Sid Roth - Warning! Only Watch This IF You Want More of God!
Sid Roth: Welcome, Holy Spirit. You know something? Every guest that I have has a different feel, presence of God, on them because I'm a feeler, and I just felt a presence of God on my guest, Chris, and its power, its miraculous power, it just went zoom into the miraculous power zone. And I have many guests that say that worship is the greatest door to intimacy with God and opens up all spiritual blessings. But when I ask them, "How can someone worship that doesn't play a musical instrument, like piano or something, or sing or have an insatiable hunger for God like you"? And the guests usually never give me, in my mind, a satisfactory answer. My guest, Chris Garcia, will do much more. He will impart this supernatural hunger for more of God and teach you by demonstrating. Chris, how do we develop this insatiable hunger for God?
Chris Garcia: Amen. Well, thank you for having me on, Sid, and I appreciate it. The hunger comes from God Himself. It takes God to want God. It takes God to desire after Him, and so hunger is something that He imparts to you, but first we must draw near to Him. And as we draw near to Him, He imparts that yearning, that hunger that comes from Him.
Sid Roth: Before we get even deeper in that, let's talk about you. Tell me about your beginnings and how you got to be the man of God you are right now.
Chris Garcia: I had a lot of generations of people that practiced witchcraft. My great-grandfather practiced the occult, voodoo, spiritualism, all of these really dark, demonic things. My family is from Puerto Rico. And so thankfully, I didn't grow up around it like that, but my mom protected me from it. I remember seeing my aunts practice and do certain things, and it was something very prevalent. Around 9 years old, I was struck with intense oppression and depression. I was always crying every night in my bed for no reason. I just felt a weighty cloud over me. I didn't realize that there was something spiritually attached to me like that until one day I heard the Gospel preached. These two little old silver-haired ladies came out, and we were outside in the projects where I was at. They said, "Hey, if you wanted Jesus, just raise your hand". And I said, "I want Jesus". I was 9 years old, and I prayed the prayer of salvation, but I did not really have a grasp or understanding of what that was like. But, Sid, I remember at 9 years old that, when I prayed that prayer, my heart was glowing. It was like I felt joy for the first time ever, and I remember going to the school and forcing my friends to pray in the cafeteria. And because I didn't understand the Word of God, and I didn't understand really what it really fully meant to live in the Gospel, what occurred was I started doing things my way. That started waning, that desire for the Lord started waning in my life, and it spiraled me into greater, greater depression and oppressions. Around 12, I experienced the manifested presence of God for the first time ever. It was at a charismatic spirit-filled service, and I felt God's glory there. But again, because I did not understand what I know now, I started spiraling into my own thing. My family wasn't serving the Lord, and I started just doing whatever I wanted to do. I felt a strange beckoning, a calling, a drawing to search for spiritual things. But because I didn't know the Lord like that, I started even thinking, "Well, I remember my parents talking about witchcraft," and I started looking into Buddhism, and I explored Islam a little bit, and I just started, I was searching.
Sid Roth: Mmm.
Chris Garcia: I was really, really searching. But suicidal thoughts came, all these tendencies in my mind, these weaknesses. And then my grandmother from my mom's side of the family, she passed away tragically of cancer. She was 53 years old, and she raised me, and so I saw her like Mom, and I thought God destroyed her. I thought, because I didn't understand, that there was a real devil, an enemy that comes to steal, kill and to destroy, and so I remember...
Sid Roth: You were having vestiges, if you will of generational curses that had opened doors.
Chris Garcia: Yeah.
Sid Roth: And the Bible says it passes to four generations.
