Sid Roth — Prayer of Jabez
SID: Hello. Sid Roth here. Welcome to my world where it's naturally supernatural. I knew Dr. Kenneth Hagan and he walked in extraordinary miracles. He found two prayers in the Book of Ephesians and he prayed them for himself over a thousand times, and then do you remember a few years ago there was a big thing from the Bible, the Prayer of Jabez. Do you remember that? Well my guest went on a search and study of the Bible to find the most supernatural prayers in the Bible and if it worked in The Prayer of Jabez, if it worked with the prayers of Ephesians, it's going to work for you. Would you like to know these prayers? I would. You know, Mike Shreve told me something before we went on the air. He told me about what God has put in his heart about expectancy for this show. What is that?
MIKE: I felt this phenomenal anticipation that there's going to be an excessive amount of miraculous manifestations globally when this program is shown. And I felt this for weeks. It's been upon me when I prayed. It has gripped me with a season of fasting. And so I'm looking for incredible things to happen tonight.
SID: Me, too. Now you spent two years researching and studying the prayers of the Bible. What was the catalyst to get you to do this?
MIKE: Well back around the turn of the millennium, there was such a megatrend in the body of Christ of interest in The Prayer of Jabez, which is only 32 words long, one sentence.
SID: Right.
MIKE: It takes about 10 seconds to quote it, five phrases, five requests. All it says is, "Oh that you would bless me indeed, that you would enlarge my territory, that your hand would be with me, that you would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain." And I think the thing that resonated with people was how immediate the response from Heaven was. It just says, "And God gave him what he requested." We're never told what kind of supernatural things may or may not have taken place, just that God gave him what he requested. So what gripped my heart was this, that if that prayer should resonate with the body of Christ so profoundly, how much more the prayers that got a very intense response from Heaven. And so for two years I searched through the Word.
SID: But let me ask you this. On this Prayer of Jabez, I heard the most supernatural, amazing testimonies. So I think what you're telling me, there are prayers with even greater responses that are available to us that we've never even thought about.
MIKE: Oh I believe The Prayer of Jabez was powerful and it's something we should implement. But it never states that there was a supernatural response. So if that was important to study, it's more important to study the prayers where there was a tremendous supernatural response. And when I began to go through those prayers, I noticed what I call power points, certain statements that were made, certain methods of approaching God that seemed to have a greater ability to capture the heart of God and bring a response. It changed my prayer life. I began praying according to those patterns, not in a methodical kind of way where I don't believe formulas capture God's heart. This is relational and you can't get some kind of word formula that you quote and then manipulate God into responding to you. But there are certain kinds of prayers that God historically has responded to, so we need to learn from that.
SID: Okay. Let's have an example. How about prayers from a famous rabbi, Rabbi Moshe Rabbeinu. Moses.
MIKE: I'm glad it's Moses, because I wasn't sure where you were going with that.
SID: That's okay.
MIKE: I don't think I studied with that one. But hey, yes, you shocked me, Sid, you shocked me. This was actually a point in Moses' life where I believe he was crushed, he was disappointed, he was grief stricken, he was tired of people because he had done everything he could to usher them into the presence of God. And given a few weeks' absence when he's up in Mount Sinai receiving the extension of the Torah, they give themselves over to idolatry. And he comes down shocked to see them dancing naked around this idol that they've created. And so after he dealt with that, he went back to God. And now his focus, I believe, is more on God than on the people. And he says, "God, if I have found grace in your sight, show me your way that I might know you and that I might find grace in your sight." And at first I thought, well that's redundant, that's repetitive. He starts out saying, "If I have found grace in your sight, show me your way that I might know you, that I might find grace in your sight." And then I realize that he was saying, I need an extra application of grace. I need more grace, more anointing, more glory. I've got this responsibility. These people are depending on me. Show me your way, Lord. Show me exactly what you want me to do and I'll know you, because where I find your work, I find your personality revealed. He says, "If I know your way I'll know you." And I believe that's what we discover the character of God, in the works that we perform in his name. He demonstrates his character to others. But I learned that lesson of the Moses prayer when I was unsaved. I found out that you can ask God what Moses asked. Next he said, "Show me your glory, show me your glory." And God responded to him and said, "I'll make all my goodness pass before you and I'll make the name of the Lord proclaimed before you." And strangely, Moses says, "Show me your glory." God said, "I'll show you my goodness." Back when I was unsaved, I didn't know how to pray the prayer of Moses. But I got a letter from an old friend. At the time, I was a teacher of yoga and meditation in four universities. I was very deeply involved in far eastern mysticism. I had 400 students who thought I was their guru. I was spending 12 hours a day in solitude, chanting, doing meditation, doing yoga trying to find this elusive thing they call God consciousness. And then an old friend of mine wrote me a letter saying that you'll never find God through what you're doing. He said, you need to be born again and you need to accept Jesus as Lord of your life. So that letter initially, I rejected. I said, I cannot confine my belief system to one religion. It's not logical. It's more loving and wise to embrace all religions of the world. That's what I thought. But that letter weighed on my mind until finally I said, I'm going to dedicate an entire day to Jesus and I'm going to ask him to reveal himself supernaturally. Now I might not have said, show me your glory, but in essence, I was saying, show me your glory. Because for 12 hours that day, all I did was read the Bible and say, "Jesus, this is your day. If you're real manifest yourself supernaturally to me." And that afternoon, I was on my way to teach a yoga class at University of South Florida and there happened to be a prayer group in town that was praying for me, 24-hour prayer chain. Somebody was praying for me every hour. Well one of the members of that prayer group was walking in the Laundromat two miles away from where I stepped out hitchhiking to go teach a class. And he said, the Holy Spirit spoke to him and said, "Get back in your van and start driving." He didn't know that the person he had been praying for, for over a month was standing there saying, "Jesus, if you're the answer, give me a sign today."
