Sid Roth - 2024, Get Ready, I Hear THE ROAR (Prophetic Word)
Sid Roth: Welcome, Holy Spirit. To God be all of the glory. My guest, Tom Hardiman, oversees a worldwide network of more than 400 pastors. His story proves God can use even the darkest of circumstances, no matter what, for His Glory. Tom, you were raised Catholic, but in 1972 you had what the world calls, and it was, a defining moment.
Tom Hardiman: It certainly was, and I will tell you this. This was the night before the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. I found myself, after all that preparation, being part of the US team. And I will tell you I had tremendous honor in my heart for what I was experiencing, but at the same time, there was this emptiness that I really didn't understand. We called a team meeting, and I asked all of the team members, "What could you expect to be doing 10 years from now"? And one of my teammates shared with me that God had a plan for my life. I couldn't process what was going on. I felt like I had achieved this goal, and yet there was something really missing. But the Olympic Games in '72 were tragically interrupted with a terror attack. We lost 11 Olympic athletes with the Israeli athletes, were killed in a very horrific way which really deflated everything that was happening in the games. It took the whole spirit out of the games. I found it hard to understand that that could actually take place. Here we are, Olympic athletes that are doing all this, and yet there is this plan that people had put in place to destroy, and it was overwhelming. And it enlarged my desire to find out where God was and who He was, and if He had this plan for my life, I certainly wanted to discover this. This altered the course of my life. When I asked Jesus to come into my life, there was something that happened that had never been there before. It was the reason for my existence. And when I began to feel that there was a divine purpose for my life that could be pursued, I was willing to sell everything that I had to find this, what I would come to understand was this pearl of great price.
Sid Roth: So you accepted the Messiah, started a church, but 13 years later...
Tom Hardiman: Yeah.
Sid Roth: ...the worst day of your life.
Tom Hardiman: Yes. The conflict that existed in this particular moment, 13 years after I had been pastoring, was there, was this disagreement in the movement that I was in, and there was some severe disciplines and corrections that the movement that I was in was asking me to make, some of which were contradictory to the beliefs that I feel like God would have me hold onto. And so being criticized so severely, I felt like all of my purpose for my existence was pulled out of me, and this is one of the reasons I felt like I can't go on. I began to have what I would come to understand were panic attacks and anxiety attacks. I found myself with no strength, and my wife drove me to the hospital, and I wound up in the psychiatric ward. Through all of this, I felt, from the words that were spoken to me and the criticism that was given to me, there was no future, no hope and no direction that I would have for my life. I had concluded from the things that were being said that I had failed God.
Sid Roth: So Tom lost hope. That's what he's saying, and then you moved to Charlotte. You, at that time, though, asked God for direction, and God kept speaking to you, "Wait".
Tom Hardiman: Well, I will tell you the hardest thing that, I feel like when you're in a moment of not knowing direction, and the only word that you get is wait, it's not only puzzling. It's not only frustrating. I was, after I stepped out of the ministry, I still had a wife and three children. I had moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, and there were people that God had already set up to rescue me, these individuals that would be very instrumental in helping me reacquire the destiny that God had for me. But in the midst of this, there was not clarity on what the next step or the next course of action would be, and for people that experience those kinds of moments, I do believe that there's a road map to help you recover the losses that you had, but I will tell you this. The despair of those years where you had put your heart and soul into finding what I believed was God's destiny, and then it not materializing leads you to a place where you're somewhat hopeless, somewhat disillusioned, somewhat in despair. And the word that God speaks to you is wait? It takes faith that I didn't have at that time, but I will tell you, God still had a plan.
Sid Roth: Yeah, you were actually in a dry dock situation. What did God mean by that?
Tom Hardiman: This dry dock is an illustration of what God does with vessels. When they try and recondition them and refit them for battle, it doesn't mean the ship is no longer going to be used. They bring ships into dry dock, remove all the water from around them, and what they do is they look at the things that have happened below the waterline to make repairs. And in ministry and in life, we have all kinds of things that happen to us where we're taking shots below the waterline, and because they're not visual, we just continue to travel on. But in dry dock, the time where God was telling me to wait, what He was doing was making repairs to my vessel to refit me for further use. This is part of the process that God uses to perfect the people that He wants to use significantly. I've looked at individuals like David and like Joseph and like Moses, who spent seasons of time in wilderness-like experiences, and in those seasons of time God was really preparing them for the next phase of what He wanted to do with them.
