Sid Roth - Jesus Wants ALL Believers to Do This (But FEW Will)
Sid Roth: Welcome, Holy Spirit. Go and flow. My guest, Eric Gilmour, believed in God, but his world was rocked when he walked into the thick, visible, tangible presence of God. Eric, you said your mom tricked you? What happened?
Eric Gilmour: Busloads of people were going to the Brownsville Revival, coming back completely changed. Faces were radiant as they were looking to the Lord, marriages were being healed, bodies were being healed. Deliverance was happening. And so many people were coming back changed. And my parents were, like, "Will you go with us"? And I had no interest in going. But my mother said, "You can bring your girlfriend". And so I said, "Oh, okay".
Sid Roth: Mothers know.
Eric Gilmour: Yeah. So she came with me, and we both walked through that door at the Brownsville Revival, into the manifest presence of God. We ran down to the altar after Steve Hill preached the Gospel, clear as day. We gave our lives to the Lord, and everything began to change, from that day. Steve Hill preached a red hot Gospel message, saying things like, "You can go to hell with a communion cup in your hand and a wafer stuck to your tongue if you don't know God".
Sid Roth: Well, but you went in there and you were transformed. But what happens to Eric Gilmour when he's in his bedroom, when he's all alone, and you don't have all that support?
Eric Gilmour: Well, there was such a tangibility of God at the Brownsville Revival. When I came home, I wanted that so bad that I would actually put on Lindell Cooley's worship CDs, and I'd listen to Steve Hill preach his sermon again. And I would begin to worship the Lord in my room. And I would find that the same tangibility, the sweetness of God's presence, was experienced in my room. And I became addicted to the way it feels when I give God all my attention. That's what began to happen to me. My parents were watching me become obsessed with spending time in His Word and enjoying His presence in worship.
Sid Roth: Now, you learned a supernatural secret on a road trip. Explain.
Eric Gilmour: Yeah, this actually changed my whole life, the perspective of God, Christianity, and all. As an older man of God picked me up, we were going on a road trip, and as soon as we get in the car, he says to me, "Let's pray". And I did the only thing I knew, I started rattling off in tongues and begging God for stuff. And all of a sudden, I recognized, he's not saying anything, he's extremely quiet. He waits for me to get tired, knowing that I would get tired with all my efforts and striving. And then after the smoke cleared from my all-out assault on God and hell, and everything else, he did something that changed my life. With a steering wheel in one hand and a coffee in the other, he did just like this. "Jesus, I worship You". And he waited. "I give you honor, Lord, there's no one like You. I worship You". The presence of the Lord flooded the car, and I began to weep. I was weeping for two reasons, really; one, the presence of the Lord was so rich and tangible, two, I was frustrated with how easily he touched God. Changed my life forever.
Sid Roth: What would you say to people that say, "Look, I get up early in the morning, I work all day, I am exhausted. All I want to do is chill out at night and watch dumb TV". That's all I have, not "It's Supernatural"! of course. "That's all I want to do". What would you say to them?
Eric Gilmour: I'd probably use the words from Charles Spurgeon, he says, "We miss a thousand blessings by neglecting communion with God". A person who neglects communion with God neglects joys of joys, peace beyond understanding, a satisfaction that is beyond the things that this world can give to you. It is the man Christ Jesus, loved and adored and experienced. To neglect God is to neglect heaven on the earth, is what I would say to them. So come on, let's enjoy God, just like the Gospel has offered to us.
Sid Roth: You have so many encounters with God. Did this start right away? Or did you have to press through a lot of stuff?
Eric Gilmour: Well, being in the Brownsville Revival, everything was so easy in the midst of the glory. And then as I began to go home, I had to cultivate intimacy with God personally, and those things began to increase as I spent time with God. And each one of them have marked me, each one of them have been results of worship. If I was to emphasize anything, it would be that encounters happen worshipping God. Yes.
Sid Roth: Become a PT right now, a personal trainer.
Eric Gilmour: Yeah.