SID: Mike really got his sign.
MIKE: I got it.
SID: That guy must be one of the happiest believers on Earth. But I love that prayer of Moses. God, show us your glory. When we come back, oh God, show us your glory.
SID: So the prophet Malachi says, "Just before the Messiah returns, Elijah is going to show up." And I believe it's the spirit of Elijah is going to show up. But tell me about the supernatural prayer of Elijah.
MIKE: Well Elijah stood on his own against 850 false prophets, and it was God's time to bring revival in Israel. He prayed a prayer, again, that didn't take a minute to say. But he said, "Oh Lord God, of Abraham and Isaac and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel. Let it be known that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant," and this is key, "and that I have done these things according to your Word." And then he said, "Lord God, let it be known that you are God, let these people know that you are God and that you have turned their hearts to you again." Well a number of years ago, I was confronted with a situation where I was outnumbered, too. I was in India and preached to an audience of thousands and thousands of Hindus that, for the most part, had never heard the Gospel before. And I felt this tremendous pressure on me. In fact, toward the end of my message, it was almost like invisible hands were choking me, demonic hands, and I was having to force every word out. Right at the critical moment, a word of knowledge dropped in my spirit and God said, "Call for the deaf and tell them if what you preached is true, every deaf person will hear again. If what you preached is not true, they will not hear and they can throw you out of their city." Well I didn't know how critical it was that I respond to that word of knowledge. I didn't know that behind the stage there were six Hindu men, radical Hindus. Now let me insert here that most Hindu people I find to be the most gentle, loving, tolerant people. Of all the cultures of the world, they're one of the most gentle and tolerant cultures. But there's radicals in every culture. And they were creeping up the stairwell with a sledgehammer. There was a big gate with a big padlock preventing break-ins. Well right when I made this call for the deaf, they brought seven deaf persons. Four were totally deaf, three were deaf in one ear. And immediately I got angry at any thought of easing my way into a miracle by praying for one of the ones with one deaf ear. I said, bring me somebody totally deaf. And they brought a 23-year-old young man who had been deaf for five years. I laid hands on him and started to pray, and as soon as I did that, I hear this crunching, crashing sound behind me, and it's that sledgehammer hitting that padlock that finally clatters to the concrete. Six Hindu men come running in my direction with this fierce angry look on their faces. And I'm looking at them while I'm praying for him, and all of a sudden he jerks out of my hands and starts screaming, "I can hear! I can hear!" The crowd goes wild.
SID: Did you have any thought that he might not hear and that would be it?
MIKE: To be honest with you, yes. There was a war going on my mind, too. But all of a sudden, this group of Hindus stops dead in their tracks. Now remember, I had used an Elijah-like tactic. I said, "God has spoken to me. I'm doing this at his word that if the Gospel that I'm preaching is true, just like Elijah said, if the Lord be God and not Baal, then fire is going to fall from Heaven." Well I said, "If the Lord Jesus Christ is your true savior, then these are going to be healed." Now you'd better have a true word from God before you do something like that. But God had it set up so amazingly because the head of the Hindu radical group, the leader, was the next-door neighbor of the man that God healed.
SID: Now is God brilliant or what? We serve a brilliant God.
MIKE: Amazingly. What a genius. I couldn't have done it any better myself, Lord if I had planned the script. So they stop in their tracks and the leader walks over and starts whispering in his ears, and he repeats the words back. And he shakes his head marveling, and he calls his men over and they all start whispering, and he repeats to them, and they're all shaking their heads. To be honest with you, I thought it was a pastorally appointed checking committee to verify the miracles.
SID: Not there to kill you.