Sid Roth: You made an analogy of barnacles.
Tom Hardiman: Barnacles represent our... these are crustaceans that attach themself below the waterline on ships. If these barnacles are not removed, these barnacles begin to grow a hairlike substance, and this hairlike substance is called Satan's beard by mariners.
Sid Roth: Really?
Tom Hardiman: Yes!
Sid Roth: Huh.
Tom Hardiman: And it slows the ship down, but every so often, men and women of God, the people that are in pursuit of God, need to find themself in a place where the things that have attached themself below the waterline, and sometimes these are relationships that God is endeavoring to remove from us that simply drain the life from us but really don't produce anything. As a matter of fact, they slow us down from accomplishing the purposes of God. Before that happened with the USS Constitution, it was called the old slow ship. After it, all of those things were removed, this was sleek. This was a leadership vessel, and it was ready to be reused in a much more powerful, powerful way.
Sid Roth: When we return, Tom's vision will be your road map for your full restoration. Be right back.
Sid Roth: Tom says, "God takes note of our losses and gives us back the years we have lost". Explain that.
Tom Hardiman: In the Book of Joel, this is written during a time where Israel has not been faithful to the Lord, but here's what God says. "If you will return to Me, I'll return to you, and I will restore to you the years". And so this was most meaningful to me because I felt like, in my years of waiting and my years of being set aside, and I felt like in the moments in which I had felt all of those words that had been spoken unto to me that were so negative, I felt like, "Can God ever reuse me"? And this promise of restoring years and the picture that you have when you read Joel is God is going to give you a new harvest. But what God is not only going to do in giving you a new harvest, He remembers what you lost by not having previous harvests. And so He gives you a new harvest, but He takes that which the palmerworm and the cankerworm and the caterpillar have stolen. And you have a new harvest, but He remembers what you missed in the previous harvest, and He adds that to this new harvest. Because there's many people that have felt like they have been set aside or missed God, and God has the capacity... As a matter of fact, He is the one that is promising, "I'm going to restore to you lost harvest and lost years". When God says that there's a restoration that's required when people suffer pain and suffering, and He requires a sevenfold restoration, somebody is keeping note of all of that. And so God calculates when people have been through hardship and difficulty and heartache, some of which we may have brought upon ourselves, or some of which have been done by people that have not had great intent towards us, God takes note of that. And I believe that there's a day in the lives of people where God draws a line, and I found this happening in my own life, where God drew a line and said, "No more losses".
Sid Roth: Well, you got offered a wonderful job with Rick Joyner at Morningstar, and before work you received a call.
Tom Hardiman: I was going to start on a Monday. A call came on a Friday and said, "Tom, we've been praying about this. God just spoke to us. You're not the man for the job, but you need to unpack your winter clothes. You're moving back to New Jersey". The land of my suffering, the land of my heartache, the land where people had thrust us out of, and that wasn't too well-received.
Sid Roth: I'm sure.
Tom Hardiman: It wasn't particularly well-received by my wife, but we knew that we wanted to obey God. So God sent us back to the very place where we had suffered so much. We had been so maligned, but I will tell you this. This was God preparing a place for us in the presence of our enemies, and God was going to shift around and turn around all the negative things that had been said about us, all the negative things that had been done. And in a moment in time, all of what I had planned was shifting because God had a different plan to restore, and He wanted to restore to us in the presence of the people that had been so maligning to us. He wanted to restore to us our reputation, our dignity and our ministry. And I do believe just like with Joseph and just like with Moses, even though Moses did some things that he shouldn't have been doing, God used all of the missteps that I had made, that Moses made, that other individuals have, and weaved it into part of His plan, and I will tell you this. I came out of that period of time with a whole lot more to offer because I knew of people and experienced things in my own life where there was desperation, and I was to come out of that time having a level of empathy and compassion that I would not have had, had I not gone through all of those moments, to help prepare me for the supervision of 400 pastors.
Sid Roth: Okay. In your brand-new book "Restored," Tom teaches how to recognize the redemptive threads woven into our circumstances. Give us some of these redemptive threads.
