I remember times when we would be carried out on people’s shoulders because they would get so excited about the miracles of God and he saw that and began to believe for that.

Sid: Well tell me about one of the first major miracles he saw.

Tommy: Well one of the first major miracles and God used him in this and he began to believe for miracles we were holding a meeting in a Presbyterian Church a large Presbyterian Church that was jammed with people 1000’s standing on the outside. And I had to go on to the next city so I went on to the next city with another interpreter he stayed and did another week because the Holy Spirit was moving so greatly in that city. One night it came to him and said “Brother Cho there is a person dying in the hospital if you don’t come down right now he may not live until the service is finished.” So he left the service; went down the hill to the hospital walked in and the man was dead. They had pulled the sheet over his head and the doctor said “No use praying for him he’s dead.” Brother Cho now that he gotten this new impetus on healing pulled the sheet down off of his head, commanded the man to walk. He got up off of that bed now put his clothes on and this was a very steep hill between there and the church and he walked him all the way up that steep hill and he walked into the church and said “The dead man is alive!” The first miracle that he saw and that I remember him seeing that was under his own ministry was a dead man brought to life.

Sid: But you know what I believe Tommy I believe we are at the point right now that we are going to see the greatest miracles the world has ever seen. I mean creative miracles, I mean people without limbs the limbs just pop right out. I can’t wait to see see… I just as you talk about the world inside is more real and more important than what’s going on in the outside; on the inside of me I see not just me but I see the average believer that’s listening right now walking in miracles beyond what we’re even talking about.

Tommy: Oh, I have no doubt of that that is the world that is inside of me. I believe that we are on the precipice; we’re on the cusps of seeing miracles like the church has never seen before in its entire history. You know we’ve seen great miracle of healing I’ve seen eyeballs that were growing in people, I’ve seen great miracles of healing but we are on the cusp of seeing something greater than any of us have seen before.

Sid: Tell me one of the most amazing miracles that happened to you in the Philippians.

Tommy: Yeah, this was an amazing miracle I’ve seen many cripples walk but we had gone to a town in the Southern tip of the Boson Island. And there was a group of young people that were opposed to the meetings. And so they were so opposed that we ended up not being able to hold the first nights meeting. So we went out to the country to a little tiny barrio of about 2000 people and set a PA system up and the whole barrio came 2000 people came and jammed that barrio. The little plaza in the center of the Barrio and the Lord said to me and this is unusual because when you’re a healing evangelist you pray for the easy cases first. The Lord said to me “Pray for the hardest case in this place tonight it’s a cripple if you will call them out I will heal them.” So I looked around and so I saw this woman on a stretcher and so I said to the interpreter “What’s wrong with her?” They said “Well, she is unable to walk and I said “God’s going to heal her.” So they brought her up and they kind of dragged her out of bed and put her up on the stretcher in front of me and I said “God is going to heal you tonight; you’re going to be healed and you’re going to walk.” And I asked “What’s wrong with her?” And they said arthritis so I prayed for the arthritis, I rebuked the arthritis as an evangelist will do and she couldn’t walk. And all of a sudden something said inside of me God said to me “Tommy she doesn’t have arthritis you prayed for the wrong disease you must be specific.” So I said to the interpreter “I prayed for the arthritis she wasn’t healed that’s not what’s wrong with her.” Well, they got between Tagalikan and Elik they’d gotten the wrong interpretation and they said “No, she is paralyzed.” She had some kind of a stroke or something and she’s 100% paralyzed in the right side of her body and at least 50% more on the other, she cannot walk.” With that grabbed her and I said “In the name of Jesus I command you to walk.” And she got up and leaped off of that stretcher, began to walk and then she began to run and she ran around and around and around the audience. She as obviously healed there was not doubt about it so I said to her “Well, we’re going to have this big crusade in the capitol city would you come and give your testimony tomorrow night? Well I wanted to be sure she was still healed; oh yea of little faith you know I wanted… so the next morning we drove out to the barrio to see if she and all of the sudden the whole town they saw the little yellow Ford come toward, the whole town 2000 people began to just surge towards us and she was leading them. “I’m still healed, I’m still healed.” And so she came to the audience that night she came to the big meeting and she gave her testimony and when she did these young people who were opposing the meeting said “Oh, the Americano is a rich man he paid her a 100 pesos’ to say that, she wasn’t really healed.” And so it kind of interrupted the meeting and you can understand they didn’t know whether to believe the boys or believe me or to believe the woman. And so the meeting was okay a few people got saved but there were no other miracles. And when we left town to go to the next city all of the sudden I heard the news that the young man who had opposed the meeting came down with the same amount of paralysis 100% in the right side and 50% in his left side. And as far as I know did not walk another day in his life. Now I don’t understand the end of the story all I know it was probably the greatest miracle I’ve ever saw.

Sid: Well the one thing that I do know is if you come against God you’re in big trouble; that was big trouble. You know something that was so amazing to me is tell me about the time your father was dying in Manila.

Tommy: Oh, that was probably the greatest miracle we ever had in our family except my own healing. We had gone to the Philippines on a one way ticket it was interesting how we got there I had sold my Cadillac convertible to pay our way and it paid a one way ticket and enough to stay there a couple of weeks. And we had planned to stay with missionaries and we had everything set to have meetings. We got there and everything fell apart just everything. The place we had to stay the missionary went home; we checked into a hotel we had no money to pay our hotel bill and no ticket back home. And in the middle of all of that my dad laying in that bed contracted some kind of an oriental disease. And got sicker and sicker every day he’d be more and more ill and I’d go into his bedside and want to pray for him. And my dad said “No, no don’t pray for me, pray for our destiny, pray for where we’re going, what we’re going to do.” And then I would say “Let me pray for the finances we need money to go back home; ‘No, no we’re here for a reason, pray for the reason.’” So I walked in there and he wouldn’t let me pray for us, he wouldn’t let me pray for his meal, he wouldn’t let me pray for money, he wouldn’t let me pray for money; he wouldn’t let me pray for a ticket, he wouldn’t let me pray for the hotel bill none of that he wouldn’t let me pray for. Then one day he said “It’s time for God to answer our prayers; that phone is going to ring Tommy and we’re going to be Pastors of Bethel Temple.” I said “That will never happen, I’m 26 years of age they’ll never want me to pastor the largest church in their denomination, they’re not going to want you to pastor you’ve been a businessman you haven’t been a preacher; they’re never going to ask us to pastor the church.” He said “Tommy, that’s the prayer I wanted you to pray destiny; pray for what we’re here to do.” The phone rang and the voice of the Missions Department of Springfield Missouri said “You have been chosen as the new Pastors of Bethel Temple.” Well it solved all of our problems, the money problem, the ticket problem, the place to live problem, then Morris Cerullo walked in and paid our hotel bill.

Sid: But your father was dying I don’t get it.

Tommy: I know I don’t get it either except to know this that God has our destiny in mind. God has a voice that says to us “This is the way, walk yea in it.”

Sid: So was he healed gradually or what happened?

Tommy: Oh no, he was not sick anymore. From the time that that telephone rang and he saw the end of the story at that point he was healed. The fever was gone, the sickness was gone he was perfect.

Sid: Now you have a great love for the nation Israel. The thing that I think is so amazing is in 1948 you were in school and the teacher made an announcement. Tell me the announcement and tell me why it had such an effect on you.

Tommy: It had an effect on me because I lived in the 1930’s when we had all of the prophetic teachers come by our church. A little boy sits there and sermon’s don’t necessarily can’t understand all of them. But when the prophecy teachers would come with all of their charts I could see the pictures I understood that. And they told me that Israel would become a nation, the Jewish people would come back home, and Israel would become a nation again. So I grew up with this knowledge I knew that the Israel would be reborn, I knew the people would come back home; I knew the Jews would be restored to their homeland. So I remember sitting in the classroom in 1948 as a young man in Junior High I remember when the teacher walked in and said “We just heard the announcement Israel is a nation.” And I knew that the word of God was true there was no doubt that what I’d been taught was true. But I had a lot… my dad absolutely love Jewish people. But a Jewish person walked in you would have thought Jesus walked in with my father. He lived to witness to Jews, that was his mission field. We frequented and we would go to Philadelphia and we go to 5^th Street and visit all of those little Jewish shops, and every Jew along that street was my dad’s friend. He loved Jews I was taught to love the Jewish people because they were God’s chosen.

Sid: But you know I still… I want to take you back to that… you were in school and a Social Studies teacher you’d been taught your whole life to love the Jew and then one day Israel would be a nation. Well it was impossible for Israel to be a nation but in 1948 tell me the emotion that went on through you inside of your when your teacher says “Israel has just become a nation?”

Tommy: Well I think the first reaction I had is the word of God is true by the time you’re in Junior High and even though I’ve seen the miracles there’s a few dots that begin to come in. All of a sudden I realized this book the word of God is the word of God and it does come to past and I had lived to see one of the greatest events of the history of the world. Sid, I don’t think we can realize even though we say it we can’t realize the immense miracle that God did in the rebirth of Israel, it was a miracle that goes beyond our comprehension.

