Sid Roth - The Secret to Powerful Prayers
My guest got set free from drug addiction in one supernatural moment from God. Then he set 150 students in high school free from their addictions, next.
Sid Roth: Hello! Sid Roth here with Corey Russell and Corey I'm going to take you back to 1997. I'm looking at you right now and I'm saying, "How could that be the same guy"? But in 1997 you have a best friend called Zack and Zack gets zapped with God, what happened?
Corey Russell: It was a wild experience Sid, my friend Zach went through about four months, we were deep into drugs, alcohol, the spirit of this age. And Zach in about November of '96 he went through about a four-month season where he just stopped talking, he lost his mind it was weird we didn't know what happened to him. And it culminated on February 1, 1997, it was my birthday. I'd been to university partying that night I showed up at his house another day to hang out with him. And I hadn't seen him in a few days, and he comes running out the front door screaming at me at the top of his lungs, "Corey it's Heaven or hell you have to make a decision right now". And I didn't know what was happening, I'm backing up and he says, "You have to make a decision right now". And I said, "I'm not making a decision I'm leaving". So, I ended up grabbing my other friend we leave, and it was known that Zach's mom was actually at a conference the weekend before and the preacher said, "Come up here and get your children get them in the place of prayer and intercession". She got the breakthrough on Saturday and the following Thursday he came home, and she led him through a powerful three-day deliverance. He had known the Lord as a child, come back to him supernaturally and all of a sudden my best friend is saved. And I'm hurt, I feel betrayed, I'd put up with all of his weirdness for four months and here he is now saved. And two weeks later he showed up I was still in the college and he showed up to college and he took me to lunch. And he began to share with me he said, "Corey for those four months the spirit realm was opened up. I was seeing angels and demons, I was seeing what was controlling people, and I could see that you're being controlled by real spirit you're not aware of". And he said, "Corey we were shut up in the house we were partying," and he said, "I was shut up in the house that night, and the voice of the Lord broke in the middle of the party that we were at". And the Lord said, "Satan is raising up an army but I'm raising up an army too and I'm calling you out tonight and I want you to go call your friends out". And so, he's over lunch telling me this story and he says, "Corey, you need to give your life to Jesus! Heaven is real, hell is real, and you need to give your life to Jesus". And I was very hard, and I just said, "You know what? I'm sick of hearing about all this Jesus stuff just take me back to school". I had just gotten my second DWI, driving while intoxicated, my life was in shambles but yet I didn't want Jesus. He drove back to the college, he pulled into the parking lot and right before I got out of the van, someone came in the van, I now know His Name is Holy Spirit, but before I knew it from the right of my body to the left, I began to shake violently. And all I knew was that I could see flashes of light between a tug of war battle between light and darkness over my soul, my friend pulled in the back of the parking lot, he starts praying and he goes, "In the Name of Jesus I bind the antichrist spirit". As soon as he bound the spirit it manifested into a chokehold around my throat and I couldn't breathe. And I knew I had to get out the Name of Jesus. So, I go to say His Name but all I get out is geez, "Geez". He's in my ear screaming, "Say it". And I'm trying and finally I remember taking a deep breath and with all the power inside of me screaming, "Jesus". And right when I screamed His Name the hold broke off of my throat and it was like God came and breathed into my mouth. And all I could say for the first five minutes is, "I've got air, I've got air, I've got air". And then I heard a voice is clear as day coming to my mind and the voice says get out of the van, get on the pavement, give me your life you are mine. So, on February 18, 1997 in the midst of a college parking lot, I jumped out of my van into the parking lot, kids running everywhere and I'm screaming at the top of my lungs, "Jesus Christ I give you my life, I'm yours". And that moment I experienced the greatest miracle ever. In one supernatural moment a pass from death to life. I was delivered of all drugs, all addiction, all perversion in one touch of the raw presence of God and we saw an explosion of God that took place over the next six months that rocked my small-town community.
Sid Roth: Now let me ask you this, I've heard it said that no one comes to know God unless someone somewhere is praying for him.
Corey Russell: Yes.
Sid Roth: You found out later that not just you, but your buddy Zach were both being prayed for by some students, what was going on?
Corey Russell: We had some students a couple of no name, and this is what I love about God, there was a couple of no name girls in the high school that said, "God we want to pray for the worst kids in the city". We were at the top of the list and they took a lunch every Wednesday and they mentioned us by name before the throne. And they said, "God would you do something in their lives, that would touch our whole community". Within a month we had a drug ring of friends that had encounters like that. I mean God was just hitting them one after the other. I led my brother to the Lord who was still in high school and what we began to see happen was a snowball effect, one testimony after the other. A local church began to host a move of God and we entered into a season of five meetings a week till three in the morning over the next six months, half the high school would either backslidden would come home or new converts would come to Jesus and we saw an explosion in our small town.
