Sid Roth - I Cried 'Is Jesus Real?' What Happened Shocked Me
Sid Roth: I'm Sid Roth and I have a guest that has had such an encounter with the living God that literally when he speaks waves of God's presence just come on the congregation and when God's presence comes upon you, as I believe it's going to come upon you as you're watching, the body just doesn't know how to react. Let's take a look at what happens!
Peter Jackson: And so Jesus stands up and he says in a loud voice, somebody say 'in a loud voice'! Is anybody thirsty? Thank you Lord! Rivers of living water!! Then let him come to me and drink and drink and drink and drink! He didn't say come to me and think and think and think and think! Thank you Lord! Rivers of living water! I love water! He said rivers! Whooo! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! There's only one name that's able to save people from their sin! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!
Sid Roth: Sid Roth here with Peter Jackson. And Peter, what is going on with those people? What's going on with you? I think we have to go kind of back to the beginning. You had a nice alcoholic father who manufactured a nice alcoholic son. And you went to an a meeting and you're not particularly a believer in Christianity, the Bible or anything like that. And someone has a little conversation with you. What did he say to you?
Peter Jackson: He just basically said you know you know God but you don't know Jesus! And you need to know Jesus in order to know God. Why don't you just ask God to show you his son?
Sid Roth: Well in aa they say 'higher power' but this guy was taking it to the next step!
Peter Jackson: Yeah. He had been, he had become a believer oh about 3 years before and I had really seen you know there was a big difference in him.
Sid Roth: So what did you do?
Peter Jackson: That night, like we were up all night as he was sharing his story with me and that night as I, it was about 5:30 in the morning I got home. My wife was sleeping and I was brushing my teeth getting ready to go to work. And I just felt like I can't put this off. I need to ask God if Jesus is real! And as I did that the glory of God just came into my bathroom and I fell on the floor and I was...
Sid Roth: Why'd you fall?
Peter Jackson: Oh, I was just completely over, overcome! The, the weight of his presence just, just, it was powerful! And so I was lying on the floor just sort of laughing with joy but also crying in repentance. I was kinda like going back and forth. I didn't know what was happening to me! I thought you know am I having a nervous breakdown...
Sid Roth: Sure.
Peter Jackson: ...Or what's going on.
Sid Roth: I mean when the presence of God comes on you it's, it's like nothing you've ever had before! You know you have no world view to, no, no point of reference.
Peter Jackson: Yeah. So I you know I'm going sorta going back and forth with repentance and joy at the same time. And about a half an hour into this I can get up again and I go into the bedroom to wake up my wife to tell her what's happened. And I just said 'honey, Jesus is in the bathroom'!
Sid Roth: Uh, that's a nice way to... So how did she react?
Peter Jackson: She thought I was you know...
Sid Roth: Well I'm sure.
Peter Jackson: ...In fact on drugs or something.
Sid Roth: I think you feel that too by now!
Peter Jackson: But the truth was I, you now it just didn't wear off! I was full of joy for several days after that!
Sid Roth: But what about the addiction?
Peter Jackson: Yeah. It was broken right there!
Sid Roth: Okay. You have this encounter with God. I mean it was a marvelous encounter with God, but there was, he's still, there was something missing. And you went to a cabin and you had a revelation which has profoundly changed your life.
Peter Jackson: Yeah. That was in 1978 when I came to know Jesus as my Savior. But then 5 years later I was working through a lot of bitterness towards my earthly father who I had kinda blocked out of my mind. And I started to read the Bible and especially in John 14 through 17 where Jesus refers to the father, especially John 14:6 'I am the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through me'. And when I saw the word 'Father' it just jumped off the page! And I realized that I didn't see God as a Father. I saw him as a Savior but I didn't see him as a father. That began to bring up a lot of hurt and bitterness that I still had from years of living with an alcoholic father who promised...
Sid Roth: In other words what you're, what you're saying is that he related to God as he related to his earthly father as opposed to relating to pure love. He didn't understand. Many of you don't. You think you do but you really don't. Don't go away! We'll be right back!
Sid Roth: Hello! Sid Roth here with Peter Jackson! And what do you think of when you think of God? A lot of people visualize God as they did their earthly father. But the problem is that no matter how good that father was he still was very imperfect compared to God. If you're moslem or if you're Jewish you have a feeling that God is, is up there and he's a judge. You don't have the concept of he's a loving God. But Peter, you had read this in the Bible but still there was this misconnect. You were at this cabin and what happened?
Peter Jackson: Yeah. I was, as I said I was dealing with all the bitterness towards my earthly father and that really began to soften my heart where I came to a place of compassion for my father that you know he, he had a father who treated him in a certain way and it was like generationally being passed down. As I was working through that, that forgiveness one morning I had this dream and one of the greatest disappointments of my life with my earthly father was on my 12th birthday where he'd promised to take me up to this cabin in the rocky mountains and then at the last minute as usual cancelled.