Sid: I mean it was like if today there was no Israel and tomorrow President Obama says “I declare that Israel is going to be a Jewish homeland.” That would have been impossible for him to say that, it was impossible in ‘48 for Israel to be a nation. But God said “A nation will be formed in one day, and from the 4 corners of the earth the Jews were returned to their homeland.” He even said the ancient language would be spoken in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time I mean Hebrew was just for the holy books, it wasn’t a spoken language today. I mean there were so many miracles that occurred even today why is it that you give your missions money always including going to the Jew first?

Tommy: Well you know God spoke to me and I as you know a lover of Israel Robert Sterns is now the man who is Pastor of the church that I pastured for 50 years. One of the reasons that I wanted Robert here was I wanted to be sure that this church was a recognition of what God was doing with the Jewish people and with Israel. And of course we’re tremendous supporters of Israel. But what I don’t understand is there is not greater miracles except maybe the resurrection that has taken place in the history of the world, than for God not just to save a person, not just to resurrect a person but to resurrect a nation because He made a covenant with them. Tto me it’s the most amazing thing but then I have to realize what God said to Abraham. Abraham said “How do you know, how do I know you’re going to give me this land?” God said “Well I’m going to swear by myself.” And he showed him this picture of the smoking furnace and the pillar of fire representing the Godhead; I’m going to swear by Myself that this is your land.” It is the… how can I believe the covenant of God to heal me if I don’t believe that covenant?

Sid: Tommy our time is slipping away but … When you wrote the book “How to Live Out of a Dream” what did you hope to accomplish?

Tommy: I live in a world that’s different than most preachers; I think I hear things different than most preachers. You know I’m kind a academic when I’m preaching but I can tell you that I don’t want to preach things that I don’t know God has said to me. I want to wake up in the morning and hear Jesus and say the things that He wants me to say. I don’t even want to be on your show and just say things by rote. I want to know that when I speak to you and speak to the world that I’ve heard what God wants me to say. I am firmly convinced that one of the messages that God has for the world today that the problems of our world could be solved, the world could be evangelized if we only heard God’s voice. Most people just don’t hear God’s voice, they don’t listen, their parents tell them you know that’s just your imagination and they cut off the very source of God speaking to them. I want to go out and teach the world to hear God’s voice because I believe its only possible, it’s absolutely mandatory.

Sid: You know there’s so much doom and gloom in the news today that even Christians talking to one another they’re saying “Oh, do you see what’s going on with the morality in America? Do you see what’s going on with the economy? Do you see what’s going on with disease?” But I believe that those that are listening to us right now this is their greatest hour… when we come back I’d like you to teach how we can hear His voice. How we can dream His dreams. I mean you say that it’s simple and I know that it’s simple. Tommy the next broadcast that I do that people will hear I will have just returned from Jerusalem. I’m leaving in a couple of days for Jerusalem. I am going to have a meeting Jerusalem, Israel and we have reservations of 400 people we’re expecting over 500 unsaved Jewish people. What I do is I call it a lecturer on the supernatural and I really I don’t say I’m going to talk about God I say I certainly don’t say I’m going to talk about Jesus. I say I’ve spent the last 35 years studying the paranormal I use that word I want nonbelievers and the supernatural. I’m going to speak an many people are going to be physically healed in their seats, I’ve done this all over the world. But do you realize just as a historic as it was for Israel to become a nation, it is historic for 4 or 500 unsaved Jewish people to hear about the good news of Jesus, witness miracles in their own lives. People will stand up, 30, 40 people are going to stand up and say I’m Jewish nonbelievers I’ve just been physically healed and I believe and I’m believing for 100% a 100% of these Jewish people will stand up and make professions of faith. Now to me that is …has never happened in the history of modern day Israel but we’re in a new time. I’m telling you the move of God has begun.

Sid: I’ll tell you something it difficult to export something you don’t have yourself. And the Messiah came to set the captives free. He came to open up the prison doors, He came… I was reading this morning in Romans the 14^th chapter the 17^th verse “For the Kingdom of God is not food and drink but it’s righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” And very few born again Christians have broken through to freedom, they’ve broken through to maintenance and self-help programs, but there is a difference between maintenance and total freedom. I’m not talking about Christians that perhaps had a drinking problem, or a drug problem, or a smoking problem, I’m saying there are so many little foxes that God says “I want to get rid of because the new wine is being poured out.” He saved the best for last and He wants you free not to walk but to run in the next, in the greatest, and I believe the last move of God’s Spirit in history. “The Kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” You know whether you have the righteousness or not it’s based on the word of God, you know whether you have the peace or not. The Hebrew word, this is Greek of course in the New Testament; the Hebrew word for peace is Shalom and it means completeness in your spirit, soul and body. You know whether you have true Shalom, and you know whether you have joy and if there’s some sort of… I have Craig Hill on the telephone he’s founder of Family Foundations International. And we’re making available this week his book “Freedom from Compulsive Habits Bondage Broken” and his 3 audio cassette teaching series is all connected “Identifying Shame.” And Craig you were talking on yesterday’s broadcast about a man that was set free and then the symptoms came back and he didn’t know what to do about it would you continue that story.

Craig: Sure you know what I’ve found Sid so many times what I’d liken going on in so many peoples lives it’s like smoke, fire and fuel. People have external things going on in their lives such as anger or a temptation to this or that. You know 2 of the most common ones probably are anger and impure thoughts. Really those are just like smoke, this man had an intense temptation back to drugs that is just like smoke and that as we were talking yesterday self-help programs even Christian intense effort programs are really just dealing with the smoke, the obvious point is that where there’s smoke there’s a fire. So we really don’t want to just have a smoke management program trying to manage the smoke so that it doesn’t harm us or harm other people in such an intense way. What we really want to do is we want to find out the source of that smoke which is a fire. So what I found in people’s lives is that when we see smoke there’s always fire. The fire is some kind of wounding experience that happened in people’s lives in the past and in most cases it’s actually in childhood.

Sid: And it’s buried that’s the problem it’s not that someone says “I don’t want to deal with it they don’t even know it so if they don’t recognize that there are symptoms of something deeper they’ll never know about the deeper.

Craig: Right, exactly. And so when you see smoke that smoke isn’t just emanating from no where there’s always a fire. And so there’s a fire that’s there. The fire is some kind of a wounding experience that happened in the past and then they’re fuel to that fire. And the fuel is a deep seated emotional lie that the enemy sows in the hearts of people. And it comes through those wounding experiences that often times that happens in people’s families. And just you just said “People don’t even remember the experience many times but the emotional pain is still there.”

Sid: Well, a lot of people say “But wait a second under the New Covenant if you know who you are you don’t have to dig up all of these things you’re just free.” I’ve heard that preached as long as I’ve been a believer!

Craig: You know the real simple answer to that is “Then there shouldn’t be any smoke!” (Laughing) If there… if that’s true then there shouldn’t be any smoke and what we know is that Yeshua died for those things His blood was shed but we know just like in physical healing that blood has to be applied to the specific area of our life when we do apply that blood. And when we really do allow the Lord to remove that lie then indeed we are free; if the lie is still there it continues to torment deep on the inside.

Sid: Tell me a few of the smoke that you talk about you mentioned anger.

Craig: Anger…

Sid: Everyone knows about drugs and homosexuality and that’s a problem but what are some of the acceptable smokes that people don’t deal with?

Craig: Well you know anger would be one; another one that’s real common especially for men are “Impure thoughts.” Thought lust that they simply don’t want to be there the just don’t tell anybody. Those kind of thoughts torment them but they’re there. Other types of externals that are maybe more acceptable are things like overeating and gossiping, watching television for 6 hours at a time. Jumping on a telephone and just talking and talking and talking those are all mechanisms that our own flesh uses to comfort something deep on the inside.

Sid: Why would it be comfort to talk a lot?

Craig: For some people, and that afflicts women more than men, but it’s not exclusive to women there’s a need on the inside to just talk and talk and talk. And a feeling that “If I can talk about this enough somehow or another I’ll find a solution and it’ll make the pain go away.” So people will just talk and talk and there’s really no goal to it there’s no purpose it’s just a comfort mechanism that’s being used really by the flesh. And the bottom line what we find Sid is that people’s flesh rises up and does something or another to bring a false comfort whenever the soul is out of peace. You know it’s an interesting thing that Hebrews chapter 4 verse 10 it talks about the fact let me just read this scripture. Hebrews 4:10 says “For the one that entered into his rest (This is speaking of God’s rest) has himself also rested from his works as God did from His.” What it’s saying is that a person who’s soul, soul being mind, will and emotions not spirit but their soul. When their soul is not at rest, when you’re soul is not at peace it says that what’s going to happen is that you’re going to busy doing your own works. In other words another way to put that is, whenever something is tormented on the inside, whenever there’s pain on the inside, discouragement, disappointment and emotional lie has been stimulated deep on the inside then your flesh is going to be busy going to work bringing something to bring a comfort to that.

Sid: Now could it be that someone would be busy in religious things would bring them comfort rather than… I mean their motivation is to medicate themselves by doing religious things rather than motivation in doing the kingdom of God.

Craig: We hate to think so but unfortunately that is the case. I ran into numerous missionaries on the field that as the truth were known when you got down to the bottom line the reason they’re doing what they’re doing is because something on the inside feels worthless and their own flesh has risen up with using exactly that mechanism if I can just do enough for God, if I could just do enough in the Kingdom then I could be a valuable person.

