Sid Roth - Biker Gang Leader Comes to My Meeting. Then This Happens
Sid Roth: Hello. Welcome to my world where it's naturally supernatural. And it is. It's so naturally supernatural, because I'm at the river. I'm really at the River at Tampa Bay, with Rodney Howard-Browne. I start every show out saying hi, I'm Sid Roth, and I'm naturally supernatural, because there's rarified air in this place. But Rodney, what we just saw, most people in the world have never seen laughing in the spirit. Too few people see laughing, period, in these days that we're living in. But explain to me what all this laughing business is.
Rodney Howard-Browne: If you asked people how many want to go to heaven, because they know it's a place of great joy, everybody will raise their hand. The Bible says "In his presence is fullness of joy, and in his right hand there are pleasures forevermore". When Jesus came to the earth, the angels announced "Joy to the world, the Lord has come. I bring you glad tidings of a great joy, for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord". The Bible says that God anointed Jesus with the oil of gladness above his fellows. And we know the Bible says "The joy of the Lord is our strength". The scripture also declares "The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost". Everywhere Jesus went, when he touched people, they went walking and leaping and praising God. And the Psalmist said, Psalm 23, "You anoint my head with oil, and my cup runneth over". What we just saw there was the picture of peoples' cups running over, because when God fills you up from the inside, you can't keep it in. It bubbles right up and comes right out. Jesus said in John 7:37, "The last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood in the crowd saying 'if any man thirsts, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly'", or innermost being, "'will flow rivers of living water'. But this spake he of the Holy Spirit". So what you are seeing, and the people are seeing, is an outpouring of the Spirit of God into the hearts of people, causing an overflow of God's joy, bringing refreshing, bringing restoration, healing broken hearts.
Sid Roth: But wait a second though. I have to ask you a question Rodney. You're not particularly funny. I have an uncle that is a professional comedian. He is funny. I showed him a video of people laughing, and you should... No, you don't want to hear what he said to that television screen. But he was angry, because you weren't funny, and you were getting more laughs, and he's funny, and he's not getting any laughs!
Rodney Howard-Browne: And I'll tell you why. I'll let me tell you why. Because comedians deal with the mind and amusement, and people can laugh at a joke and it fades away. I'm not saying somebody can't laugh hysterically or whatever, you get somebody going overboard. But this is not something to do with the mind. This is something that comes right out of here, right out of peoples' innermost being. It's like a river that flows out: a river of joy.
Sid Roth: Let me ask you a question. Psychiatrists say, doctors say, they've actually got studies on this, that if someone has cancer, they should watch comedy on television, because when they laugh, something good is triggered in the body that gets rid of the cancer. If this is a true scientific fact, how much more when someone laughs because the spirit of the living God is causing them to have supernatural joy.
Rodney Howard-Browne: In Psalms, it says "When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream, then was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with singing. Then said they among the heathen 'the Lord hath done great things for them'". So that is totally right. Apparently it releases certain endorphins that go through the cells of the body, and these "Happy cells" defeat the cancer cells in the body. The church should be the happiest place on the face of the earth. The church should be the place where God's people are filled with joy, because of the Lord and how wonderful he is.
Sid Roth: Ok, many years ago you had a divine encounter with the Spirit of God that changed your life forever. Tell me about that.
Rodney Howard-Browne: As a young man, I was so hungry for God. I was desperate. I wanted the Lord to come and touch me. Because I was raised in church. I gave my life to the Lord when I was 5, I was filled with the spirit when I was 8 years of age, but I wanted the fire of God in my life. I'd seen ministers come through the church, and I'd even tell my dad "He's missing something. They're missing something". I knew that God had called me to the ministry, but I didn't want to go out missing something. I wanted to know that the Lord was backing me up. I wanted to know that when I spoke, I wasn't just speaking empty words. The Word of God talks about... John the Baptist actually announced it. You can read about it in Luke 3:16. He said "I indeed baptize with water, but there's one coming after me", talking about Jesus. "Who will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire".