Sid Roth: Hmm.
Peter Jackson: And so God had come to restore my faith in him through taking me back to that, the most painful disappointment. That's where I really closed the door on relationship with my earthly father. I, you know in this vision I see myself waking up as a 12-year old boy and it's just like I'm watching it as a TV program. But I see in this dream that I'm 12 years old and I smell bacon being prepared for me, breakfast is being prepared.
Sid Roth: It's very realistic.
Peter Jackson: Oh, it was, it was amazing. It was like being there. You know in a 'God-dream' you're there! And I, you know, look into the kitchen wondering who's there and I see this person with his back to me cooking breakfast. And I just thought the thought I wonder who that is? And when he turned around I just saw these eyes of my abba father. God the Father. And he didn't say any words. He just communicated with this look of total love and acceptance. And it's just like I received an impartation of his love and it just broke through that, that wall that I had had up towards my earthly father and I was able to accept him as my father.
Sid Roth: Tell me again about the love that you saw in his eyes.
Peter Jackson: Yeah. His eyes were, were blue but they were crystal clear and they, they, they just communicated. You know they say communication is only 7% words. It's 53% body language and his body language said 'I love you with my whole heart' and that just completely broke me on the inside because my dad had always a look of disapproval.
Sid Roth: Who is God the Father to you now?
Peter Jackson: He's my dad. He's my dad! And I have a relationship with him where I used to just see him as just an angry judge up in heaven but now he, as Jesus said, the father and I have come to dwell in you. Make our home in you. John 14:23 says I have come, the father and Jesus have come to make their home in us and I've made him feel at home. I've welcomed him home and I have a home in his heart.
Sid Roth: Now you became a pastor with your wife and you, I'll tell you something. It is tough for someone to be a pastor! It'd be easy if they didn't have to deal with people, but guess what! That's the way it was all orchestrated! And Peter you became a burned-out pastor and you went to a renewal meeting and what happened?
Peter Jackson: Yeah. I was, I was very disappointed with the church that we had in that, that we were seeking revival. We were asking God to bring his manifest presence and affect our city, affect the people around us, our families. We had been praying that way for a year but revival always brings change and there's such a resistance in change for people. They get in their comfort zone. They get in a rut and they don't want to change. And so then in January of '94 when revival broke out in Toronto at the Toronto airport Christian fellowship John Arnott, the senior pastor called me up the night after it started and said you've gotta come to this pastor's meeting cause he knew I was, I was pretty disappointed and disillusioned being a pastor. Our church was growing and all the stuff was happening but I was getting further and further detached from it. So I went to the meeting and I listened to the testimony of Randy Clark as he shared a similar experience of being in the ministry for years but just getting more and more dry. And so I stood there for prayer at the end and Randy Clark comes by and prays for me and nothing happened!
Sid Roth: Hmm!
Peter Jackson: And I'm just oh boy, I must really be...
Sid Roth: Talk about a disappointment!
Peter Jackson: Yeah! Just like everybody else around me is really getting impacted with the presence of God and I'm just standing there like an oak of righteousness, you know just stiff as a board! Well John Arnott was right behind Randy praying for him, praying for me and he knew my situation. He just, he just asked the Holy Spirit to lift this discouragement off and I began again just to weep and weep for about a half an hour I was weeping and weeping with all this discouragement that I had stuffed down. Cause big boys don't cry. You know?
Sid Roth: I know all about it!
Peter Jackson: Yeah. And but right behind that discouragement was the joy of the Lord and literally I was lying on the floor rolling around laughing for 3 and a half hours. You cannot humanly do that!
Sid Roth: I would, I imagine you must have ached all over from all that laughing. When it was over did your body ache?
Peter Jackson: I was thinkin' now I know what they mean when they say 'you split a gut'! You know it was like I was coming unglued!
Sid Roth: But you know what? The Bible says a merry heart is good medicine! Wait till you find out what this medicine did for Peter! Don't go away! We'll be right back!
Sid Roth: Hello! Sid Roth here with Peter Jackson! Well Peter was a burned-out pastor and he went to, actually it was the second meeting, this was an historic thing at the Toronto airport church in Toronto Canada and Randy Clark prays for him and John Arnott says the Holy Spirit come upon him and all of a sudden he's overwhelmed and he starts crying and crying and then when he's cried himself out he starts laughing and laughing for 3 hours he was laughing. He then goes back to that church that he's so burned-out over and he goes to speak and what happened?
Peter Jackson: I couldn't speak! It was like every time I tried to do something I'd be overwhelmed with laughter!
Sid Roth: Wait. Wait!
Peter Jackson: And for about 6 months this went on!
Sid Roth: You mean every Sunday for 6 months he gets up there to give his message and all you do is laugh? Did you have a membership drive? Did you drive everyone out? What happened?