Sid: What happened to that fellow that was in drugs and got miraculously set free and then was working in the church helping other drug addicts and then everything came back.

Craig: Yeah 12 years later intense temptation to drugs came back and what we discovered when we just asked the Lord “Where is that coming from, what’s that root again” again God showed him a horrific experience that he had in his own family as a 6 year old being homosexually raped by his brother with his other brother just standing by watching not helping him. The result of that was an intense deep emotional lie imparted on the inside “You’re worthless, you have no value you’re only here to be used and abused by other people.” The result of that his own flesh rose up and used drugs in teenage years to comfort pain of that. Every time he’d be disappointed, hurt, wounded, shamed, made to feel worthless by other people it would stimulate the intense pain on the inside and that deep deep emotional pain “Your worthless.” Well, as we prayed the Lord exposed that to him and when he remembered the experience there was an intense hatred that came up in his heart toward his brother. And we said “Lord what do you want to do with that?” And he had the most amazing experience where the Lord Jesus Himself lifted that hatred off of him and said “I died for that, that’s why I died you’re not to wear that, you’re not to carry that anymore.” And the Lord Himself ministered to that, removed that and then he asked the Lord a key question “Lord on that day when my brother did that to me the devil was able to impart to me the answer to a deep question ‘Who am I?’ And the devil’s answer was ‘You’re nobody, you’re nothing, your worthless.’” And he said “Lord today I want You to answer that question.” And you know Sid the Lord just ministered to him the most beautiful thing about who he was. He said “Son, whose who I see you to be, you’re a royal prince; I love you you’re my son, you weren’t created to be abused by other people you were created to be loved, to be valued and to bring life to other people.” And here’s the most amazing thing, after the Lord ministered that to him the temptation to drugs was instantly gone and it was maintenance free, it wasn’t something he had to struggle to try to not think about anymore it just literally was not there. And again the temptation to drugs was the smoke just an external, the fire was the intense experience that happened to him. The fuel was the deep seated lie “You’re worthless.” And I know that we’ll probably be out of time shortly but tomorrow I would like to talk more about what that fuel is in people’s hearts, how it gets there and what we actually practically do so that the Lord can remove that fuel deep in our hearts.

Sid: Well, that’s the key, what about someone that’s fearful of speaking in public could that be something, smoke as you call it?

Craig: Many times that’s smoke because we know that fear is not coming from God. “God did not give us a spirit of fear” the Bible said. So many times people struggle with all kinds of fears that are….

Sid: Ah, we’re out of time…

Sid: My guest by way of telephone at his office in Lynwood, Washington, the Head of the Centennial Group George Otis, Jr. Perhaps your familiar with his father his father started Middle East Television. He started TV and radio throughout the Middle East and radio throughout the world. George was raised in that environment and he had his own encounter with the Lord which in a very supernatural fashion. God has been directing him especially in the area of documenting where entire cities are impacted for the Lord. Not just a few churches on fire for the Lord, but entire cities… George I have to tell you most people, most believers feel that “That’s not going to happen until the millennium.” What would you say to them?

George: Well, the good news is that these examples that were documenting are places that they can visit. They just need to find a week of time or a few days time buy a plane ticket and they can actually go and walk the streets of these communities and see what community transformation looks like. It is a faith building experience more and more people are actually visiting some of the locations that we’ve highlighted. And the communities that we’ve highlighted on our videos represent only a fraction of the case studies that we’re presently aware of which are now somewhere in the vicinity of 170 to 180 different locations.

Sid: Okay you were listing yesterday reasons why here in the west we don’t experience what’s happening in other areas, and the one that I have to trigger of all of them is the one called lack of hunger. Why do we have a lack of hunger here in the west is it that we have too many toys?

George: Yes, that’s a big part of it Sid we… you know how sometimes people summarize the 10 Commandments down into the first two. We can summarize I think the obstacles the transformation down into 2 things external distractions and internal offenses. And if we can overcome those 2 problems then we will see in our midst the Lord working in the same measure that He’s working in many regions and nation’s cities today.

Sid: So what’s your scenario how is this going to be overcome; to have us become a 3^rd world country that will sure do it.

George: That sometimes is what God will do and we need to see this sometimes as the grace and mercy of God. C.S. Lewis put it this way once he said “God’s love marshals me where I would go if I truly knew what I wanted.” So often we only think we know what we want it really isn’t what we want. And if God graciously sometimes highjacks the direction of our lives and our ministries and says “Listen, trust me I know where you would go if you truly knew what you wanted and I’m going to take you there.” And I think that what is happening today, in this country, that we are… we’re we’ve seen religious inertia become more valuable to us than genuine spiritual change. In other words if we’re active, if we’re just busy if things are happening all around us and there’s a lot of sound and energy and bodies we slip into this deception that were actually making progress. I’ll tell you how I would put it, I think that we are suffering from a form of deism. We in the west are more products of the enlightenment than we are in the book of Acts. We think that God got things all started He wound it all up and then He’s kind of left the scene for us to go ahead and figure out all of the fine print and details on our own. See you’ve got 100’s and 100’s of men and woman of western church today that are running like chickens with their head cut off trying to figure out what ought to be done rather than realizing God has an intense interest in the details and is about the details. So I think this issue of hunger requires us to get alone with God saying “God would you increase my appetite for those things that are proven to attract Your presence.”

Sid: Because you can’t work it up yourself… you know the hunger even comes from God.

George: That’s right it does and when we do that maybe it’s a hunger for unity or for holiness or for humility or for faith or for prayer or whatever it might be. It’s not that we have no appetite it’s that we have a bird like appetite. It’s like going into a restaurant after we had fellowship with the saints and we sit down to a meal and the waiter or waitress comes over and says “What can I bring you?” And we haven’t even cracked the menu so we send them away and then the 3^rd time they come back we’re embarrassed because we still don’t know and we just say off handedly “You know just bring me a cup of coffee.” That’s the response in the western church to the Holy Spirit who wants to bring us so much more we settle on a cup of coffee and a spiritual caffeine buzz; it’s just not going to take us where we need to go and where we truly would go if we knew what God could do for us.

Sid: Well, for example whet their appetite if you will so that people would at least pray “God give me the desire for unity, give me the desire to pray with my brothers and sisters so I can see the same thing.” Tell me about one of the cities on your transformation video Cali, Columbia. When I think of Columbia I think of drugs.

George: Well, most people do and that the extent of the reputation that was generated several years ago in the city of Cali which became the epicenter of the global cocaine cartel. There were over 100,000 people in this city that were on the direct, not the indirect, payroll of the cocaine cartels. This was a multibillion dollar enterprise. And I’ve seen their compounds down there and unless you’ve seen it you just can’t believe it. They were small cities within the city within their own air strips helipads their own shopping malls, their own restaurants. These drug lords would go to a restaurant in a city find a place they liked and would hire the cook and bring him into their compounds to start these private little restaurants. They would have underground tunnels connecting up to 25 massive mansions. And that would be only one compound and there were multiple ones within the city. They owned the police, they owned the banks, they owned the sport franchises, they ran everything. And so you can imagine what life in this city would have been like and to make matters worse the Body of Christ was so disunified, disunited, that one person told me Ministerial Association in the city of Cali several years ago consisted of one box of files that nobody wanted. (Laughing) That’s where they were at. And so in the midst of all 15 people a day were being murdered it was a mess. A few believers got so desperate they cried out to God and they said “You know we have to move the church together to call out to God to repent because that’s our only hope.” So they called an event in the municipal stadium there and to their surprise nearly 25,000 people showed up for an all night prayer vigil and they asked…

Sid: But you know what? They were desperate.

George: They were.

Sid: And that’s what we were just talking, here in the west we’re not desperate!

George: That’s exactly right we… we’re under the mistaken assumption that like the church at Sardis, and like the church at Laodicea, that we are in real good shape. And you’ll remember that what the Lord said to the Church at Sardis “You have a reputation of being alive but in fact you are dead.” And then He goes on to say “Now strengthen that which remains.” And what He’s saying there is “Return first love, move away from program and back to presence.” Because only God is capable of doing the heavy lifting that is required to see the community transformed. I believe that human programming and human charisma are adequate to see church growth, but they’re inadequate to see community transformation. Only God can do the heavy lifting as I said to bring that about. In the city of Cali, Columbia when they gathered together to cry out to God they began to initially talk to God about the violence problems. And that very weekend there headlines blazoned “No homicides” for the first time and as long as anybody could remember…

Sid: Are you saying the weekend these 25,000 Christians gathered for prayer there were no homicides?

George: It was that very same weekend that they talked to God about that issue. The city newspaper “El Pais,” and this is a community of about 3 million people headlined “No Homicide.” There had never been in anybody’s memory a weekend where nobody had been murdered in this city…

Sid: Oh, they figured something out real fast. George we’re out of time today.