Sid Roth: Look into that camera and give us some advice so that we can do what you're doing, and even more.
Eric Gilmour: Yeah. I would say to every viewer, the secret to encountering God is recognizing your feebleness, recognizing your weakness, being dependent upon Him. Seeing that He, and He alone, is all sufficient, and you are insufficient. And we come to Him recognizing our weakness and our brokenness. We cast ourselves upon Him, and realize Him to be the highest. We begin to adore Him and worship Him. And right there is where God communicates his presence to man. And then I would encourage you to right there, just linger in His presence. And let the Holy Spirit begin to open your eyes to whatever it is that He wants to show you.
Sid Roth: Speak a little bit, what it means to adore Him. I mean, we know the Word, but what does that really mean, Eric?
Eric Gilmour: I think it's the dethronement of self and the enthronement of God. It is realizing Him as He has revealed Himself in His self-disclosure, the Scriptures. If we recognize that none of His purposes can be thwarted, that He is the one who works all things after the counsel of His own will, that He sits in the heavens and does whatever it is that He pleases, as the Scriptures tell us, then our hearts begin to respond by saying, "Blessed be Your Name. I trust You and I worship You". Adoration happens to a man who realizes God as He's revealed Himself to be.
Sid Roth: Do that for one moment. Do that right now.
Eric Gilmour: Mm-hmm.
Sid Roth: Forget everyone here. You adore God. I want to watch you, if you don't mind.
Eric Gilmour: It would look something like this: "Oh Lord, how weak I am in myself, and oh, how badly I know that I need you. I worship You because You have offered to me Your presence and person, You have descended down out of heaven by the weight of love and lived a life I could never live, and died a death that I deserve. And You raised to life to bring me out of death, you went to the right hand of the throne of God and sent the Spirit into my heart. I worship You. I praise You". And right here in this place of just worship, there's just a lingering that begins to happen, a sustained awareness of consciousness. You're just lingering with Him, with Him, with Him, with Him. I worship You. Just like this. And this is the goal, to be aware of God's presence, and to linger there and drink deep of the river of His delights.
Sid Roth: You know, God showed Eric how to eliminate earthly worry and feeling overpowered and helpless in so many situations of life. Eric calls it the "Glory Cloud Revelation". Be right back.
Sid Roth: Now, I want to hear, Eric Gilmour, about the "Glory Cloud Revelation".
Eric Gilmour: I was driving to Christ for All Nations to teach on prayer, and I always have to pass through the city. This particular morning, the clouds were so thick that I passed through the city and couldn't see one building. The buildings were still there, they weren't removed, they were still there. But I was removed from their influence, I couldn't see them as they were actually there. And the Lord opened my eyes to see that when we're aware of God's presence, problems may not change. They may not be different. But He is between us and them. And it removes us out from underneath that influence. I remember I said to my wife one day when it started to rain, "I know where a pavilion is". And she goes, "Okay, well, take me there". The knowledge of the pavilion is one thing, going underneath it is another. So when we know that Jesus is refuge, that's one thing. But to go into the Name of the Lord, to go underneath Him is to be removed from the influence of those things. Again, they may not be removed, but He is between you and them. This is so important, I think, for our lives, even as David writes, "When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul". He has something between him and these plethora of things coming against him, and it's the presence of the Lord.
Sid Roth: You were really helped by the vision of Jesus in the woods.
Eric Gilmour: Yes. I was lingering in His presence before I was going to preach at this church. And as I was lingering there, my eyes opened on the inside of me, and I saw myself in the middle of the woods. And something was rustling around in the woods, and when I looked over there, I realized it was Jesus. And when I had given all my attention to Him in the woods, He turned His whole being towards me, and He was excited that I was giving Him all my attention. And with love eyes, He stared directly at me. And I came out of the vision by the sight of Him, and was startled by His love for me. And I felt like the Lord taught me something very clear there; when I give attention to Him, He gives me revelation to this love. It reminds me of John 14, Jesus says, "Whoever loves Me, I will disclose Myself to him". And I think when we realize this, we begin to find revelations of God's love through attentiveness to the Man, Christ, Jesus. That's what that vision's all about.