Chris Garcia: Mm-hmm. Absolutely, and I remember getting so upset with the Lord, and I believed that God was somewhere out there, and I remember just hardening my heart towards God. And then I used to practice wrestling when I was in high school. That was my outlet, karate, wrestling, all these different things. And I was in the middle of a match, and I broke my arm, Sid. And all of a sudden the depression got worse and worse. And so here I am, feeling all this oppression, depression, all this anxiety. My grandmother passes away, and I literally wanted to kill myself. And I thought about how would it be. How can I end my life? Maybe if I jump out of the second-floor window, maybe no one will notice. Maybe if I run into incoming traffic, no one will notice. I felt gloom constantly. I felt this sadness everywhere I went. And finally, I was so hurting, Sid, that I reached out to a friend of mine. And in the middle of the wrestling match, he was on the side, and I just started telling him my whole life story. And I'm sure... Have you ever experienced someone literally telling you their whole life story? It's for a reason. And so he says, "You know what you need, Chris"? And I was like, "What do I need"? I started saying, "Drugs, alcohol, girls, what is it"? And he says, "You need Jesus". And immediately, I got offended. My heart was like, "No, I don't want that. He killed my grandmother," and I just started going off. And he was like, "You need Jesus," and he started telling me my need for Him and how that God had a plan for my life. And finally he said, "Look, I'll make a bet with you. Come Sunday, and if you don't like it, just don't come back, but at least you tried going to church". And I asked him, I said, "Do you guys pray in tongues and speak in tongues and stuff"? He's like, "Oh, yeah," he said. Like, "Nope, I don't want anything to do with it". Because my heart was hardened, but every day, from the time that he preached the Gospel to me, I would go to sleep. And beings would be in my room. I never experienced it like that before, but it was like something was in the room, and I couldn't move my body. And at first, I thought it was strange. I thought that was unusual. Then the next day, that person got closer to me. And I was like, "This is very bizarre, unusual," kind of put it to the side. It got to a point where I would feel hands pulling me up out of my body and literally beating me. I would feel all these little punches punching me and dragging me to the floor. And finally, I just had enough, and I was like, "This is really weird". And I brought my friend over. I said, "Hey, why don't you sleep over? I'll sleep on the floor. You sleep over there. And I think a demon or something is attacking me". And he didn't understand, either. So he took the blanket. He was like, "Bro, don't scare me". And he put the blanket over me... over himself like this. And around 3 in the morning, there was a window, and I was sleeping on the floor, and this very large entity comes out of the window. Now, in the spiritual realm, what happens is you just know things, and that's what happened with me. I knew he was large. I knew he was 15 feet tall. I knew he was angry. I knew it was some sort of demonic spirit, and I knew it was after me. And I remember this thing literally came up, straddled me right here next to my chest, face-to-face, and I could not move, and I heard breaths breathing over me. And finally, I started panicking, and so I just started saying, "God, help me"! And nothing was happening. And then I said, "Buddha". I literally said, "Buddha, Allah," I just went through the list.
Sid Roth: When a man is dying in the middle of the ocean, you don't care who sends you a raft.
Chris Garcia: Yeah, I was just crying out like that, "God, Allah, Buddha, help me". And I remember that I grew up in a nominal kind of Catholic home. It really wasn't really sticking with me, but I remember saying the Lord's Prayer in Spanish. And as soon as I said that, Sid, that thing grabbed me by the neck and began to strangle me, and it started pounding my head against the floor. And I started screaming, and out of sheer desperation, the last name that I expected to utter, I just said, "Jesus". But before I can say that name, Sid, it was like, "Juh," I just said the J. Before I could say that, it was like, boom! This explosion, this spiritual reverberation. Something was afraid of that name. That thing was afraid of that name, and it fled so quickly. I did not understand anything. I understood one thing, Sid, that the Name of Jesus has power, at that moment.
Sid Roth: Mmm. And then you...and then he commits his life to God, and he gets fully immersed in water baptism. We Jewish people historically would be water-immersed. We call it, "Mikveh". That's where baptism came from. It's a very Jewish thing, and when we would go in the waters of "Mikveh," we would believe we'd be filled with the Holy Spirit, speak in tongues, and any demonic stuff in our life would stay, and deep addictions would stay under the water. When you were water baptized, or the "Mikveh" what happened to all that demonic stuff?
Chris Garcia: Oh, my. Well, let me tell you. The next day, I heard the Gospel preached. I knew what I was doing this time, gave my life to Jesus at that moment. I threw away everything that was of bondage to me. I just threw it all to the side, and I started, a few months later, looking into getting immersed in water. And I remember getting immersed when I was a little kid in the religious upbringing, but I felt the Lord prodding me to get baptized. And I remember getting baptized, and my friend, the one that led to me, in his backyard, and his father was there, and my former pastor was there. And there was this one particular sin, this one particular bondage that I remember, I could recollect always having on my soul, and it kind of just didn't leave. But I had enough of Jesus in that moment, 6 months in, I was eating the Word, praying constantly, and so I just said, "Lord, I'm going to go in the water, and I identify with You. I'm no longer alive. I've died to this world, and I'm going to come up a new person". I went in the water, and as soon as I went in the water and came out, Sid, it was like someone was in the water that wasn't me. It was like the old man, my old self, was in the water, and I could feel something was different, but I didn't really understand it. And until months later, weeks later, I started to realize it wasn't there. That deep specific oppression in my soul was completely gone, Sid, and it was when I immersed myself in water with the pastors of our church.