Sid Roth: You know you had something happen to you that I only wish would have happened to me and you'll wish it to. He started to have two mentors, two elderly women that knew things that this generation doesn't even know. Knew how to pray through till you get an answer and they mentored you.
Corey Russell: Yes.
Sid Roth: How important was that in your life?
Corey Russell: I counted as the most important thing in the world is the biggest thing that touched me about them is that whenever they would open their mouth, I could feel God, the atmosphere would shift, heaven would come down and they began to take me by the hand, and they began to say, "Corey, prayer is it you need to give yourself to early morning prayer, late night prayer. And when the burden of the Lord comes on you, you got to give way to praying through. There will come times of travail and of the move of the Spirit through you and you got to give away to it.
Sid Roth: And explain travail for those who-
Corey Russell: It's birthing prayer. Because this is what happens you get intimate with God when God fills you. He's looking for people to birth His purposes through into the earth. And so, when He finds people that say, "God I want to be your conduit," He fills them with Himself, His purposes, and they partner with Him under seeing the birth of God and the reality of heaven touch Earth.
Sid Roth: Now you said something else, that of all the things you've said this was the one that hung with me really big. You said that Jesus's public ministry is a result of His private prayer life, could we flip it? Could we say if He didn't have the private prayer life would He have had as great a public ministry?
Corey Russell: I don't believe. And this is the thing that blows me away the disciples were with Jesus for three and a half years; they were in every revival service. I mean, think about this, you're in every revival service, you hear every message, you witness every miracle, you see every deliverance, you witness every dead raising eye opening everything and then they would have campfire chats with Jesus. John said, "If everything that Jesus said and did was written in books they're not big enough books to contain it". And yet we don't see one recorded time where they said, "Teach us to preach, teach us to heal, teach us to deliver". They go, "Jesus we've watched you, we want your prayer life, take us by the hand and teach us how to pray". And I have given myself to this for over 20 years.
Sid Roth: But three years ago, God gave you a mandate.
Corey Russell: Yes.
Sid Roth: What did He say?
Corey Russell: After spending 20 years of constantly coming to Jesus and teach me to pray He said, "Corey, it's time for you to join me in teaching the next generation of pray. It's time for you to step up into the experiences you've learned, the hard times, the good times, the lessons you've learned in prayer take a generation by the hand and bring them to the throne room to encounter Me". And I believe that our prayer lives are so weak, so impotent, and so low. It's because we've turned prayer into things that just help us when prayer primarily is about encountering God. It's about learning how to ascend to connect with Him and then from that heavenly place, we release the kingdom of heaven into the earth.
Sid Roth: Comment on this, what about someone that says there are people like Cory that prays how many hours a day for how many years.
Corey Russell: 30 plus hours for 20 years, 30 hours a week.
Sid Roth: That's your call, that's your life. But for me, I've got a job. I've got a family; I've got my hobbies. I've got my sports. I don't have time to do that. It's not for me. I'm not supposed to do that. What would you say?
Corey Russell: I would say that you make time for the things that you care about. And we are a prideful people. We are a self-sufficient people. We live our lives, and our strengths and prayer is a statement of humility. I need you God for every waking moment. I need you for the air I breathe. I need you God and if I don't connect with you, I can't live. So, I believe that we're going to see prayer arise when people come to terms. I need God all the time. And when people want to make a way, they will make a way.
Sid Roth: Tell you what when we come back, you're going to find out of a visitation that Corey had, they came on him and for hours he was with God and he was given some supernatural ability that I'm going to have him impart to you when we come back, don't go away.
Sid Roth: Corey, what do you mean revelation access is Heaven?
Corey Russell: Yeah, when you see Him, when the spirit of Revelation- there's a prayer in Ephesians one, Paul prays that "The Father of glory would give you the spirit of revelation in the knowledge of Him and that the eyes of your heart would be opened". When you get your eyes open to the reality of Heaven, the beauty of God and when you see God that place to see is what opens up the door for faith. And faith stands on revelation. When you can see that's when you step out in the invisible and you bring the invisible into the visible.
Sid Roth: God is showing you so much about the secret place. Give us a couple of nuggets that will help us just a couple.
Corey Russell: Yeah, I would say to you, if you want to build your secret life, you need to find a consistent time and place that you meet with God every day. And don't let any amount of money opportunity or mistreatment or difficulty talk you out of that place. If you show up, I promise you, God meets the hungry heart. Nobody knows what to do we just show up and say, "God, I want you, I love you, take me on a journey". That's where He teaches you to pray. And He will cultivate that place for you as you continually show up, He will meet you. And I would say number two would be praying and supernatural language. Your Spirit cries out from the depths to know God more and when you get into that secret place of God and you begin to pray in supernatural languages it's a direct connection with Heaven. It releases Heaven down into the earth. It strengthens you; it fills you and it sustains you to walk into your world.
Sid Roth: Corey, you had an encounter that I can only say, "Whoa, I wish I had that". In 2003. You were at a pastor's conference, what happened?
