Sid Roth - Urgent Warning: America is NOT Ready for What's Coming
Sid Roth: Welcome, Holy Spirit. I surrender this platform to You. Take over, it's Your platform. John says there is something utterly lacking in the church. What happened in 1994, and what is utterly lacking?
John Bevere: Well, Sid, in 1994, I'm speaking at a conference, biggest church in the entire region, and I spoke on the fear of the Lord. And the next night, I was speaking the second night. The pastor got up which I thought was going to be a routine introduction, and he said to the people, "I want to protect you from the error that was taught last night. John spoke to us about an Old Testament theology, the fear of the Lord. As New Testament Christians, we don't need to fear God. 'God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind, and perfected love casts out fear.'" Then he introduced me, Sid, and it was the hardest service I think I've ever done. The next morning, I went out, and I found a construction site. It was deserted. It's a Saturday morning, and I started saying, "God, I'm so sorry. How have I hurt Your church? I'm putting people in bondage. Please, please help me". And the more I prayed, the more I felt the absolute pleasure of the Lord, and before that time of prayer was out, I found myself in that construction site crying out to know the holy fear of God. So it is what is utterly missing right now, the awe or the fear of the Lord.
Sid Roth: Okay, I'm going to bump you into 1997. Brazil, what happened there?
John Bevere: First time ever in that nation, I was so excited. I fly down. I'm preparing. I'm the Friday night speaker for the national conference. They drive me there. The arena is completely packed. They put me on the platform, and the worship team was unreal, just the best in the nation, but I noticed immediately the glaring lack of the presence of God, and I was confused. These are all believers, best worship team in the nation. What's going on? I bowed my head. I said, "Holy Spirit, where's Your Presence"? I opened my eyes, and I see what I didn't see before. I see people standing there during the worship like this, looking around, their hands in their pockets, looking down. They're walking in and out of the arena getting concessions. They're talking to one another, fumbling through their purses. I thought, "This will stop". Well, then the worship is over, and now because there's no music, you can now hear a mutter from the people still talking to each other, and yet the leader is reading Scripture. So I'm furious, and the Holy Spirit whispers to me, and He said, "Son, you need to deal with this". So I remember, "How do I deal with this"? I walk up to the pulpit. My interpreter is beside me, and I just stared at the people. I didn't say a word for 60 seconds. Now, when you're the Friday night guest speaker at the national convention, and you're not saying a word, it gets everybody's attention. The muttering stopped. Every eye was on me. I said, "I have got two questions". Those were the first words I ever spoke in Brazil. "Question number one, you're sitting talking to somebody sitting across the table. The whole time you are, they've got their arms crossed, looking around. They got their hands in their pocket, looking down, and they're whispering to somebody beside them. Would you continue to talk to them? No". I said, "I have been in this arena for an hour and a half, and there's not an ounce of the Presence of God because Psalm 89:7 says, 'God is to be greatly feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be held in reverence by all those that surround Him.'" For the next 75 minutes, I preached them on the fear of the Lord. I said to them, "If the president of your nation would have walked in this arena tonight, you would have given him 10 times the respect you gave Holy Spirit". I said, "If Pele, your greatest soccer player ever, would have walked on this platform, you would have been on the edge of your seats, anticipating every word. You have given no respect to the Spirit of God". Well, at the end of 75 minutes of preaching on the holy awe of God, I said, "Everybody in here, you say you're a believer, but you lack the fear of God, and you're willing to repent. Stand up". They stand up, and the Presence of God fills the arena. People start weeping, and so it lifted a little, and I felt like leading them in a prayer of repentance. Another wave came in. It was so wonderful. Now you got people weeping. I can hear them sobbing. Well, then it lifts, and the Spirit of God spoke to me, Sid, and said, "I'm coming one more time". Now, there is no way I have to describe this other than you're in a big forest, and a 30-mile-an-hour wind, a gust of wind, suddenly starts blowing. That kind of a sound of wind came blowing into that arena. Now, when it did, the people started screaming. They erupted in prayer. Now can you imagine thousands of Brazilians screaming in prayer?