Sid Roth: What about the person that's saying right now, "Yeah, but that was Eric, so God got excited because Eric was giving his full attention. What about me"?
Eric Gilmour: Yeah, I would tell that person, the Gospel is for all men. That Jesus Christ didn't just open the door a little bit. He didn't just open the door a little bit more for other people, He took the door off the hinges and gave full access to everybody. Nobody has more access to God than anybody else, because it's based upon Another, capital A. Jesus Christ, in the Gospel, has granted full access to God, and by faith, we can all come in and enjoy Him. I would encourage that person to believe the Gospel.
Sid Roth: You teach on the 10 stages to experience God. Tell me some of them.
Eric Gilmour: The very first one, I believe, is what we did in the last segment. "Lord, I need You. I need You". If we don't start here with this humility, this place of realizing, there's nothing I can do to make anything happen, it's based upon another. If we don't start there, then we'll get prideful. If we don't start there, we'll actually end up thinking there's no way that I could ever be accepted, one or the other. But if we can realize, "God, I need You so bad. I desire to recognize even more my need for You", that's the first stage. Then from there, we can begin to give all our attention to the Lord, and then adoration begins. And as C. S. Lewis said, "It is in the process of being worshipped that God communicates His presence to man". So it starts with a humble recognition, "I need You". Then it moves to giving God all your attention. And then adoration causes the manifestation of His presence. And we just linger there in His presence. Those will be the first few that I practice every day of my life, and enjoy the riches of divine life through this fellowship.
Sid Roth: Now, when you talk about these 10 stages, one of the words you use is "deprivation".
Eric Gilmour: Yeah.
Sid Roth: What do you mean by that?
Eric Gilmour: Absolutely nothing I can affect in my own strength. My works are absolutely worthless if...
Sid Roth: Yeah, but what if they aren't worthless, and compared to other humans, you're doing pretty good.
Eric Gilmour: That's a great point, compared to other humans, but there's One who came, who was so perfect in thought and word, in deed and motive. He pleased God in everything that He did, and compared to Him, no matter if I fast for the rest of my life, I still pale in comparison to this perfect God Man, named Jesus. And this is the only One that's allowed perfect access to God. But I stand before God as Christ, because Christ stood before God as me, praise God! That's the Gospel.
Sid Roth: Reinhard Bonnke taught you something very important.
Eric Gilmour: I was in the car with him many times, but in this one particular instance, I thought I was praying a lot in my life, and I figured by my arrogant 20-year-old self that I was praying more than him. And I said to him, "Pastor Bonnke, do you mind if I ask you how much do you pray a day"? And he turns to me, and he doesn't answer my question. He fixes my problem. He looks at me and he says, "I do not pray to get close to God. I pray because I am close to God". And I thought, hearing that, I thought, man, that's a pretty arrogant statement. But I realized, no, no, no, he believed the Gospel, and I do not. Praise God.
Sid Roth: Now, you really drive this home when you talk about a true incident between Martha and Mary and the Messiah.
Eric Gilmour: Yes. Martha's distracted, and that distraction robs her of her attraction to the Lord. She's so fixed upon what she's doing for the Lord, she doesn't recognize the Lord. But Mary is so fixed upon the Lord, that even when she's being persecuted by her sister, spoken about by her sister, she doesn't even rebuttal her. She's so transfixed upon Him, His value, His beauty, so much so that she's exposing everybody else in the room for not valuing Him the way that He deserves to be valued. Jesus calls this the one necessity for life. She's chosen the one thing necessary. He says it will never be taken away from her. He calls this the "good part;" there's many parts in Christianity, but Jesus says, "This one, staring at Me with love, devotion, this one is the good part". So we see Mary drawing near, close enough to hear, if nothing else, his breathing. She's fixed upon Him. She's in love with Him. And I believe that that is the essence of what the Gospel should bring everybody to, is a life in love with Jesus.
