Sid Roth - How To Hear God Speak
Sid Roth: Hello. Welcome to my world where it's naturally supernatural. Just breathe in the rarified air of Heaven. I prophesy to you, you will, you will hear God's voice. You will! You will hear God's voice. You will be normal, normal as defined by the Bible. Because my guest has been called by God to mentor you in hearing God's voice. You know, as my guest travels around the country and he asks people to raise their hands, how many people hear God's voice on a regular basis? What percentage would you say do not?
Richard Mull: Over 90 percent. It doesn't matter what denomination where I'm speaking over 90 percent cannot say that they hear God on a regular basis.
Sid Roth: So you're in a Baptist Bible college. You go to schools of theology some seven years. How many classes did you have on hearing God's voice?
Richard Mull: Never had one class on hearing God's voice. There was one teacher that spoke on how there are only four passages in the Bible that talk about God speaking, and how they're all misunderstood and misinterpreted, that anybody who says that God spoke to them needs professional help. He happened to be a psychology professor.
Sid Roth: Did you know the number one profession for suicides? I'll leave that alone. But let me ask you this. You read a book on why speaking in tongues is not for today and what did you do about it?
Richard Mull: Well I wanted a theology about what was wrong with tongues. And so that's why I asked for the book. Went to my Baptist pastor and he gave me a book, and I devoured it over a weekend. But the problem was I looked up the passages, and I looked at what they really said, and I saw the weakness of this, you know, author's arguments, became thoroughly convinced that tongues was for real against my desire, just trying to be honest with what I read. And I said, Lord, if this is for real, would you give me the gift of tongues, and He did right there in my Baptist college dorm room.
Sid Roth: Okay. Now, in a Baptist seminary no less. Okay. 1996, two wonderful ministry opportunities, you're pastoring, they cross your path. But you don't know which is God. What do you do?
Richard Mull: Well my pastor and dear friends of ours, they told me God had spoken to them, that I was supposed to stay. And I thought, well they got skin in the game. How do I know that they've heard God? I didn't know how to hear God's voice at that point in my life. And so I prayed a crazy prayer for a Baptist pastor. I said, God, either drop a granite stone out of the sky with message in it that I'm supposed stay here, no joke. That's what I prayed.
Sid Roth: And hope it doesn't hit you in the head.
Richard Mull: I'm glad that's not how He answered. But the second option, and you know, the crazy things we do sometimes. But I said, Lord, send someone to walk about the street that doesn't know me from Adam to tell me God told him I'm supposed to stay. I said, if one of those two things happen I will know that it's you, I'll never look back and I will stay. And sure enough, after a four-day fast, I told our church leadership that I was resigning effective one year from now, that I was going to use that year to run the ministry, but raise support. And I got a call from the receptionist. That was on Thursday. My fast ended. On Monday morning, I get a call from the receptionist. She said, "There's a guy out here wants to speak to a pastor". So I came out into the lobby and there was a guy with a long beard, long hair, dirty hands, missing half his teeth, old beat up pickup truck outside, and he introduced himself, told me just a little bit about his ministry, and said God had told him to come in here and speak to a pastor. I said, "Okay, how can I help you"? I figure he's going to ask for money for his ministry or something. And he said, "The one thing I know I'm supposed to say is this, sometimes I feel like God wants us to go far away like another country if that's where He can us, where in reality, God wants us to stay right where we are, and that's where He's going to use us to make an impact". He started crying. Said, "I don't know why I'm saying this, but God told me to come in here and tell this to a pastor". Brought him back to my office. And there were two other things I had been praying about that week I had never prayed about before, and he gave me specific answers to both of prayers. He sang a little song, walked around, kissed me on my cheek and walked out the door. I was like, okay, this is the most unusual day of my life so far.
Sid Roth: Okay. But now it gets better. Eight months later, this guy, this prophet, his name is Cecil, calls you. What does he say?
Richard Mull: He said, "God has given me a word for you". Well the first time he had given me a business card and I call him a week later, and the phone was dead. And I thought, what a strange thing. I thought maybe it was angel. Why would he give me a card and disappear? I didn't hear from him for eight months. And then he said, "I've got a word for you". He came to my office. Before he made it back to my office, there were two of our staff members laying prostrate in their office and he had spoken specific words to them. I knew it was the last day on the job because our church didn't have stuff like that. So I invited him, you know, back into my office. And he said, "Before I tell you what God has given me to give to you, we need to go your house and pray for your wife. She's having severe back pain". I was like, how does he know that?
Sid Roth: How did he know that?
Richard Mull: There was no way. I hadn't told anyone. I woke up, about two o'clock that morning, my wife wincing in pain because she was pregnant and the baby was pressing on her sciatica. And so I said, "Let's go". We got in the car, drove to my house and he prayed for wife, turned and began to speak a word over me, and the next thing I know I was laying on the carpet in my living room.
Sid Roth: He was overcome by the Spirit. What did God do when you were overcome by the Spirit?