Sid Roth: Now when you're saying fire, he's meaning fire. I mean a fire from heaven. Don't go away. We'll be right back after this word.
Sid Roth: Hello, Sid Roth here. I'm here with Rodney Howard-Browne at the River of Tampa Bay. I'm trying to just do a normal interview. I can't do a normal interview. You know why I can't do a normal interview? Because he's not abnormal like everyone else: he's normal. I'll get confused if I keep this line of thought. But by the way, during the commercial break, our sponsor spoke to me. He did. Our sponsor is God. I don't know if you noticed or not, but our sponsor is God, and he told me that people that have pains in their neck are being healed. We were talking to Rodney Howard-Browne about... And by the way, you here at the river, that's you too. You can be healed right now. If you'll move your head, you'll see that the pain in your neck that you had when you came in, that it's gone. Just out of curiosity, because I'm a reporter at heart, if you had a pain and you don't have it now, raise your hand right now. You had a pain and you don't have it now. 1, 2, 3, 4, camera woman, 5, 6, 7. That's pretty good. And now you at home, test your neck. That's you too. This is an active television. So a fire, this is what Rodney Howard-Browne said, "God, I want a fire to come". Tell me about that fire.
Rodney Howard-Browne: I was so hungry, I was desperate, because I realized that without an encounter with God, and if you read church history, you see every person the Lord used, they've come back to the actual time and place. For the disciples, when Jesus left the earth, he said "Go and tarry at Jerusalem". Even the last words Jesus said to his disciples was "Go and get endued with power. You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost comes upon you". And then we read in acts 2 how they went there in one accord, one place, "Suddenly there came a sound from heaven like a mighty rushing wind, filled all the house... Appeared unto them cloven tongues like as a fire". We can go back to Jeremiah where the prophet said "Woe is me! I'm undone! I'm a man of unclean lips". And remember, the angel took a coal from off the alter and placed it on his lips, and that's what I wanted. I wanted the fire of God. And in order to have the fire of God, you've got to get hungry, you've got to get thirsty for God. You can't be complacent and just sit in the status quo of religion and tradition. You've got to cry out to the Lord. And it doesn't matter where you are: in your house, in your bedroom, you can just cry out to God. And I began to cry out to the Lord. Spiritual hunger is something that develops, maybe not overnigh. It's not something that happens instantly: it's something that has to be cultivated, because it's an appetite that has to be developed within the heart of the believer. You can't have a hunger for the deep things of God and be so caught up in the things of the world, because the world's things will cancel out the things of the spirit. So I was desperate, and it really happened after my oldest brother passed away suddenly. It was a shock to the family. And when you lose a loved one, it rocks everybody's world. I cried out to the Lord. I was desperate. I've been criticized for the statement I'm about to make. I said to the Lord, this is one day in july of 1979, "Lord, either you come down and touch me, or I'm coming up there to touch you". I didn't mean that... I'm not holding God hostage.
Sid Roth: No, you were telling him, this is what your heart was saying, "I am so desperate for you, God, that I'm going to go there if you don't come here!!"!