Tom Hardiman: One of the strongest chapters in the book is that of silent messengers. My oldest sister was born severely and profoundly retarded, who, at 75 years old, died and never had spoken a word in her life. And the Lord spoke to me and said, "Your sister preached a more powerful message to your family than 10,000 preachers could have ever spoken". There are circumstances that we go through where God seems to be silent, but He's speaking powerful messages to us, and in moments where things seem to be out of control, we don't seem to have a handle on what God is doing, or He's telling us to wait. There are profound messages in those moments in time, and we certainly don't want to miss those messages because it's part of what God needs for us to understand as our future unfolds.
Sid Roth: Tell us about the wounded soldier vision.
Tom Hardiman: The Lord took me to Fort Dixon in Jersey in a vision, in an open vision, and I saw parade fields, 20 football fields all put together. And the Lord takes me up to the platform and He says to me, "I want you to help these". And I could tell it was a battlefield full of wounded people, and I looked back at the Lord, knowing what I had been through and knowing my own pain, and I told the Lord, "I don't want the job". But I could tell from the look on His face in this open vision that I had really disappointed Him, and so I said, "Okay, I'll take the job". And with that He vanished. And so I proceeded to go through this field, and I could tell that it was just filled with wounded people after wounded people, and I shouted out, "You can't leave me like this"! And with that He reappears. And I see He points to a group of what are called the fife and drum corps in the corner of the field. He said, "Just get these up and marching". I exhort them to get up. I help lift them up, and I could tell as I'm doing this, this is not a modern-day army. This is the army from 1776. This is a battle for liberty and freedom. When they put the instruments to their face, they started playing the most melodious and glorious sound that I had ever heard. As it filters down into the camp, one after another, and soon this becomes a whole army of people that are following this new sound that God is making ready in the Earth today. It's a sound of redemption. It's a sound of restoration, and it's a sound of healing and freedom.
Sid Roth: Are you ready to hear the sound of restoration in your life? There's a starting point. The starting point is, forget what's happened in the past and start fresh. Start as if this is the first day of your life. Repeat this prayer after me. "Dear God. I'm so sorry for my mistakes. But I believe. Your Blood. Was more than enough. To wipe my slate clean. And I'm free. Now that I'm free. Jesus, come and live inside of me. I make you my Savior and my Lord. And my Lord. Amen". Tom, what has God shown you for the future?
Tom Hardiman: I walked into Morningstar not that long ago, and I heard what I would say is the roar of Niagara. This sound was like the sound of jet engines amplifying, and now, here's what Niagara did. Niagara, they were able to harness that which had been there for generations. They were able to harness the power, and this power that was about ready to be harnessed would light up the whole region. And I do believe what God is about ready to do through this, the roar of Niagara Falls, the sound of all of this is about ready to filter into the camp of God. There is coming, just listen to the roar of Niagara. This is coming to the church. Powerful. We're about ready to harness the power that has forever been there, that has always been there. But God, at a certain point, was able, these engineers and these architects were able to harness the power, and it lit up the whole region. I believe that this is coming to the church. The power of creative miracles, the power that was exhibited periodically in church history, where we will watch that limbs that had been amputated and limbs that had been disfigured, this creative power of God is about ready to be released. I recall a man that lost an arm in an industrial accident in Azusa Street from his shoulder down, and young people come up and pray for him, and a creative miracle happens, and they watch his arm grow out and watch his fingers grow out and watch the fingernails form on his hand. This is what God is doing, and this roar that I heard was so powerful and so distinct, I could not deny that this is the next phase of what God is going to be doing in the church. Not just incidentally, not just sporadically, but it's going to be the roar that reflects the power of what God is about ready to release.
Sid Roth: We have seen the best the devil has to offer to destroy humanity. Now it's God's time. It's God's turn. Watch the roar in your life. Join us immediately for our extended show at SidRoth.org/Restored. Tom had a visitation from Jesus and was shown a lot of the future, and his wife, Mary Anne, will share her eyewitness account of her brother walking on water to rescue her drowning, stuck-in-the-water sister from certain death. He actually saw, walking on the water. They'll release heavenly prophetic words about what's coming for America, Israel and the world. Get ready to be surprised and expect God to especially speak to you.