Sid: We want everyone everywhere to be red hot for the Messiah, why? Well there’s so many people that talk about friendship evangelism and let’s wait until someone asks me about the Messiah. Well, let me tell you something my guest right now Hal Lindsey if he with his knowledge of end-time events and things happening so quickly that he does a world-wide television show that is on a 24 hour delay and he said “Sid it’s a too big a delay things are happening too rapidly.” Now on yesterday’s broadcast I’ll get a lot of people upset with me Hal if I don’t ask you the question. I wanted to know what you think of what is considered by the words of President Bush our good friend the nation Saudi Arabia.

Hal: I think that Saudi Arabia is probably one of the most dangerous of all of the nations in Islam. And the reason is because they have some of the most dedicated clerics to promote a radical form of Islamic fundamentalism. And it’s called Wahabism and you just look 15 of the 19 terrorist who struck the United States in the September 11, 2001 were Saudis. And you look at Al-Qaida; Al-Qaida the leadership is mostly composed of Saudis so they’re very very dangerous.

Sid: Now, in your video you happened to comment on what recently happened with President Bush when Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia visited him and he had some company; tell me about that.

Hal: Well, he had some Emmas with him that remained on the plane who had called for destruction of the United States. They were on the same plane with the Saudi Prince and one of them remained on the plane because is he’d have gotten off he would have gotten arrested. But these were some of the clerics of Islam from Saudi Arabia who have been the most prolific in their condemnation of the United States.

Sid: I’ve got a quote here by one of the men on the plane. “I am against America until this life ends until the Day of Judgment; I am against America even if the stones liquefy. My hatred of America if part of it was just contained in the universe the whole universe would collapse. America is the root of all evils, our good friends Saudi Arabia on the same plane they came in?

Hal: Yes, that is absolutely amazing but that is true. And this is why you know I love our President I believe he’s truly a believer but he is perhaps fatally flawed in his understanding of Islam. He stills keeps saying that Islam is a religion of peace; it is not! You know people say “Well, you know there are radicals that come out of Christianity just as there are radicals that come out of Islam.” This true but here’s the difference the more a person follows literally what the Bible says and the more he follows Jesus Christ the more he will be peaceful. But the more a person follows the Koran and follows the example of Mohammed the more he will become a terrorist.

Sid: You know Hal I’m concerned about the Trojan horse in America of these people that are involved in Islam. I heard recently that their latest strategy is to go to major American universities, offer them tremendous sums of money to build buildings on their campuses to make them schools of Islam. They then hire the whole faculty. And I’m told in many of the mosques in America that preaching this virulent brand of terrorism. Are you aware of these things that are going on right under our nose?

Hal: Oh, absolutely I follow them closely and they’re of great concern to me. You see the Saudi’s with a very very great assortment of money and they seek to buy their way in. And I believe that we just have to recognize that their goal is to convert the United States to Islam.

Sid: Are they succeeding in the United States, I know that their succeeding in the prisons.

Hal: Well, I have a cousin who is a chaplain in the prisons in Texas and Oklahoma and he said the greatest threat he sees is that they’re converting to Islam all kinds of prisoners that this almost a plague that their converting so many prisoners to Islam. And you know they bring with them the ferocity of their criminal life and it’s conducted into a sanctified form of hatred for America.

Sid: Okay, I understand how they’ve been successful in the prisons but how come what is the attraction of Islam to nations like Africa, places like Southeast Asia, Philippines, what is the attraction there of Islam?

Hal: Well, it has an enormous attraction particularly in Southeast Asia you know there’s a kind of a religious vacuum there and mankind has to have some kind of religion. They’re religious my nature and so it has had a tremendous appeal particularly Southeast Asia. For instance Indonesia is the most populous country of Islam in the world. And also it is the new foundation for Islam.

Sid: Well, tell me about…you state the Oklahoma bombings have direct ties to the Philippians, I haven’t heard that in the news!

Hal: This is something that I think is really being covered over deliberately because the perpetrators of that bombing in Oklahoma married a Philippine girl, he went back to the Philippians spent some time there with some of her relatives who are members of the radical violent Islamic group that are in the Philippines. So it’s believed that there’s a connection I know that World Net Daily has a book that they’re featuring that connects the dots on that.

Sid: Hm. Now you go into a lot of detail in your video “Evidence of the End Time” having to do with Africa. I mean I don’t understand why our news and our media are not making a big deal out of all of the non-Muslims that are being killed especially Christians by Muslims in Africa.

Hal: Yeah, this is something that is a travesty I mean you know we report all kinds of human injustices around the world but when it comes to the slaughter and the massacre of Christians by Muslims in the Africa it’s virtually glossed over. And I’ve heard one of the reasons is because it’s so dangerous correspondence don’t go there. But whatever the cause the spread of Islam in Africa is rampant.

Sid: I mean how large is Islam in Africa?

Hal: Well, and this is what is really amazing we talk about whose really responsible for sending slaves to the Americas and so forth. Well, it was the Muslims who would go in and conquer the African tribes and send them on these slave ships

Sid: I wasn’t aware of that.

Hal: Oh yeah it was Muslims that did that they were the worst slavers in history. And yet now these very ones that they used to prey about are being converted to Islam. And it’s a very decisive force in Africa. It’s one of the only really transnational organizing movements in all of Africa but its moving fast. And Ezekiel very definitely talks about the fact the descendants of Cush and Put would be a very big part of the force that launches the War of Armageddon.

Sid: And push and put…

Hal: But the black African’s and Put is the father of the North African people such as Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania; those are all descendants of this tribe called Put.   So and it’s interesting that all of those are Muslim countries.

Sid: How about Russia? I mean we know in the Bible in the last days how does Russia network with Islam?

Hal: Well, Ezekiel chapter 38 and also Daniel Chapter 11 verse 40 – 45 indicates that it would be this great power to the north. In fact Ezekiel says that they are the people that are to the extreme north of Israel in the last days. Well there’s only one nation to the extreme north of Israel and that’s Russia. It says that they’re going to make a strategic mistake, God will cause them to do it and they will align themselves with these Muslim confederacy, all of the nations around Israel which are Muslim. And they will supply them with weapons and they will lead them in the last great attack against Israel. And it will be because of the enormous wealth and prestige of Israel that they attack. So this is why I say something dramatic has to happen to Israel soon to give them enormous wealth.

Sid: Okay what about a Palestinian State based on your study of scripture, what your intuitive sense, will there be a Palestinian State before it’s over?

Hal: I guess there could be but I am so against it that it’s hard for me to accept. I don’t know if there will be one but it is possible. But I do know this that a big point is made in Ezekiel 38 about the people of Israel making a covenant with this Roman leader the anti-Christ. And they will be able to live without walls and you know this is talking about conditions in the last days.

Sid: Well, of course they’re putting in the big wall right now.

Hal: Yeah, cities are no longer walled but they’re talking about putting a wall….

Sid: Oh, we’re out of time…

Sid: My guest by way of telephone is Dr. James Richards I’m interviewing him on his book “How to Stop the Pain.” Pain maybe in evitable but suffering optional, but what’s even more exciting to me is there are walls between husbands and wives, children and parents, wives and husbands, pastors and members of the congregations, employers and employees, schoolmates everything these walls… and God is supernaturally showing us how these walls can come down and we don’t have to keep that pain Yeshua took the pain for us. But one of the most fascinating things Jim in your book has to do with the correlation between sickness and judgment. On yesterday’s broadcast you were saying that physiologically when we make judgments we open ourselves it’s almost like a door is open for sickness explain this.

Jim: Exactly that’s right and incredibly the mind always seeks equilibrium. In other words, the moment you pass a judgment everything in your mind and in your brain actually goes to work to prove that it’s true. There’s a little bundle of nerves…

Sid: Give me an example of a judgment and then explain what you’re explaining.

Jim: Okay the judgment is assuming to know why someone is doing something. Of course the brain actually does this on any assumption it doesn’t have to be a judgment. I’ll give you a good example let’s say you look down the street here and you a lady and she kind of dressed maybe what you might consider a little like a temptress or something.

Sid: And you see, hay not down the street you see them in church.

Jim: Yeah.

Sid: And you form that judgment, that everyone can relate there.

Jim: You say “This is why she is this way she’s loose she’s immoral.” And you watch her as she walks down the street and you notice that she’s walking up to men and talking to them. So you’re absolutely sure then that she’s a prostitute and that she’s trying to sell herself to these men. And everything that you begin to see there’s a little bundle of nerves called the reticular activating system at the base of the skull…

Sid: And you know the devil doesn’t even have to function in this you’re doing just fine you’re doing his job. (Laughing)

Jim: You’re doing his job and he’s taking a little break and laughing at you. Well the moment that you pass a judgment or make an assumption the reticular activating system starts changing the function of the brain and you go into selective processing and you begin to only see and notice those things that support your judgment or your opinion. So now you’re seeing all of this stuff that tells you this woman’s a prostitute. Now when she gets up to you she walks up to you you’re ready for her to proposition you she hands you a track and you find out that she’s a Christian and she was witnessing to those people and you didn’t even notice that she was carrying a Bible, and you didn’t even notice any of these other factors all you noticed would be those things that would support your judgment.

Sid: Selective editing.

Jim: And we do that I don’t know if you’ve ever done it you go to the grocery store and you’re wife says go pick up this stuff and make sure you get this brand and make sure that it doesn’t have any salt in it. You run in the grocery store you look at the label you pick it up you run back home; you open the bag and you proudly hand it to your wife and she’s like “What did you get this for?” And you look at it and its like “That’s not what I bought.” But you and I both know that you can look at something and believe that you’re reading a different label.