Sid Roth: Hmm. I'll tell you what the Bible says, we are to be baptized or immersed in the Holy Spirit, and a lot of people stop there, but there's a little bit more, in the Holy Spirit and fire. Time for the fire! Be right back.
Sid Roth: Chris was immersed in the Holy Spirit, and then a year later, he was immersed in the fire of God. Tell me about both.
Chris Garcia: Yeah, so 3 months about after my baptism in the water, I remember that my mentor, he was discipling me. And he said, "You need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit". And I was like, "What is that"? So he explained it to me. It says if you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more the Holy Spirit wants to give good gifts to those who love Him. He led me through all, through the Book of Acts. He led me through all of the Scriptures that have to do with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So I came to his house, but I was afraid. I was fearful because we're only afraid of things that we don't have understanding of.
Sid Roth: Of course.
Chris Garcia: And that's very normal, isn't it, very natural? But I remember that I went to his house, and he laid hands on me. He perceived that I was afraid, so he says to me, "All right, Chris. God is not the author of being afraid, so what you're going to do is, when you leave my house, you're going to go upstairs to your room. You're going to lock the door in faith, and you're going to get on your face, and you're going to say, 'Lord, I want You to baptize me in the Holy Spirit.' Don't be surprised if a bubbling comes out of your spirit and you begin to speak with other tongues. Just let it happen. The devil will tell you, 'No, that wasn't God.'" He said, "That's the lie from the pit of hell. I want you to just yield". And I said, "You know what? I can believe God for that". I went upstairs to my room, locked it in faith. I remember like it was yesterday. And I remember falling on my face on the floor, and I said, "Lord, Your Word says that I can ask for the Holy Spirit". And so I began to ask Him, and as I was asking Him, I just by instinct started praising the Lord. Father, I worship You. I give You praise. I give You glory, Lord. You're so glorious. And all of a sudden, tongues began to come out of my mouth, and, well, it was wonderful. I feel the presence of God even saying this. As tongues were coming out of my mouth, it felt so natural. It wasn't like a crazy experience for me. It just came out, out of my belly, out of my mouth, and I began to speak with other tongues. And my mom, she heard me, and she's like, "What are you doing"? I said, "Mom, I can speak with other tongues, look"! And I just started going. She was like, "I want that, too". And she received the baptism of the Holy Spirit just 2 years after the fact. But something extraordinary, supernatural happened to me that was not like that at all. It was a year later. I transitioned from that church. The Lord led me on, and I went back to the church where I remembered the first moves of the Holy Spirit when I was 12 years old. And just coincidentally... it wasn't a coincidence. It was in the mind of God all along. There was a youth revival, and there were so many kids coming up, and I remember feeling super awkward, and I was 17. I was just, didn't understand, but I went there. But I felt the presence of God. There were so many teenagers yearning for a move of God that, without exaggeration, tears. I can see tears across the black floor as they were praising the Lord. And I remember one of the pastors, she was laying hands on people. And then she laid hands on me, and nothing happened. Well, I was so insanely yearning for the Lord that I grabbed her by the hand, and I said, "Excuse me, ma'am. Nothing happened. Can you pray again"? Just like that. And instead of her rebuking me or instead of being offended, she kind of smiled, and she didn't even touch me. She just gently, not even, just kind of put her hands up, and I felt this explosion in my heart like my heart melted like wax. That wasn't the full thing, though. That was just the beginning. My heart began to feel strangely warm, and the fervency for God started increasing. I would lock myself in the room every night for hours on end, seeking the presence of God. I just remember that, and I just, this yearning would just come over me, and this hunger would just fill my soul. And my parents did not understand it. They thought I was insane, but I would lock myself 7, all the way up to 11, 12 in the morning, just worshiping God, loving Him, loving Him with all my being. And I didn't want anything. I just wanted Him. That's all I wanted was Jesus. And I remember quite clearly, it was January the 1st of 2008. It was at 12 a.m. that I had an immersion of fire, and it changed my life for the rest of my life. And I just woke up. It was midnight. I just felt I need to get on my face and worship Jesus. It was like, yes, I'm going to do that right now. And I started worshiping, and in the middle of worship, it all happened just suddenly.