Sid Roth: I can.
John Bevere: Okay? I know. The wind was louder, and I'm standing on that platform, and I'm literally frozen. The authority that was in that place, I have no way of describing it, and I remember hearing a whisper in my heart. "I'm through with you," and I turned it over to the leader, right? So they whisk me off the platform, put me in the car. Then shortly afterwards, they put the national singer (she was a soloist that night) and her husband in the car. She screams, "Did you hear the wind? Did you hear the wind"? Now, I didn't want to be the first to say it. So I said, "Maybe it was a jet aircraft flying too low above the arena". Well, she got mad at me! She goes, "What are you talking about? I saw fire all around the arena"! And she's going on and on and on, and her husband was a lot calmer. So he said, "Sir, that was no airplane". I said, "How do you know"? He said, "There were security men and policemen all around the outside of the arena". He said, "Most of them aren't even state. They're union men". He said, "When the wind began to blow, and they heard it from the outside, they came running in to see what it was". He said, "Furthermore, I'm at the main sound board to make sure my wife's volumes are right". He said, "The whole time the wind blew, the decibel meters were at zero". Sid, I went back to my room that night, and I worshiped God until 1:30 in the morning on the balcony of my hotel. The next morning, Saturday morning, same arena, same people, you cannot believe the salvations, the deliverances, the miracles that happened just because of holy awe. Twenty years later, I went down, 2016, to Goiania, Brazil to speak to 12,000 pastors, right? Pastor who meets me, first thing out of his mouth, "I was in the building when the wind blew in 1997. My life has never been the same. We had emails and letters about it for 20 years. This is the presence of the One we serve. This is", God is on purpose, withheld that glorious presence to see if we would worship Him or worship what is so superficial in this world that people stand in awe of. I believe the Christian has the ability to go in our heart, into the inner sanctuary and behold the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. If you look at Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, they're committing adultery with the women who line up at the tabernacle. A couple hundred years earlier, Nadab and Abihu come in with irreverence into that same tabernacle and are struck dead. Now, did God strike them? No. You can sunbathe at the beach and enjoy it, but if you go 10,000 miles from the sun, you put yourself in harm's way. They put themselves in harm's way when they came into the Presence of God with irreverence. Well, if you look at Hophni and Phinehas, the Word of the Lord was rare, so the Presence of God had lifted. I believe God is going to restore His Presence in such a way that it's going to get the attention of cities and nations in these coming days.
Sid Roth: For a while, believe it or not, it was difficult for John to get into the Presence of God. One day, by accident, John immediately got into God's Presence. Now it's instant every time. Be right back.
Sid Roth: In John's brand-new book, "The Awe of God", and I'm telling you, you better get this, he teaches on amazing benefits when we walk in the fear of the Lord. John, define the fear of the Lord and the awe of God.
John Bevere: Well, the fear and the awe of God are very synonymous, but let me say this. This is so important for everybody to understand. The fear of the Lord has nothing to do with being scared of God. When you look at Moses bringing Israel to the mountain, they all were scared of God, and they drew back. Moses said in Exodus 20:20, "Do not fear; because God has come to test you". What's the test? To see if "His fear is in you, so that you do not sin". Now wait a minute. Do not fear because God has come to see if this fear is in you? He's differentiating between being scared of God and the fear of the Lord. The person who is scared of God has something to hide. What does Adam do as soon as he sins?
Sid Roth: Right.
John Bevere: He hides from the Presence of the Lord. The person who fears God has nothing to hide. That person is terrified of being away from God. So the first definition of the awe of God is to be terrified of being away from Him, but when we fear God, we stand in awe, reverence, respect, honor, esteem Him more than anything or anyone else so what is important to Him becomes important to us. What is not so important to Him is not so important to me. So this is why we love what He loves, and we hate what He hates. Now, it's not that we dislike what He hates. We hate what He hates. You say, "God hates"? Yes. God hates what undoes people, and that's called sin. Now, in legalism, you ever seen a legalistic person that goes, "Well, I fear God. That's why I hate them sinners over there". That person fears God not at all. He has no fear of God because he hates what God loves. God loves those people so much He sent His own Son to die for them. What He hates is the sin that's unmaking them, and that's the difference. The person that doesn't fear God tolerates sin, dislikes sin. The person that fears God has a holy hatred of it and a passionate love for people.