Sid: So we humans because of Adams original sin, our disposition is to judge and when we judge what happens now physiologically?

Jim: When we judge… here’s the incredible thing here’s the place that judgment and sickness comes together is basically the judgments we pass about ourselves and even the judgments that we pass about God. If I’m… see guilt brings the expectation of punishment. And so when I commit when I commit a particular sin when I struggle with something and I pass a judgment on God you know and maybe things begin to go wrong in my life I say “This is why this is happening God is doing this to me.” You know we run a substance abuse clinic for years and we found that you can’t get people off drugs and you can’t get people well if they believe God’s doing it to them or they believe that it’s punishment for something they’ve done.

Sid: Hm.

Jim: Now what happens every cell in the body actually has intelligence. With the advent of our understanding of DNA this has become common knowledge in the scientific community. And you figure that there’s enough intelligence in a cell to clone a human being possibly, we know that they can clone an animal so there’s a lot of intelligence there. Well that intelligence in every cell is not just intellectual intelligence it’s also emotional intelligence. So anything that you believe at a very deep level every cell in your body believes it and works to make it happen. So if I’m in expectation of punishment coming to me from something that I have done the fact that I’m expecting that, the fact that I have…

Sid: Isn’t that what Job was saying when he said “The thing that I feared…”

Jim: Sure.

Sid: “…has come upon me?”

Jim: Exactly, that’s what the children of Israel did. They said the tested or tempted God they put God on trial they passed the judgment that says “He could not be trusted.” And that’s why they fell in the wilderness. So the person that believes something every cell in their body works and if you believe for example that you’re unworthy of success then every time you have the opportunity to succeed you’re going to have a conflict with your boss and something’s going to go wrong. And you can scream at the devil you can pray more but the truth is until you release your judgments and renew your mind it’s going to keep going that way.

Sid: Someone that’s accident prone that might be the reason.

Jim: Exactly. Interesting thing, I don’t know if we have enough time to go into this, but I had a problem that where every time I had an off day I got sick. I either got sick, felt bad or injured myself. And so this went on for years and finally after several years in my lightning quick mind I said “There’s a problem, there’s something wrong here.”

Sid: (Laughing)

Jim: I spent some time in prayer and meditation just seeking God and the Lord brought to my memory a time when I was a child and my father had come home and beat my mother all night. And the next morning she was getting ready to go to work I was extremely emotional I was crying and I was pleading with her “Please do not go to work.” And she said “Son as long as I’m able I have to work.” Now I developed a belief from that that said “The only reason not to work is to not be able.” Out of that belief every time I’d get an off day I’d get sick or injure myself and when I realized that all of this was emerging out of my own heart it was as simple as releasing that belief choosing a new belief and moving on and bringing an end to it and it doesn’t happen anymore.

Sid: Do you think that all sicknesses is a result of what you just described?

Jim: No, I don’t think that all sicknesses are we have physiologically things that happen to us. I have found that the ability to recover from sickness is directly related to our beliefs and particularly our beliefs about worthiness.

Sid: Give me another specific example.

Jim: A specific example?

Sid: Yes.

Jim: I have had dozens of people in my clinic that this has happened to. A person comes in… I’ll give you one on weight loss this is

Sid: Oh, I want that one.

Jim: There’s somebody that comes in their… and this actually happened a lady she was probably 300 pounds overweight she had tried everything in the whole world nothing ever worked. I began to work with her and she had lost about 80 or 100 pounds. Suddenly she just loses her mind, metaphorically, goes crazy goes on an eating binge disappears won’t come back into the clinic. Now ultimately what I was eventually able to discover in working with her was that she had a belief that if she was thin that she would get into sin because she had a promiscuous past. And she had passed this judgment about herself and about why I do this and why you know why it would happen to me if I looked thin again. And so even though she was getting the desired results she sabotaged it. Actually studies show that most people’s fatal illness occur at their moments of great opportunity.

Sid: Explain that.

Jim: Really most people don’t believe that they deserve to retire they’ve worked all of their life they don’t feel qualified, they don’t feel it’s right that they have something. Like in my example I grew up believing that I was unlovable. So when I would get in a relationship the moment the relationship would begin to become good I would destroy it and run. See the same thing happened with sickness, it happens with finances if we live out our beliefs and judgments and literally can’t see life any other way.

Sid: Jim how did you come to all of this understanding? This is brilliant it really is.

Jim: Well again you know fortunately for me I wasn’t raised in church so I didn’t have a lot of preconceived ideas. And when I read the Bible I didn’t read it so much from a mystical point of view I read it from a very practical point of view. And really all of this came out of number 1 the pages of the Bible, and then me applying this to my personal life. Then taking it into the lives of the people that I have ministered to for these 30 years.

Sid: Quick give me a testimony of somebody that’s read your book and what’s happened to them.

Jim: This doesn’t have anything to do with healing but one particular testimony pops in mind was a man who calls me and he said “You know something my wife and I have been reading your material.” And he said “We’ve been married we’ve come from a strict background not a lot of love and compassion shown in his background.” He said “You know for the first time in 21 years out of her own initiative she put her arms around me and told me she loved me.”

SID: Now how would you like to have been caught up out of your body, go right through the roof of your house as if it wasn’t there, escorted by angels into Heaven and be chosen to hear a discussion between God and the Messiah about the End Times. Carlos, tell me one thing you eavesdropped on.

CARLOS: I remember hearing clearly that they talked about the difficult hour that lay ahead and how the church would, given the opportunity, to be purged and the opportunity to really experience the greatness of what still lays ahead, the greatest outpouring of the Spirit of God. But clearly, the way the download I was receiving is, I heard all that, reminded me very much of the readings that, you know, you do on an annual basis as a regular Christian on the End Times Book of Revelation, the Book of Daniel. So I remember listening to this conversation and I was brought to my memory was all the judgments that are coming based upon the Book of Revelation and also Joel, Book of Daniel. But I received and I felt like this is an hour, an opportunity for the church to be stronger and to understand the importance to be ready and alert. Because my sense is, for the most part, the body of Christ for the most part is not prepared for what is about to take place.

SID: Okay. Do you think you’ll be alive when all this happens?

CARLOS: I firmly believe that I will be alive. I believe that my eyes will physically see the coming of the Lord. And when you study church history, those who remain on fire for the Lord, even the Apostle Paul and Peter, they believed in their day, in their hour that they would see the coming of the Messiah, the coming of the Lord. And I feel like the church must understand once again End Time eschatology. We must be students, we must understand the signs, the seasons, the hour that we’re living in so that we can live an urgent life. And when we have that understanding of sense of urgency our hearts, our lives, are completely given to the Lord. I feel that there’s a greater surrender as a result of understanding the hour that we’re living in.

SID: Okay. But then the most terrifying thing that ever happened to Carlos happened to him in Heaven. What happened?

CARLOS: What happened is they went from discussing about the urgency of the hour, they went from discussing about the greatest outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the greatest miracles, not all gloom and doom, there’s great hope. But then the hope culminates in this incredible manifestation that I believe the Spirit of God is doing right now, and that is this. I heard the Father say to Jesus, “It’s time, Son, go get your bride.”

SID: What did that mean to you?

CARLOS: At first, I was shocked and stunned. But I had this doubt and this understanding, and revelation that I as part of the Church of Christ, in that moment, I was not prepared and I was not ready to really see him come back. Even though we may have the right confession, we may have the right lingo, we may say the right words, but in reality for the most part, many of us in the church, including myself at that time, I was not ready, was not prepared. And so when those words came out of the Father to the Son, I remember this, it was the most horrible fear. I call it the terror of the Lord, the most horrible fear and terror that I had ever felt. It was like those words rolled out of his mouth like a ball, a ball of fire. And I remember those words just rolling towards me, and I knew it was going to hit my midsection. And when it hit my body, I remember trembling violently and I couldn’t contain myself, and I felt that these words, something was going to come out my mouth. I tried to hold myself back and I couldn’t. I remember yelling out loud and feeling the condition of my heart when I cried out, “No! We’re not ready!” That’s what I did. I raised my fists.

SID: You weren’t even thinking this. It came out from your innermost, this man is not ready. What about us? I’ll tell you what. He was downloaded from Heaven how to be ready. Now when he says “ready”, he doesn’t mean repenting of sins. He repented of his sins. He doesn’t mean having the Messiah live inside of him. The Messiah lives inside of him. When he said, “I’m not ready,” he meant, “I am not prepared to be involved in the next, in the greatest and perhaps the last move of the presence of God, of the mercy of God on Planet Earth.” And he was commissioned on what he had to do to be ready and what you have to do to be ready. By the way, I heard something about you. Someone has pain in their neck and their back, and I tell you, in the Messiah of Israel’s name, if you have a pain in your neck, move your head. You’ll see the pain is gone. Or stand up and bend over, you’ll see the pain is gone. And I’m going to be right back and tell you how you will not miss the moment of your visitation.