Peter Jackson: Half the people didn't appreciate that too much!
Sid Roth: But you know what's more important is, we know in the natural laughing is a good medicine. God knew it. Doctors have already proven that that's true. Certain types of cancer things are released in the body when you laugh. How much more when you laugh under the Spirit of God? But what is going on with people like Peter and other people? You told me that you took an abused young girl, a street kid off the streets and into your home. What happened to her?
Peter Jackson: Yeah. We took her in as a foster child. She you know had been sexually abused and was living on the streets. And God said he was gonna show us his heart for the wounded through this relationship. And initially we took her as a foster child but he then about a year later told us to adopt her legally. And he brought what seemed to us as an impossible situation, this girl was so battered and bruised.
Sid Roth: She had zero hope...
Peter Jackson: Zero hope.
Sid Roth: ...For her future.
Peter Jackson: She had had 3 step-fathers, one natural father. All sexually, mentally, physically abused her. So her trust for fatherhood was zero but God gave us his heart for her and when he gives you his heart for someone you have faith to believe that they're gonna come all the way through. And for 3 years it was like taking down a wall brick-by-brick, building trust with this girl that she could, she could receive, you know the relationship of a father.
Sid Roth: And how did it work out?
Peter Jackson: It worked out amazing! She had an encounter with God as her father and she had become a Christian and 3 years into our relationship she, she came to know the father and accepted me as her earthly father without that wall.
Sid Roth: Peter, there are a lot of people that strive and their intent is honorable, strive to please God by working, working, working, doing, doing, doing. That was you.
Peter Jackson: That was me.
Sid Roth: What changed?
Peter Jackson: Yeah. That vision of the father's eyes, to realize that I can't do anything to get him to love me more! That he loves me based on what Jesus did for me not what I do for him! And that was a revelation. It was like dropping a pebble into a pond and then the ripple effect, you know, continues to work through your life!
Sid Roth: But I read in the Bible, Peter, that there are rewards for what we do on earth. So you can't just say well do nothing because papa loves me. So where, where do you draw the line.
Peter Jackson: Well you see love has a fruit and the fruit is obedience and it's living your life from love, not for love. From approval, not for approval.
Sid Roth: There, there is a presence of God on this set. It's a sweet presence of God. Now you have something so wonderful and it gets more wonderful for you when you give it away.
Peter Jackson: Yeah.
Sid Roth: Would you first pray for people that have an 'orphan spirit'. They don't have a connection with the God of love and then pray for them to receive what you have. Briefly.
Peter Jackson: Yes. I just wanna tell you that there's hope and the hope is in the father's love! That he loves you whether you love him or not. God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son whether the world will respond to that or not. And I just wanna tell you that if you will accept Jesus as your Savior, God the Father will show you his love as a father. Jesus has come as the way, the truth and the life to bring you to the father. And he wants you to become a son, not live your life as an orphan where you're living your life as someone who's striving for approval, striving to do something to be loved. We need to be still and know that he is God, know that he loves us! And I bless you today!
Sid Roth: Pray for a release of God's spirit on them right now.
Peter Jackson: Yeah. Father, I just pray right now you will pour out your spirit, the spirit of adoption, the spirit of your father's love into every heart that's listening to this program, that you'll be touched with that love that I received that changed me from the inside out and that you will know that the father loves you the same as he loves Jesus! He's adopted you as a son or a daughter. I bless you with that release of his presence right now in Jesus' name.
Sid Roth: Some of you are actually, this wasn't what I was looking for, but I know that some of you actually are feeling a heat going throughout your body right now and some of you are weeping. There are tears coming out just like Peter was weeping. That's a cleansing that is going on right now. And some of you are being physically healed. More, very quickly, one person, all right say what's going on.
Peter Jackson: Yeah. I just see someone watching right now where you're an adopted child but you've never, there's always been that wall between you and your parents and I just see the Holy Spirit just coming right now. And he's just breaking down that wall in your life so that you can receive the father's love deep in your spirit. He loves you and you've always been loved by him!
Sid Roth: The presence of God is tangible and I say by faith in the name of Yeshua, Jesus the Messiah, that what you are feeling is God's love. And open your heart up. You have never been, Peter if they could just look into God's eyes the way you looked into his eyes and whether you see him or not I tell you that he's right there. It's just like king David recognized I've placed the Lord always at my right side. He's always there! He is always there! He has never left you. You might have left him but he has never left you and he's saying 'come home! It's time for you to come home'! Some of you have been away so long you don't know where home is! Well there's a gate and that gate is the name of Jesus! And when you enter that gate you will come home to the most loving God! In Islam they don't know a God of love. In Judaism we don't understand a God of pure love. But in reality he is love! You've never experienced love until you've experienced the reality of God! Do it now! In the gate. Jesus!