Sid Roth: I'm taking you to 1999. Malaysia, what happened there?
John Bevere: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, it was a national meeting. Pastors and leaders came from all over the nation. It was the largest Bible school. That Presence came in the meeting. I remember there were women four to five deep. The Presence of God came in. Daddy came in within 30 seconds. I started walking down the platform. I had no idea what was about to happen. They were all on the floor within 30 seconds. Nobody caught them. I saw literally three women on top of each other, and they all started laughing hysterically. It was like Daddy God came in to comfort his daughters. Then all of a sudden, after about 5 minutes of that, the Holy Spirit spoke to me, and He said, "I'm coming differently". All of a sudden, I sensed that Presence that I had sensed in Brazil, and I knew right away, "Get up" because I was sitting on the platform, enjoying watching the girls get blessed. I got up. That Presence came again, and now those women started screaming like they were on fire. It wasn't demonic. It was holy. And I remember walking back and forth on that platform, and out of my mouth came the words, "This is the spirit of the fear of the Lord". And we walked out of that service, and there was a couple from India who were students in the Bible school in Kuala Lumpur, and the lady and the man and I just looked at each other, and she said, "I feel so clean". And I went, "Oh, my goodness, that describes what I felt in Brazil, in California, in North Carolina and here. Okay, I get it". So the next morning, I'm getting ready to play basketball with the Bible school students in Malaysia. I'm putting on my shorts, and the Holy Spirit said, "Son, read Psalm 19". I had no idea what I was going to read. So I go to Psalm 19. I get down to the ninth verse, and the Psalm says, "The fear of the Lord is clean," and I went, "Wow"! And then He said the words, "Enduring forever". And the Spirit of God spoke to my heart right there in that hotel room, and He said, "Son, Lucifer led worship right before My throne. He beheld My glory. He was anointed. He did not fear Me. He didn't endure in Heaven forever". He said, "A third of the angels surrounded My throne. They beheld My glory. They didn't fear Me. They didn't endure forever". He said, "Adam and Eve walked in the presence of My glory. They didn't fear Me. They didn't endure in the Garden forever". He said, "Every created being who surrounds My throne will be tested in the fear of the Lord". I started thinking after that. There are a lot of pastors. They've started ministry, or ministers start a ministry excited, wanting to help people, in love with Yeshua, but they didn't fear God. They didn't endure in the ministry forever. Barna has said over 40 million people have walked away from the faith in the United States in the last 23 years, over 40 million. That is more than one out of every 10 people in the United States. Half of those 40 million are now professing spiritualist, agnostics and atheists. Why? Because we have not brought a healthy balance of the holy fear of God into the church. The love of God keeps us from legalism, and we don't want legalism because that kills, but the fear of God keeps us from falling into the trap of lawlessness. And if you look at what God the Father said to Jesus, He said, "Because You have loved righteousness and hated sin, therefore, God, even Your God, has anointed You beyond Your companions". When there was not a strong anointing on my life, and I was praying hours a day, I said to God I was frustrated. I said, "Why isn't there a stronger anointing on my life"? And He said, "Because you tolerate sin not only in your own life but in the lives of others". And when I read that verse, He sent me to that verse. I realized that for me to see the anointing of God increase on my life so I can minister to people more effectively, I have to hate sin the way He hates sin, not just love righteousness the way He loves righteousness.
Sid Roth: John, very briefly, you found out how to get into the Presence of God immediately.