Sid: I want everyone everywhere to be red-hot for the Messiah. And what is red-hot?  Well just listen to this Jewish man and Sid Roth and this former Muslim man Akef Tayem. And Akef was born in Haifa, Israel. He’s a Palestinian Arab; he had an encounter that he could never deny with Jesus. He literally was taken up to the 3^rd heaven and when Jesus touched his right hand it burned with a fire to the point that when he started sharing his testimony literally the first time a man got out of a wheelchair and started walking. Akef you don’t know me to well, I hope that we get to know each other better but I love for God to perform miracles to demonstrate His power. Please tell me one more miracle you saw when you prayed for someone back then.

Akef:  Well the 3 churches, The Assembly of God, Church of God, and the Baptist Church I asked them if they would help me set up a little tent and they…

Sid: This is what you were making fun of with that Christian girl and you’re doing it now.

Akef:  I know and isn’t that amazing.  (Laughing)

Sid: (Laughing)

Akef:  So they did they got together and they got me a little tent and I was having a meeting in it. And of course a lot of things go on and I was more into my amazing, the healing was great. I mean it was fascinating but I was more amazed with what happened to your heart or somehow. And I was contemplating on that part. You know how God cleanses you because I felt new. I honestly… I see the expression “You must be born again.”  I honestly felt like a new person.  So during one of these services two ladies brought their mother, actually carrying her, helping her walk they dragged her in.  And they told me that she was given up for to die she said “The doctors let her out of the hospital, she had cancer in her lungs that spread too far, lymph nodes.” I think she said something like that.  And they told her to just go to her home and it will be just a few days and she’ll pass away.  I started to pray, I still didn’t get this concept thing of healing I guess when I look back. Because when I started praying for the 2 sisters and not for the mother. Saying “Lord, be with the them help them when their mother passes away.  I said, and I would stop. And a voice inside said “No, no pray for her.”  I didn’t understand that, so the third time I just pray for her. And I told the lady “I don’t know but the Lord is telling me to pray for you.”  So I prayed for her and a few days later she came by and I couldn’t even recognize her because she was… there was no color in her face for one thing.  And now she had color, she was red, she had blood flowing through her.  She came with a manila envelope and she showed me x-rays from her doctor. And that cancer shrunk and it became the size of a dime.  And it remained the size of a dime, she was healed but I don’t understand it was like a scar.  I kept in touch with her for maybe 5, 6, 7 years and she told me that the scar is there but…

Sid: Did the cancer every come back?

Akef:   No, no, no.

Sid: Akef we have to go on now.  Every time I go to New York City, just about every time I get a taxi driver and he’s a Muslim and I start witnessing to him. And the first thing and when I start quoting the scriptures the Jewish scriptures the Torah or I start quoting the New Testament he says “Oh, it’s all mistranslated.”  And I can’t even have a discussion with him. What would you say if you were able to sit down and talk to a Muslim taxi driver and he was to say to you “I don’t want to look at the Old Testament, I don’t want to look at the New Testament it’s all been changed by the Jews and the Christians. What would you say to them?

Akef:  Well for one thing I would understand where he’s coming from.

Sid: Where is he coming from?

Akef:  Well we are taught that Sid; we are taught that as children growing up. I don’t even know at what age; it looks like I was born with this thought I don’t know. But this is instilled in us.  We grow up believing that the Torah, Old Testament, has been changed by the Jews. The New Testament has been changed by the Christians and that it is not reliable and we are to just stay away from it.

Sid: Are you allowed to read it?

Akef:  No, no there is no such thing as we are discouraged. We are discouraged to read; I mean it would be foolish if a Muslim saw another Muslim reading the Torah. It just doesn’t even happen.

Sid: Okay, I want you to talk to this Muslim taxi driver.  You talk to him one on one right now.

Akef: Well what I found out, and it’s very interesting, is that they Koran never says Mohammed and the Koran never says “That the Torah was altered or changed or corrupted.” And I was very fascinated, and intrigued and puzzled when I came across that in the Koran.  That nowhere does it say that the Torah has been corrupted, and I couldn’t understand how and why would I grow up and every Muslim grows up believing that the Torah should not be looked at, read, believed because it has been altered.

Sid: Did Mohammed say that the New Testament was altered?

Akef:  Well, the thing with the New Testament is different.  What it’s interesting is that Mohammed and his follower’s red the Torah and the gospel on several occasions that are referred to. They consulted the Torah and a matter of fact Mohammed tells the Jews and the Christians he tells them “You don’t have anything unless you do what is between your hands,” which is an Arabic idiom for the book that you have between your hands. He tells them in other words, “Unless you read and you do what the Bible says and what the scripture says you have nothing in you.” And so my concern was then “Where did this come from?”  What Mohammed says in the Koran is that the Jews misinterpreted falsely interpreted because Mohammed could not read Hebrew so he would ask the Jews to interpret to him.  One of his main things he wanted to know any prophecies foretelling his coming. Because he knew that Jesus was foretold. So he really believed that he was foretold also.  And that’s one of the things that he didn’t like about the Jews and he said “You changed what was in it.”

Sid: In other words he thought that the Torah would predict that Mohammed was going to come. And when he was trying to find things from the Jews he was upset with the Jews and the Torah because it didn’t talk about him.

Akef:  Well, no he…you’re right but he thought that the Jews were lying to him.

Sid: Oh, I see.

Akef:  The Torah was actually it does mention…

Sid: That’s how we came up with it because he couldn’t even read Hebrew.

Akef:  That’s right.  And the Muslim Apologetics and the Hadith clearly state that, and the Imam that I talk to you later on, that it clearly makes it very clear that nowhere in the Koran that Mohammed say that anything was altered. But it was misinterpreted.

Sid: That’s a big difference; that’s when you saw that what did you think?

Akef:  Well, well I was amazed; I was puzzled you know. Then to add to this frustration  I wanted to find out when or how were we convinced; so many Muslim’s growing up why are we so convinced. And I found out when the lie was perpetrated.  And there’s no other way to call it.  It happened after the death of Mohammed.

Sid: So Mohammed had nothing to do with this lie.

Akef:  No, Mohammed had nothing to do with it.

Sid: Who did it?

Akef:  It was Abu Bakr was the first Caliph which would be like the Pope is to the Christians. He is the Imam the leader after Mohammed.

Sid: So he was the first leader after Mohammed.

Akef:  That’s right he was he was Aisha’s father it was Mohammed’s neighbor’s wife..

Sid: So what was his motivation?  Why did he do that?

Akef:  Well, that is a long. You know a long story it would take while. But what I found out is that it was a deliberate attempt on his part to convince the early converts to Islam.  Not to refer to the Torah because here is what happened…

Sid: Oh, no stop right here we’re out of time!   

SID: I mean, what a devastating thing. A young boy, the one that’s been with him his whole life that he thinks is his father and he knew his natural father, but he didn’t know him as “father”. And his father brings him, in the basement and tells him the truth. How old were you?

JOHN: I figured about six.

SID: At six, what affect did it have on you?

JOHN: From that moment on I did not want to live with my mother and my stepfather. I wanted to be with my dad. And it brought in, it developed that spirit of loneliness was deep with me. I had, it was a supernatural spiritual loneliness. It brought a feeling of rejection in. It actually brought fear into me because I remember I was afraid he would try that again. And I never was, from that day on, I was never comfortable in the family. And it devastated me inside as a little six year old. And that was that problem. It broke my heart at six and it carried over when I came to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

SID: Okay. You have the revelation that you have a broken heart. You now realize when it happened.

JOHN: Yes.

SID: You know exactly. What did you do about it?

JOHN: I cried out to the Lord to heal my heart. And Sid, it took me with the Lord about two or three weeks of prayer. And I can remember laying in bed at night with tears rolling down out of my eyes with this feeling of loneliness and emptiness, and it got to the point where I realized then that I know why a spouse will die like within a year after a spouse passes away.

SID: I’ve noticed that pattern.

JOHN: That loneliness, that’s what I actually felt. It felt like I was dying. That’s how severe it was. And then I cried out and I said, “Lord, if I die over this then I go to be with you, but I’m staying and I’m believing you’re going to heal my heart.” And literally, I could feel relief. It like came like that. It just came like up and out.

SID: It sounds easy, John.

JOHN: Well those two weeks, three weeks leading up to it, for me, was not easy. But the Lord delivered. I began a whole new man. That emergency brake feeling came off.

SID: But what about that fear, the loneliness, the loneliness you explained, the rejection, what about those things?

JOHN: I began to see how I operated in my life. One of the healing, one of the ministries of Jesus Christ is to open the eyes of the blind. And all of a sudden I began to see like now that my heart was healed actions that I did to protect that heart, and also the way I interacted with people with the fear of rejection and not wanting to be rejected, and things I said, and things. There was a whole complete revelation and I began to confess it to the Lord and say, “Lord, I’m not living with fear anymore.” I didn’t even know it was there.

SID: I heard a man once say, God never sets you free of your friends. He sets you free of your enemies. And he had no idea there was an enemy called fear. But this is the amazing thing. Once the heart is restored then these other critters that are enemies, they literally have to go.

JOHN: That’s right.

SID: It’s so wonderful. But tell me when the Bible talks about the ministry of Jesus was to restore the broken hearted, what does the word “broken” mean in Hebrew?