Sid Roth: Now some of you are listening to us, and you're saying, "I don't even get it. I don't even get what they're talking, in love with Jesus? I don't get it"! That means you need to say this prayer with me, so you will get it. Do you want to know truth, or do you want to know opinion? You will only know truth if you experience the Messiah of Israel, your own encounter. It's good that Eric had an encounter. It's good that I had an encounter. It's good that all these people in the studio audience had encounters. But what about you? This is your time. You see, God wants to get excited about you. Either reaffirm your faith or say this for the first time. But say it out loud and mean it as if this the first day of the rest of your life, that you're sick and tired the way it used to be, and you want to change. Repeat out loud and mean it to the best of your ability. "Dear God, I've made many mistakes for which I'm so sorry. I believe the blood of Jesus washed all my mistakes away. They don't even exist in heaven right now. And I'm clean. And now that I'm clean, Jesus, come and live inside of me. Thank You for saving me from my sins. I make You my Lord. Amen".
Sid Roth: Eric, I want you to pray whatever God wants you to pray at this moment. Press into the Spirit.
Eric Gilmour: Yes. Father, I thank You for Jesus. We worship Him. We adore Him. He is the ruby of heaven. We bless His holy Name. We glorify Him, and I'm asking, Holy Spirit, that every person within the sound of my voice would have the attributes of God manifested in Jesus Christ revealed to them that they might feel, experience, realize the majesty and glory of this Man, Christ Jesus, and fall in love with the beauty and splendor that He is. I'm asking for hearts to melt at the sight of His goodness and His love. Let it be that the loveliness of Jesus be revealed to every viewer. And we shall say with the bride in Song of Solomon, He is altogether lovely, in Jesus' Name.
Sid Roth: And you know, I've been hearing, and this is a new word from me that God is putting on my heart, I usually don't speak this word. I've only done it once or twice, but people's wrists are being healed. You say, why? Why wrists? I don't know why. It's beyond my pay grade. It comes from heaven. But if you move your wrist you'll see that the pain, and now I'm hearing a second word. If you have a back problem, if you just stand up right now and bend over, you'll walk right into your physical healing. Is God showing you anything?
Eric Gilmour: When you started talking, I started feeling tightness in the chest, and I just feel in Jesus' Name, God is removing that tightness of chest, and even heart, pain. Pain right here in the chest. So in Jesus' Name, I pray that this just be released right now. People feel that they're able to breathe, breathe in again, yeah. I want to tell you that there's may things out there in Christianity. But I want to encourage you to hold the Gospel with both hands. Keep the Gospel the center. Anchor yourself in what you see of God in the Gospel, that He has come down to be a Man and walk in our midst. Hold onto this, and don't let anything else take your attention or your focus. Let Jesus Christ in the Gospel be the heart and soul of your love for Him, your confidence in Him, your trust in Him. This, to me, is the most important thing there is, that the Gospel remain in the center of your life.
Sid Roth: What do you mean by "the Gospel"?
Eric Gilmour: I mean, we recognize what God is like through what we see in Jesus Christ; specifically, that He would humble Himself coming from the heavens into the restrictions and frailties of a human body, to suffer for rebellious, sinful mockers. This is showing us a character and a nature and a goodness that is unparalleled. This wins the heart. This causes us to bow and say, "Blessed be the Name of the Lord". It creates worship to see this kind of character revealed in the Gospel.
Sid Roth: And when Eric says "Gospel," another definition of Gospel is, good news. How important is it to read the Scriptures of the Gospel?
Eric Gilmour: Very important to borrow words from the great Charles Spurgeon. Somebody asked him, "What's more important, worship, or the Word"? He said, "You tell me what's more important, breathing in, or breathing out"?
Sid Roth: I pray, Holy Spirit that You breathe on the words that this audience has heard, and that they devour the Gospel. And the Gospel become more important to them than football, baseball, basketball, politics... I pray, oh God, that we have every substance that is separating us from reading the Bible and making Jesus the most important One in our life, to be gone in Yeshua, in Jesus' Name.