Corey Russell: Yeah, I was sitting in the meeting and listening to this pastor speak, just kind of tuning out listening to him a little bit. And all of a sudden, another pastor friend of mine began to whisper in my ear. And he said, "Corey, my wife had a dream about you last night. And she saw an old hard covered English book called the Histories of Revival. And she began to turn through the pages of this of this book. And she began to see different revivalist throughout history. She saw first great awakening, Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield and John Wesley. And then she went to the Second Great Awakening, Charles Finney. And then she came to a page and she had saw that I had written a chapter in the book". And it's like she had gone in the future. And she was reading all the accounts of revival that I was a part of in my generation. And as he began to tell me this dream, never had anything like this happened before or after. But I literally begin to feel air, wind start moving around me. And before I knew it, it was picking up and it was going around me and around me and around me. And before I knew it, I was in a full on, I felt like I was in the eye of a windstorm. And I was running, and I knew I had to get out of the pastor's meeting because it was becoming so violent. And I knew I was entering into an encounter. And so, I went out and I found a place to be with the Lord and the Lord began to thunder over the next two hours I was in this encounter. And the Lord kept saying, "Corey, you haven't seen the grace that I'm about to release on a generation for prayer, fasting and consecration". And the second thing that He said, He goes, "But it's got to be done together with brothers and sisters and community. And then He would say it again, you haven't seen the grace, but it's got to be done together with brothers and sisters in community. And the Holy Spirit, birthed a vision on the inside of me, that we're going to see a generation arise all over the earth, that's going to come out of compromise, that's going to come out of apathy, and sin and addictions, and that we're going to see the spirit of prayer resting upon them, the grace of fasting and a supernatural consecration that will put the fear of God and that will radiate the glory of God wherever they go but their safety is doing it together. That's what the Holy Spirit, mark me, this began in 2003. And this has become the dream of my life. God will you allow me to lead a whole generation God give me hundreds of thousands of young people given to these realities.
Sid Roth: He was endowed with a supernatural ability to impart the same hunger that he has for God. I want you if he can put it in words you spent so many hours a day in prayer. You could not do that just under pure discipline. There's got to have moved into a realm of the presence of God, that there is no drug in the world that would come close to describe it when you get in the spirit with God. What is it like?
Corey Russell: It's the purpose of my existence, I'm home. It's where I belong. It's home with Him walking with Him, being with Him looking at Him, hearing Him, He is the reward. He's not a step ladder to my destiny. He is my destiny. He's not a means to my end He is my end. And walking with Him like Enoch did, walking with Him like Noah did, walking with Him like Jesus did. This is the purpose of my existence and I cannot get enough of it. This is where I want to live all my days.
Sid Roth: I need you to pray for everyone right now. I need you to pray that there's some bondages that are stopping people from doing what you say they want to but they're not doing it, but they want to. Now I promise you, you get his material and there's an anointing on what he's done, it comes from Heaven. But he's not just teaching theory, he's teaching what he has experienced. I want you to pray for people right now.
Corey Russell: I just want to say to everyone right now, I don't care how dirty you feel, how shameful you feel, how many times you've signed up and then fallen away again. There's an invitation for you to walk in this. This is why God met you, this is what He's called you for. And I just want you to open up your hand. God, I pray right now. I pray right now, for the very presence of Heaven to fill, fill cars, fill living rooms, fill bedrooms, fill homes with the very glory of God right now. You were made by God and you were made for God. He is your home. He is your reality. I break the power of shame. I break the power of lies. I break the power of accusation; I break the power of tormenting spirits. I break the power of familiar spirits. I break it power in the name of Jesus. And I say you were made for God. Come home right now. Come home right now in the name of Jesus. I release it upon you, deliverance and breakthrough and a new intimacy with God be upon you right now in Jesus Name.
Sid Roth: And there are many of you that are watching right now. And you're still on the outside looking in. You have never had your own experiential knowledge with God. And I'm going to make you a promise right now. If you pray this prayer, with as much sincerity as you have within you, God will answer it. I promise you; I promise you God is a good God. Say this prayer out loud. I don't care where you are, whether you're in the parking lot, like Corey was or whether you're in a bar watching this or a hotel room or your living room or wherever you are, say this out loud, Dear God, repeat after me. Dear God, I have done wrong. I have sinned. And I'm so sorry. I believe your blood washes away all of my sins and I am clean. It's so good to be clean God. There is nothing separating me from you. Nothing. And now that I am clean, Jesus come inside of me. I make you my Lord and Savior. Lord Jesus I'm not ashamed of the good news and in Jesus Name I seal this prayer and I pray that you hold your hands up it's a form of universal surrender. I pray that you'll be filled with the Holy Spirit and fire. Pray in tongues Corey. You pray in Tongues right now. You don't know how perfect, it's called unknown languages. But if you don't make a sound and move your lips no one else will. Quickly as you can now in Jesus Name.