JOHN: That’s a real good question. And it’s actually Hebrew and Greek really mean the same thing. It means a violent shattering. There’s the word “violent”. And it’s like you have like this glass here and I took it and I just didn’t drop it, but I threw it down on the ground.

SID: There would be no way to restore that.

JOHN: It splinters apart and that is what the Bible describes as a broken heart. And Sid, there is nothing human on this earth that can heal a broken heart. It can only be, it’s supernatural, it can only be healed by Jesus Christ. That’s his ministry.

SID: Tell me about the woman with ulcerated colitis.

JOHN: Well what happened, Sid, is when my heart was healed, all of a sudden I would come in contact with people and in my mind I would hear, I would look at you for example and I’d hear “broken hearted, broken hearted”. And I would go up to you very politely, I just didn’t yell at you. I’d say, “Excuse me, but I believe the Lord is telling me you have a broken heart.” And people would start crying and it was amazing. The Lord is putting people across my path who need to be ministered to. So this ministry started to develop, just happened when I’d see instant results. Sometimes the results would take a while, but instant results. And this one woman had a powerful spirit of rejection. It happened when she was about five or six years old, just like you mentioned, rejected by kids, and all her life this rejection just continued. She had two husbands that left her and they liked divorced her on a Friday, and then married another woman on a Monday. And that, she was just, she had like a self-hatred of herself. And when I ministered to her about the broken heart it was very hard for her to receive that God loved her because of her broken heart. Even though she believed in the Lord, I know that this sounds weird, but that’s what happens with a broken heart. Jesus was her savior. But the reality of calling God, Abba Father, she couldn’t do it. She said, “I can’t do it.” It took a couple prayer sessions. And she had ulcerated colitis, where about four or five years, she was in the final stage of it. I mean, it was critical. She was anemic, bleeding severely. Finally, she broke through with Abba Father, her heart was healed and at that point my ministry, now what I do is if someone has physical issues, when I pray with them for a broken heart, we also pray for the physical issue. Because a lot of times the physical issue is caused by the broken heart, the fear and anxiety, and tension. So we prayed and her ulcerated intestines were healed right there on the spot.

SID: Once the heart is healed, the emotions get healed. The physical body gets healed.

JOHN: Yes.

SID: John has even gone into mental institutions in hopeless cases. One of the most hopeless cases they had in a mental institution was her heart was healed, she was healed. But I’ll tell you what, I want you to pray a supernatural prayer with John, because this is what he found out. The gift is growing. The same thing happened with me. I started laying hands on people and they got physically healed. Then I started speaking it, not even laying hands, and they got just as healed. I’ll have him pray for you when we come back.

Sid:  On yesterday’s broadcast I was speaking to my good friend Jonathan Bernis.  You’re familiar with him perhaps you’ve seen him on television “Jewish Voice with Jonathan Bernis.” We were talking about when… how many years ago was that we used to pray in tongues and supernatural languages Jonathan?

Jonathan:  Sid we’re coming up on 30 years; it was 1984, 85, 86 so…

Sid: So we used to get together for days of prayer and fasting and praying in tongues.  And you started doing things that frankly you didn’t understand and I didn’t understand.  As we got deeper into praying in tongues you started travailing like a woman in childbirth and we didn’t even know what was going on. But when you pray in supernatural languages you are prophesying your future.  And by the way the devil doesn’t have a clue.  And I’m reminded of another experience Jonathan we had.  We both went to a camp meeting with Kenneth Hagin, and he called us forward and he prophesied over me in English.  And then he prophesied over you but what happened to you when he started to prophesy?

Jonathan: Well the power of God came all over me and He began to speak in other tongues, in other languages.  I believe that he was prophesying directly to my spirit.  And it could have been about the call to Russia; the Jewish people in Russia in the Soviet Union.  But I knew that something was going on it was bypassing my mind. Frankly Sid maybe what he was saying if I had processed it with my mind I would have been in unbelief but because it came out in other tongues it went directly into my spirit and released faith.

Sid: But I found it interesting; he did that because he did not want the devil to even hear this word.  I’m convinced of that and the presence of God I mean you were out; you didn’t even… I had to tell you what happened because you didn’t even know what was going on.

Jonathan: I know.

Sid: And actually, I’ll tell you when it was; it was January 26, 1995. Let me read to you and mine was in English.  And this is what he prophesied over me.  “Earnest sincere desires, hungry in your spirit will be satisfied.  Fulness, fulness, fulness ability imparted on to you.”  And then he began to laugh (Ha, ha, ha, ha) “Stand the test, win the battle, do the work, great work.  Many will be gathered, many, many, many, many.”  And you know what?  I have found since that point when he started doing (Ha, ha, ha, ha) that when I pray in supernatural languages when the prayer has gotten to heaven and it really has gotten through I start speaking ha, ha, ha, ha.  And I know that I’m laughing at the devil you don’t have a clue of what I’m saying Mr. devil you must be going mashuga, you must be going crazy. (Laughing)

Jonathan:  That’s right and I begin to laugh hysterically sometimes when something’s been broken in the spirit.  And then it materializes in the flesh; it’s an amazing thing.  First in the spirit and then in the natural.

Sid: And you had to raise ridiculous sums of money to bring all the people from the United States to the former Soviet Union and do these big Jewish concerts and dance festivals and outreaches.  I’m convinced again you were even prophesying the money that would come in for it. And you had it come in in a very supernatural fashion.

Jonathan: Absolutely true and I’m sure that that was the case.  Sid when we had our first outreach.  You remember that big beautiful hall like the Carnegie Hall of St. Petersburg?  When I rented that hall I had no money; no money at all.  No money for the hall rental, no money for the advertising, no money for the plan tickets, no money for the hotel, no money for the sound and lights; nothing, nada.  And through prayer, and I belive much of it supernatural and other tongues, I got a call from someone that I’d never met that ended up paying for 80% of the entire event.  One person; never met him and he heard about me and called me right before I left for Russia.

Sid: But I got to impress on those that we’re mentoring right now if you and I some 30 years ago did not spend days praying and fasting and speaking in supernatural languages I don’t believe these things would have happened.  I mean when I walk around It’s Supernatural Ministry and I realize that we have state of the art and the buildings all paid for and we’re all over the world and we’re going now into the Spanish language and we’re in the Russian language all over the former Soviet Union.  And we’re in the Farsi language and I say “Who could possibly have believed that?”  But Jonathan you said that there was a second key in addition to speaking in tongues that triggered your faith.  What was that?

Jonathan:  Sid let me just say this “Without faith it’s impossible to please God.”  And I don’t think that anything of lasting value; I’m talking about that which remains after the wood, hay, and stubble is burned away happens any other way than through faith.  Unless the Lord build the house those who labor labor in vane; and that is built through faith.  The second way that we can build faith and hear from God and release things prophetically and see creative miracles is through the word of God.  Confession of the Word of God Roman’s 1:17 tells us that “Faith comes from hearing and that hearing by the word of God.”  Now that verse has the hearing twice in it.  And that’s not by accident; I don’t want people to miss this.  There’s two kinds of hearing everyone; there’s hearing with the natural ear and there’s hearing secondly with the ear of the Spirit.  And the gateway to the ear of the Spirit is the natural ear; we confess the word of God; we confess the word of God; and eventually we hear it with the inner ear of our spirit. And when it gets into our spirit it releases faith; faith is built up. And when we confess it again it’s creative it has force.  And it becomes what we decree drops into the natural realm when we see it come to pass.

Sid: Let me read a prophesy from Malachi chapter 3 verse 16 & 17.  It blew me out of the water when I read this the other day.  “Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another and the Lord listened and heard them. So a book of remembrance was written before him; for those who fear the Lord and who mediate on His Name they shall be Mine.”  There’s that meditating again.

Jonathan: Yeah, that mediate; that word mediation is different than the Christian concept of meditation.  The Christian concept of meditation is to reflect with the mind.  But the Hebrew which is Haga and that should be familiar to Jewish people listening we have the Haggadah which is to tell the story of Passover. It’s to confess; it’s to confess; it’s to groan; it’s to sigh to mutter; to speak forth.  And when God exhorted Joshua to be strong and to take the land.  He said “To mediate confess; speak forth on my word day and night and if you do that you’ll be successful and you’ll take the land.”

Sid: Now, let’s go to this beautiful coffee table book “Confessing the Hebrew Scriptures with a CD inside and it’s called “The Lord is Peace.”  Take me through this.

Jonathan:  Okay Sid this is a work book that’s what I call these; these series on confessing the Hebrew workbook.  It is a beautiful bound book that would be a great coffee table book; with beautiful restful pictures.  And so on the back there’s a CD; you put the CD in and you begin to follow along in the English and then the Hebrew. And then I employ a technique a system I learned growing up in synagogue called “Transliteration.”  Very few Jewish people can actually read Hebrew anymore so our prayer books have this transliteration which is phonetically sounding out the Hebrew in English so we can read along and be part of the prayers in the synagogue.  Well I’ve employed that method to this workbook; so without any study; without any knowledge of Hebrew in 5 minutes you can be confessing scriptures related to this name of God, Jehovah Shalom, or Adonai Shalom.  Peace, rest, breaking through anxiety, fear and so on.  And you’re actually confessing the word of God in the Hebrew language along with a Hebrew speaker on the CD with beautiful music in the background.  And Sid by doing that you’re speaking in the tongue of the prophets; scriptures that directly combat anxiety, fear, tension, depression.  And the word shalom is related to completion, the wholeness and it actually drops into your spirit eventually.  You’re building faith, it actually changes you; I promise anyone that will actually put this to work will be changed in a week.