John Bevere: I used to struggle, Sid, and then one day I just thought, "I'm not going to pray. I'm not going to sing. I'm just going to think about how awesome my Dad is". And I started thinking about Him putting the stars in the universe with His fingers, measuring the universe from His thumb to His pinkie, weighing the water and the Earth in the palm of His hands, and all of a sudden, the Presence of God comes, and I went, "Wait a minute, what"? So the next day I thought, "I'm going to try this again". So I'm out in my morning prayer time, right, and I did it again, and there's His Presence again. The third day, I said, "Okay, this isn't right. What's going on? I used to struggle to get in Your Presence. Now it's so easy"! And then the Holy Spirit said to me, "Son, how did Jesus teach His disciples to pray"? And I started reciting the Lord's Prayer, "Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name". I went, "Oh, my gosh, there it is". That word hallowed means to be kept holy is Your Name. I thought, "Jesus, You taught Your disciples that we are to come into the Presence of God with holy fear".
Sid Roth: Okay, Jim Baker made a statement when John visited him when Jim was in prison that John says reverberated through his entire being. It shocked him! Be right back.
Sid Roth: John, you visited Jim Baker when he was in prison. What shocked you?
John Bevere: So he had read the first book I'd written in prison, asked that I would come see him. And I remember he sat down, and the first words out of his mouth is, "John, this prison was not God's judgment on my life. It was His mercy". He said, "If I would have continued to live the way I was living, I would have ended up separated from God forever in hell". Well, he proceeded to tell me how Jesus came into his cell his first year of prison and delivered him. He told me about how they spent, every day, at least 3 hours in the Gospels, and then after he told the whole story, when I felt comfortable, I said, "Jim, I have a question. At what point did you fall out of love with Jesus"? And he goes, "I didn't". I said, "Jim, did you hear what I just asked. I said, 'When did you fall out of love with Jesus?'" He said, "John I loved Him all the way through it". Now, I'm a little upset because I knew he committed adultery in 1983, and I knew he was not living right from '83 to '90, and I said, "What do you mean"? He said, "John, I loved Him all the way through it". He said, "I didn't fear God". And I went, "What"? He said, "John, there are millions of Americans just like Me. They love Jesus, but they have no fear of God". And so here we have an aspect that the apostle Paul writes about that matures our salvation, but we don't talk about it in our churches, and so we wonder why are 40 million people walking away from the faith? It's because we're not giving them that holy defense that keeps us from falling away.
Sid Roth: Let me ask you something, you that have been watching us. How about starting fresh right now? There's nothing you can do about the past, but the good news is the blood of Jesus, if you repent of sins wipes it away to the point that God doesn't have any memory of it anymore. And by the way, you're spending eternity (that means no end with God) that's very important, to have a clean slate. Let's start fresh right now. Say this prayer out loud with me and believe it to the best of your ability. God doesn't ask for anything more. You can do that. Repeat it out loud, very important because the Bible says do it. You have a fear of God? Do what the Bible says do. Repeat out loud: "Dear God. I'm so sorry for my sins. I ask for Your blood to wash them away. I need a new beginning. And now that I'm starting fresh. Jesus, come and live inside of me. I make You my Savior from my sins. But I now make You my Lord. Amen. Amen". John, pray as God directs right now into the camera.
John Bevere: I sure will. Heavenly Father, I thank You for my brother and my sister that's watching right now, and I thank You for those that even have come to know You just a moment ago from Sid's prayer. Father, I am asking that Your Spirit would fill that living room, that office, that kitchen even now. Spirit of the Living God, I'm asking You to manifest not only the holy fear of God but the Love of God in this person's life. Lord, I speak to the bondages. I speak to those things that have held this man or this woman back from giving themselves entirely to Jesus. I break the power of those bondages that go back from generation to generation to generation. Satan, you no longer own this man or this woman. They belong to God, and so in Jesus' Name we command your hold to be broken, and now, Heavenly Father, fill my brother and sister with the Holy Spirit of the fear of the Lord, with the awe of God, with the spirit of wisdom, counsel might, knowledge and understanding, and I thank You that Jesus, Yeshua, becomes real to them from this moment forward because of Your Holy Spirit in Jesus' Name. Amen.
John Bevere: Amen.
Sid Roth: I am so excited about Jesus. I pray that excitement fall on your right now.