Rodney Howard-Browne: That's right. Just like when Zacchaeus was a rich man but he was a little short, so he climbed up a tree to see Jesus. The four men who brought their friend to Jesus couldn't get in the house. They ripped off the roof and let him down through. The woman with the issue of blood, she was so desperate she pushed through the crowd and touched the hem of his garment. So I knew. Blind Bartameus, he was so desperate he cried "Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me"!, he cried. He stopped Jesus on the way. So these people in the Bible got God's attention, and I knew I had to get God's attention, so I cried out. I shouted "God, I want your fire"! And I shouted. I never felt anything. I felt nothing. I shouted for probably about 20 minutes. Now we were not in a service, but there was about 18 young people present, and I was the only "Pentecostal". The rest were all Methodist and Baptist and Presbyterian, so they looked at me like I was a little crazy because I was shouting. Now some will say "You don't have to shout, God's not deaf". But he's not nervous either. And I wasn't shouting because of him, I was shouting because of me. I was desperate. If somebody is desperate, they cry out! And I said, I shouted "Lord, I want your fire"! I could actually feel my voice starting to go, because I was shouting at the top of my lungs. It was like somebody began to pour like liquid oil or honey on me, from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. It was like gasoline, and then took a match and just set me on fire from the top of my head to my feet. It was like electricity. It wasn't bad, it was good. It was like pins and needles, but it wasn't pins and needles. It was just going right through my whole being. And right here, in my innermost being, this river began to flow. I was instantaneously... If you looked at me, you'd have said "That man's been drinking". I was beside myself. I was laughing uncontrollably, I was weeping all at the same time, and I was speaking in other tongues. And I was like that for three days. This is not something that lifted after an hour then I think "Well, I think the Lord really touched me". This was like a total encounter. And I actually, in the fourth day, I said "Lord, can you lift it"? And I realized why, when we get to heaven, we're going to have to have a glorified body, because if we don't, the angels will just have to carry us around, because this physical body couldn't take too much of the presence of God. And we can read about that. Genesis 17, God walks into Abram's tent, says "I'm Almighty God, walk thou before me", Abram falls flat on his face. If you go through Chronicles, second Chronicles, chapters 5 and 7, where the priests couldn't stand to minister because of the cloud, the glory of the Lord.
Sid Roth: A lot of people don't know that. This is Old Testament, this is New Testament, this is normal. Do you want to be normal? Wait till you find out what happened when this "Normal" man takes this God power into an auditorium, what happens to the people. Don't go away. We'll be right back after this word.
Sid Roth: Hello, Sid Roth here with Rodney Howard-Browne. We're at the river, the river congregation. It's called the river because there is a literal river of God's spirit that's flowing through this place right now. And when Rodney Howard-Browne, as a young man, was touched with the fire of God, he had a compulsion, a call of God, to come to the United States. He went to a congregation, it must've been a small congregation, in upstate New York, and what happened? You were so pent up with this fire, what happened?
Rodney Howard-Browne: We went in there, and I felt led to share my testimony, how the Lord touched me. I began to teach on the subject of the anointing, what is the presence of God, because people don't understand how Jesus ministered, and he ministered by the anointing. Acts 10:38 says "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and power and went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him". In Luke 4:18 Jesus said "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord". That means today, when salvation and the free favors of God profusely abound. And so, as I was sharing and expounding these truths, on that Tuesday morning in the month of April, the glory of God came in like a wave of the sea. I never saw it, but I felt it, and people were visibly moved in their seats. Some were weeping, some were filled with joy. I recognized it to be the presence of the Lord, even though I had to speak above the noise of the crowd because it became almost unruly in a way, and yet it wasn't, because I could hear the sound of many waters, I could hear the sound of the Lord pouring out his spirit. And that was the outbreak of what we've been experiencing these past 19 years, and it's been glorious. It's been the greatest adventure of our life. I've seen multitudes of lives touched. And it's not us, it's his presence. All we are, we're the vessel. It's like the container cannot claim anything of itself. It is him who puts the very substance of the life of God in us. Jesus said "It's not I that do the work, but my father within me who does the work". So all we are vessels. He fills us up and pours us out, and that's what happened.
Sid Roth: You know, the only way that you can evaluate these types of manifestations, these types of experiences, yes, there's scripture to back it up, but the only way you really and truly can evaluate it is the fruit. Tell me about a biker that came to your congregation with a gun, to come to a meeting to see if you could knock him down. Tell me about that.
Rodney Howard-Browne: That's right, it was one of our summer camp meetings, and I'll never forget that morning as a matter of fact, because I did something I don't normally do. I said "If you've never felt the power of God, come here right now". Well the next thing I knew, there he stood in front of me, and of course his name is beetle, and I didn't know he was in a town called tAllahassee watching on television, drinking alcohol. The first day he watched it he said "That's rubbish". The second day watching, he couldn't even change the channel. And then he called the office. He wanted to know where I was, and said "You tell him I'm coming". He came down here to disprove, that this wasn't real. Except, the power of God hit him, and God radically, radically changed his life.