Sid: This is brand new but you’ve had a similar one out on healing; but you know what this combines both of them because as you explained the word shalom completeness. Complete in your spirit, in your soul and in your body.  So every area of life and this day and age we’re living in many feel as the Orthodox Jews do that we’re in the footsteps of Messiah.  And everything that can shake is going to be shaken and if you have built into your spirit the shalom, the completeness of God no weapon formed against you can prosper.  But what types of feedback did you get when you did this several years ago?  What types of healings and testimonies did you get?

Jonathan:  Well, we had some great testimonies Sid; we had people that were completely delivered; supernaturally delivered.  I had a very touching letter from a pastor who actually heard about this resource on your program and they ordered the workbook “Jehovah Rophek, the Lord our healer.”  And he gave it to a woman in his church who was dying of Leukemia and she began to play it.  In fact the doctors gave her 10 to 12 days to live. He gave her the CD and the workbook, she listened to it continually; she confessed these scriptures and she was completely healed.  The doctors declared that she was completely healed that she didn’t even have Leukemia cells in her body at all.  And then her body began to produce blood cells again.  And she has lived to declare the works of the Lord; amazing testimony it’s just one of many that we’ve received through people that have received this and put it to work in their life.

Sid:  We want everyone everywhere to be red hot for the Messiah.  As a matter of fact, I can’t understand why everyone is not red hot for the Messiah.  Do you know red hot is normal? Lukewarm, you get vomited out of God’s mouth according to the book of Revelation, and cold I don’t have to define that you know what cold is.  So red hot is normal and if you’re not normal then you’ve turned into the right station at the right time because I’ve got a man that’s also like me; he’s red hot.  You’ve heard of the organization he started Promise Keepers. His name is Coach Bill McCartney.  Many of you know him because of his supernatural, and I do say supernatural coaching career.  On yesterday’s broadcast we found out that when he was a Coach at the University of Colorado he did okay but nothing special. His Pastor comes walking up to him and he said “He had a dream about him and that he’d be Coach of the Year and that he’d have a golden year.”  Coach just for those that didn’t hear it yesterday or those that need to hear it again tell me again what the Headlines said and what the year was like in Colorado after that prophecy.

Coach:  Well Pastor James Rowel told me that we’re going to have a Golden Season and that I would be the National Coach of the Year.  Then we played our first game on national television against the University of Texas.  And the next day in the Denver Post right across the Front Page it said “Buff’s” short for Buffalos; we were the Colorado Golden Buffalos.  It said “Buff’s Debut Golden Season.”  That was a shocking headline because you don’t win 1 game and have somebody say you’re having a Golden Season, and you don’t make 1 game and make the front page.  But what happened was we won all 11 games; we ranked number 1 at the end of the regular season.  I was selected the National Coach of the year and truly we had a Golden Season.

Sid:  Coach, tell me about the time someone yelled to you during a football game “Where is your God now?”

Coach:  It was years later when I took a team back to Ann Arbor to play the University of Michigan. Prior to the game the Lord had showed me during the summer in July that a passage in scripture Promise Keepers had exploded on the scene we were filling stadiums.  And in the second chapter of Haggai the 2^nd verse it says “You will shake the nations.”  When I mediated on that verse I really understood at that time that God was going to shake the nations with this ministry Promise Keepers this men’s ministry.  Then a little further down in the 2^nd chapter in the 18^th verse it says on the 9^th month on the 24^th day I will bless you.  And I looked on the calendar I did what you would do if you were a football coach; I looked to see if on the 9^th month on the 24^th day if we had a game.  And low and behold we were going to play the University of Michigan where 13 years ago I had come and really I had come in a prophetic sense and when God had kind of moved me to Colorado.   So I asked the Lord even though on the Jewish calendar on the 9^th month and the 24^th day isn’t September the 24^th still I asked the Lord “Can I receive that, are you going to bless me?” And the Lord affirmed to me that He was going to bless me on that day.  Sure enough we’re playing Michigan and we get there I got to tell you this piece to the story.  When we get there it is Friday and in the Ann Arbor news it had my picture on the sports page that wouldn’t be unusual both teams were undefeated this was a nationally televised game.  This was a big game by any stretch of the imagination. So below my picture though it says Matthew 7:24 it says “This man built his house on rock.”  For those of you that aren’t familiar with the verse it says “Whoever hears these words of mine and does them is like a wise man who builds his house on rock; whoever hears these words of mine and doesn’t do them is like a foolish man that builds his house on sand.”  Then it says, “Storms are coming everyone is promised storms but the one who builds his house on rock his house ill endure.”  So anyway you know it’s this picture of me and it’s this picture verse and trust me the Ann Arbor News doesn’t quote scripture on the sports page.  And so this was highly unusual well, the next day we’re playing; we’re trailing late in the game and we’ve got time for one more play and people are familiar with football may remember this situation and we were on our own 33 yard-line time for one play left and a guy stood up in the stands, there’s 107,000 people at the game, and at this time there was just a little bit of a lull in the action so the stadium had quieted just momentarily waiting for them to move the yard sticks. This guy just bellowed out loud enough for 1000’s of people to hear. He says “McCartney where is your God now?”  Well on the next play we completed a pass a deflected pass that went for a touchdown, we won the game it was called the play of the year in college football

Sid: You knew that you were going to win though.

Coach:  My God showed up.

Sid: (Laughing) You’d be in big trouble if you God did not show up!

Coach:  That’s right your God’s got to show up.

Sid: You and I are talking about other things before this broadcast and you keep saying to me is “All I want is God to show up.”

Coach:  Amen.

Sid:  You know that’s all I want and that’s all everyone that’s listening that’s all you need you don’t need anything else.  And in our peanut brains we try to figure out and we try to calculate and we try to plan, and the truth of the matter is that scripture that you said yesterday “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not in your own understanding and acknowledge Him in all of your ways and He will direct your path.”

Coach:   You know I’m wanting to come really close; I mean I want to be fully intimate.  I want all that He has for me; I want to be filled with His Spirit.  I don’t want to chase my tail; I don’t want to squander my days. I don’t want to just be a guy who knew the Lord; I want to be a guy who serves the Lord.

Sid: Give me some advice; I think any true Christian wants what you said but the flesh, the devil, other things they’re strong forces coach.

Coach:  Here’s what I would say; I would say “Take God at His word; go after Him pursue Him.”  The Bible says “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”  And so you get up in the morning and you get up early enough to have a time with Him and then you pursue Him.  And whether you think He showed up that day or not you just keep pursuing Him. Day after day after day you know what you’re going to discover that He’s going to wrap His arms around you; He’s going to breathe on you; He’s going to fill you with His Holy Spirit.  He promises to do that because scriptures says in Matthew 5:6 it says “Blessed is he who hungers and thirst for righteousness for he shall be filled.”  In other words if you hunger and thirst to be right with God if you have to have Him at all costs and you pursue Him like that.  See Jeremiah 13 says “You shall seek Me and you shall find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.”  God’s not looking for a part-time believer as Sid has said that is red hot.  Now God may test you; you may go two weeks, God wants to be sure that you’re not going to turn back.  Then He’s going to fill you with His Spirit and when He fills you with His Spirit it’s just a whole new way to live and die.  It is the abundant life; now you take Him everywhere you go everything you’re involved in. Whether it’s coaching football, whether it’s men’s ministry or whether it’s being a good husband or father; whatever it is you take Him with you.

Sid: You know Coach I just want to PS to something that you’re saying.  It doesn’t matter whether you feel like it; it doesn’t matter whether you say “Well, I don’t know if my hearts want You as much as my mind says, but I’m going to go after you with as an act of my will God because I really want to make contact with you.  I really need to have intimacy with you.” God can’t resist that can He coach?

Coach:  He’s a rewarder of those that who diligently seek Him; but you must believe that He is God.  And so you got to go after Him and take Him at His word until He shows up.

Sid: Well, we did it again we’re just about out of time… very few people know about the origins of Christianity, the Jewish roots of Christianity.  Very few Christians understand where traditional Judaism went astray; very few Christians understand areas where traditional Christianity went astray.  Before Jesus returns, I have it on good authority the Word of God there will be the glorious church; the glorious congregations.  Do you know why it will be the glorious church? Because it will be filled with manifest presence of God.  Someone will not have to lay hands on you in this glorious church you’ll just have to walk into the cloud; that same cloud that Moses walked in.  Did you know that Moses lived 120 years of age? He had a secret of youth; he just spent a lot of time in the glory; that’s what Coach McCartney is talking about.  You don’t get old in that glory… I believe the greatest move on planet earth of God’s Spirit where more souls are going to come in.  But the truth of the matter is God wants to use you; God wants to use everyone but most people will miss this move because there looking for God in a different way.  I don’t know exactly how the move will be but I know some of the ingredients…