MIKE: I didn't know they came to beat me up. Their plan was to beat me up publically then tie me to the bumper of their car and drag me through the city until I was dead. And I asked them the next day when I talked to them, I said, "Why did you want to do that?" And they said, "We wanted to discourage missionary activity." I said, "Well you would have discouraged me, I guarantee you, if you had done that." But I didn't know that's their motive. So I prayed for the second one, and the second one hears. And in my ignorance, I sent the second one to the checking committee, and they verify, this one is hearing, too. And we went on to the third, and the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, they all got their hearing. I gave an invitation. Now they're not just being reached intellectually, they're being reached supernaturally. And that's what the early church did.
SID: Now I have a question for you. Can anyone use these supernatural prayers that have supernatural results that you have researched in the Bible? Can anyone use them?
MIKE: Absolutely. It's the inheritance of every child of God. Now you may not get, when I say you, I mean in general, you may not get a word of knowledge or a word of wisdom to act on, but we can still act on the written word, because that's power. But Jesus, the Word made flesh, resorted to the written word when he faced off with the devil. And so any believer can say it is written, it is written, it is written.
SID: There is something about these New Covenant prayers that Mike has researched. Tell me about the Hosanna Prayer.
MIKE: Well the Hosanna Prayer ushered in the New Covenant. Actually, the word "Hosanna" is only found in one place in the Bible, and that's the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. However, it's drawn from a traditional Hebrew response that is especially shouted during Passover and Tabernacles, "Ha shana," which means, "Lord save, we beseech thee." [who saves we beseech thee] So as Jesus is entering into Jerusalem, the crowd comes around him and hundreds of voices shout, "Hosanna! Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!" Well when you shout Hosanna to God, you're saying, Lord save me. But really in your heart of hearts you're saying, I believe you're going to save me. And if you add those words, "in the highest" to it, you're saying, Lord, I believe you're going to save me to the highest degree possible for God to save a human being. Save me from sickness, save me from sin, save me from Satan, save me from death, save me from Hell, save me from the grave. He did it. He responded to that prayer. That one word prayer changed the world forever.
SID: Let me ask you something. Kenneth Hagan prayed over a thousand times from the Book of Ephesians, two prayers, Ephesians, Chapter 1:17-20, Ephesians, Chapter 3:14-19. I told you about that and you started praying. What happened when you started praying them?
MIKE: Well what God showed me, and I've got to preface it quickly with this, is that those prayers are not just Paul praying for the Ephesian church or another Bible writer praying for some church or person that they're addressing. But all the scriptures God breathed, the Bible says it was written by the Holy Spirit that holy men of God wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. So while Paul was writing that prayer to the Ephesians, that was not just Paul praying for the Ephesians that they would receive the spirit of wisdom and revelation, and the knowledge of God, that they might know the hope of his calling and the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and the exceeding greatness of his power toward those who believe. No, that was the Holy Spirit venting that prayer through Paul and then fanning it out to the entire body of Christ who was going to come into being in that century and yet many centuries later, those of us in the audience here tonight, we are recipients of that prayer. So what God showed me, and I didn't realize until you told me about Brother Hagan's revelation, what God showed me is I needed to start accepting those prayers as a done deal. And I started saying, Lord, I receive the spirit of revelation. I receive that power. I receive it right now.
SID: You prayed, quickly for someone right after you had that revelation. What happened?
MIKE: I went to a teen challenge where someone had his face smashed in. He was blind in one eye, deaf in one ear, and I had been praying for that exceeding great power to be manifested. I just barely laid hands on him and he started seeing and hearing again.
SID: Pray right now, right now.
MIKE: In the name of Jesus, I'm going to show Hosanna over every person that is watching this telecast. You shout it where you're at right now. We're going to shout Hosanna right now. Father, in the name of Jesus, we come to you on the basis of what has already been written in your word. You've already said, it is written, I give you power over all the power of the enemy. So we shatter the whole of the enemy right now. We take a authority over strongholds. Cripples are being healed and getting up out of wheelchairs and deaf people are hearing again. Blind people are seeing again. And I feel that radiance of the anointing, Lord. I speak it, that the anointing destroys the yoke. I feel it radiating through the audience. In fact, this audience ought to be praising God with the word "Hosanna" in the highest. Lord, save us. Hosanna in the highest!
SID: Hosanna! Hosanna!
MIKE: Lord, we believe in you saving us, saving us from sin, saving from sickness, saving us from bondage, saving us from mental pressure, saving us! Lift our hands up. Hosanna to you right now, Lord. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
SID: I tell you what, I don't know how to close it, except the most important supernatural prayer I know, the most important, Romans 10, Verse 9: "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus rose from the dead and believe it in your heart, you shall be saved."