Sid Roth: What happened to his addictions of alcohol and drugs and crime?
Rodney Howard-Browne: The Lord took everything away. The whole gang was disbanded, and I believe he's the first of many beetles that will come into the Kingdom of God.
Sid Roth: Let's take a look at what happened to beetle when people prayed for him.
Rodney Howard-Browne: This is beetle. Now, he's the head of an outlaw biker group of 150 bikes in a city not far from here. Now listen here. Was watching on television, he was higher than a kite. He saw the program. He was higher than a kite. He saw it again two days later. He came down Monday, and the fire of God touched him. He has not touched any of his addictions since Monday. Huh? Yes. And now, the fire of God's on him. He wants to go back and get a church and paint it red, and call it The Fire of God Church.
Rodney Howard-Browne: Fire! Fire! Fire!
Sid Roth: Rodney, what happened to this man?
Rodney Howard-Browne: Well I believe even though he came to disprove it, he was hungry. I think when you've lived a life like he'd lived, and how he'd seen everything that life had to offer on the other side, he was looking for God. Much like Saul of Tarsus, who was out hell-bent on destroying the church, breathing out threatenings. And on the road to Damascus...
Sid Roth: You have one minute to pray for fire to come on people watching. Do that now.
Rodney Howard-Browne: If you're hungry right now, just lift your hands where you are in your home. I'm going to pray. Father, I pray the same anointing, the same power, the same fire that touched beetle, will come into your living rooms right now. Let your fire fall on them now in Jesus' name! Lord, I thank you. We've seen the miraculous happen right now. People set free from drugs and alcohol and abuse of every sort. Those on the brink of committing suicide, you will not. You will not end your life. Today is your day of victory, freedom, and liberty in Jesus' name. Just say this out loud. Say "Jesus, come into my heart. Forgive me of my sin. I give you my life. I surrender my all to you now. I'll serve you all the days of my life. From this day, I'm yours".
Sid Roth: If you did not feel anything, but you prayed that prayer, God did something. Sometimes we're so captive with feelings. I felt something. I feel the river right now. But don't let anyone deny you. "God is not a man that he should lie", and when you seek him with all of your heart, in that day he will be found. And God knows that you're doing the best you know how, and I believe if you continue doing this, through faith and patience you will inherit the promises. Rodney, today, what happened to that guy, beetle? This is now a year later.
Rodney Howard-Browne: The Lord has transformed his life. He came through first year Bible school, he's in the middle of finishing up on second year now, and he actually works in the ministry. He works in our security department.
Sid Roth: Smart man.
Rodney Howard-Browne: Not many ministries can say they have the head of a biker outlaw group that actually is working security. But we've seen a total change in his life. It's remarkable, the Lord has given him a wife now, so he's happily married. It's just phenomenal. It's remarkable what God has done in beetle's life. Only the power of God can do that. No man can do that. Only the power of God can do that.
Sid Roth: Ok, in one minute, what is going to happen in the very near future in the United States of America?
Rodney Howard-Browne: Well, we're believing God for a great awakening. We're believing God to see the fire lit in cities, towns, and villages across America, where there's a mass mobilization of the entire body of Christ, from the littlest child to the oldest saint raised up by the Spirit of God. We'll be seeing the power of God falling in daycare centers, in primary schools, in high schools, university campuses of America shaken, from the courthouse to every house, from the crack house to the penthouse, from the governor's mansion to the White House, "From sea to shining sea". Just like the firs great awakening in the 1700's, the second one in the 1800's, we've got to see a great awakening in America. I believe that the whole body of Christ is going to rise up in the power of God and go out on the streets, and signs and wonders are going to happen. They're going to lay hands on the sick, they're going to cast out devils. We're going to see miracles happen. It's going to break out in shopping centers!
Sid Roth: Do you agree with that? Do you agree? I agree with that! Do you agree with that? I agree with that, Rodney agrees with that. If two or more agree, it's done!