Sid Roth: What?
Chris Garcia: The visitation of the Lord, of this fire. What happened was, as I was worshiping, it was like it all happened at the same time. It's very difficult to put into words, but when Paul says, "Whether I was in my body or out of the body, I do not know," it was just like that. I started at first just sobbing uncontrollably, just feeling the love of God. And then I saw the person of the Holy Spirit appear in front of me in vision form. And He came, and He hugged me, and I started sobbing. And He resembled to me Jesus. He had a white robe. He was translucent, and He hugged me, and we went up. He hugged me, and He took me up to this heavenly place. Sid, the holy fear of God fell over me. Now let me explain what that's like. This atmosphere of absolute holiness came over me...
Sid Roth: Mmm.
Chris Garcia: ...this purity, this intense awe and reverence for Him. I can't explain it, but it was just, when something is beautiful, Sid, it's just beautiful. And it's hard to put into words, like a sunset or a rose or something that you find beautiful, but it was beyond anything I've ever experienced before. And it was this holy, holy, holy presence that immediately I began to bow my head in referential awe. And the Holy Spirit disappears in front of me, and out of this light, this singular light, comes in Jesus, and He comes in, and He walks towards me. And He had this white linen robe on, and it was aromatic. I can smell an aroma, this holy aroma. It was an oil that I've never smelled before in my life. It, when I was inhaling it, it was like I can smell the fire. It was like the fire of God was just burning into my soul. I don't have words for that, and He did something. I did not look at His face. I immediately, by nature, just bowed in reverence, and He hugged me, and we were chest to chest. And I started sobbing, and for me it was, that right there is the goal of my life. I don't care about anything else. I don't care about anything. I don't care about nothing. I just want that. "Well done, good and faithful servant," that's my goal. And when He hugged me like that, I just felt so alive. And I was smelling this aroma, this powerful incense, this holy presence began to burn in me. And then He did something that I did not understand. He literally grabbed me and threw me suddenly, and when I fell on the floor like this suddenly, it was like I was in an ocean of love. It was like waves of the Father's love were seeping in and out of me, and it was speaking to me, Sid. It was saying, "I love you. I love you". It was saying, it was breathing in waves, "I love you. I love you," going in and out of me, in and out of me, in and out of me. And Jesus was there. But it was so powerful, Sid. It was something that I've never, ever in my life ever experienced, and to this day I don't even know why me. But it was so beautiful, and the next thing you know, I remember seeing these little chains in my heart. They were just breaking, and what looked like these little fiery ants coming out, and I just felt the fire of God. It wasn't like just speaking in tongues. It was like fire, this holy, holy fire just consumed me, and it was so powerful. And I remember my mom and my brothers, they rush into the room, and there, they see me on the floor. And it's like a person putting their hand in an electrical socket, violently shaking under a current. My body was trembling under the currents of God's Glory. And the next thing you know, my mom, she's a Puerto Rican lady. She just starts smacking my face. So she's speaking Spanish, "Ay, Dios mio, help him, help him"! So she started praying. She had no idea what was happening. And I said, "Lord, give my mom a sign that this is You". And immediately currents of unknown tongues, different kinds of tongues, fell out of my mouth. And Sid, it did not sound like what the regular speaking in the Spirit. It sounded like known languages. It sounded Middle Eastern. It sounded Hebrew. It sounded something that was different. My mom instantly stopped, and there was an awe that came over her, and she grabbed me. And I'm weeping uncontrollably under this presence. And she says, "Oh, Chris, the things that you will experience, not many will understand, but know that it is the Lord. Now get up and go shower".
Sid Roth: That's a mother.
Chris Garcia: That's a mom.
Sid Roth: I'll tell you what. We've run out of time. I want Jackie Baker, a worship leader for Daniel Kolenda, to usher in God's Glory through worship and for Chris to demonstrate how to worship and for him to impart and pray for your supernatural insatiable hunger for more of God and for notable miracles and the fire of God to come upon you. Go to our extended online show right now at SidRoth.org/Garcia.