Richard Mull: Began to see a vision right away. One short side note is exactly a week before I had a teenager in my youth group, wanted to share a vision that he had when he was slaying in the Spirit, and I asked him, I said, "Can you show me slaying in the Spirit in the Bible". He didn't come forth with any passages. And I was thinking, okay if God was going to speak through a vision to someone, I wouldn't put that pass God. But wouldn't he give it to me, the leader of the ministry, not one of my teenagers. He's just a drummer in my band. Forgive me Lord for my arrogance. But here I am exactly one week later, laying on the floor having a vision. The first thing I saw was an angel at my feet. And this angel is laying a sheet over on top of me. And as the angel was laying the sheet over me, Cecil said, "There is an angel and he's putting a mantle on me". How does he see what I'm seeing in this vision? And then I saw a sword falling from the sky, end over end, and as it fell, all of a sudden it hit something that I couldn't see before. But it hit a veil and began to split the veil, and tore the veil as it came all the way to the ground. And then this little, what I would now call a cherub, I didn't know what it was at the time, it was a small angelic being, poked his head through and said, "Come". And I went through the veil. And next, it's interesting because it was a lot like this was a round platform in the middle, and there was a Roman soldier's helmet spinning over the platform. And I'm just watching it all. It was three-dimensional. It was as real as this set. And then I saw a star begin to descend from above. And the closer it got to me, the more I felt this energy like pulsing through my being to the point when it got fairly close to me, I said, that's enough. I felt like I was going to explode. My wife had bent down to see that I was still breathing as I laid there. And I sat up, and I thought, okay, my theological God box has just been exploded.
Sid Roth: And wait until you find out. He received a mantle and we're going to have him demonstrate that in a few minutes.
Sid Roth: Not man, but God taught Richard Mull step by step how to hear God's voice, how to operate in the supernatural. For instance, you're teaching a Baptist college retreat and all of a sudden what happened?
Richard Mull: Well I had been speaking about from the Book of Acts normal Christianity. The problem is I had never experienced any of it. I was calling it extreme Christianity, but that was my spin, this is what I believe the normal Christian life was to be. And I asked, how many of you want this? I stood up and I decided to something again normal for a Baptist speaker, and then began to lay hands on everybody as I went around the room. And one of the girls sat down and she began to pull her hair and she began to lift her shirt to the point where I thought she was going to tear her shirt. She was rocking back and forth and making a hissing sound. And my first thought was, where's the door, I'm out of here. And but I was like brand new at hearing God's voice. And I said, "God, would you show me what to do". I was still in that phase learning to hear God, is this God, is this me, is this God? But I didn't have the luxury of time to figure out what is God. So I'm going to do whatever I sense the Holy Spirit leads me to do. And I knew at the time to pray something about the name of Jesus. And I'm going, is this coming from my head, my theological background or by the Holy Spirit? I'm not going to argue. I'm just going to pray something about the name of Jesus, because I know there's power in the name. And prayed something about the authority and the blood of Jesus. I felt impressed to pray in tongues, which is something I had never done publically.
Sid Roth: At a Baptist college.
Richard Mull: Yeah. And so I began to under my breath, kind of my hand over the front of my face, pray in tongues. And then I felt impressed to shout, "Freedom in Jesus' name". At that point, I was pretty sure I had picked something up watching televangelists or something. But I was not going to stop. And so I shouted, "Freedom in Jesus' name". And the girl all of a sudden looked at me, very embarrassed, put her head down, covered her face, and all the torment stopped. I turned around and I began to explain to this college group what had just happened. I knew that what was saying was not coming from myself. And I was thinking, I hope somebody takes really good notes because this is pretty amazing stuff. I really have no idea what I'm talking about. And it was the beginning of the next six months, everywhere I spoke or worshiped, someone would manifest demons.
Sid Roth: Okay. There are life-threatening situations by being human. And it seems as though the closer we get to the return of Jesus, the more this late great Planet Earth is being shaken. What happened in a life-threatening situation when your baby son died?
Richard Mull: Nathaniel was almost two years old. We had been strongly urged by doctors to put him on steroids and antibiotics. We tried to resist but felt that it was a pretty severe encouragement by them that they would write us up for non-compliance if we didn't. So we allowed them to put him on steroids and antibiotics. Thirty-six hours later, I was headed back the hospital. I pulled him off my chest and the words that came out of my mouth were, "He's gone". You can't prepare for a moment like that, but I had been preparing for a year believing I would see the dead raised. I had seen most of the miracles of the Bible. But I sit him on that table and I began to pray. And I said, "God, I don't know what to do to his body, but I know what to do spiritually". I continued to pray and I watched the minutes inch away, eight minutes, 10 minute, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. And during that time, I was answering their questions, but I was commanding Nathaniel to come back because I knew his spirit was gone. I said, "Nathaniel, you listen to your daddy. Right now, I want you to come back here". I was rebuking spirits of death from the room. I was repenting of every sin I had ever thought of doing, every sin my family had ever done generationally. I was taking away every right that the enemy had to attack my family and my son. And in about 22 minutes I had a vision. In the middle of that hospital room, the doctors were still working on him. You could see them looking at each other. But I saw in the middle of that room a boat being tossed by the waves and I could see Jesus on the boat, and I knew that was my promise, that the Lord was going to raise my son back up. I knew we had passed the barriers where brain damage begins and all those things.
Sid Roth: How long had he been dead?
Richard Mull: At that point it was about 22 minutes.
Sid Roth: Wow.
Richard Mull: It ended up 40 minutes before they found a heartbeat and blood pressure. And they told us that he wouldn't have the strength to make it through an operation, that he needed an operation. He had an ulcer related to the medicine, we found out later. And the ulcer had ruptured. And so he had been pouring toxins throughout his system into his bloodstream. They said he would be too weak to make it through an operation, that he was gone too long, that he would be brain damaged. And for people that were here this evening, they got see him first hand, running around, full of life, no brain damage, and raised, and, oh God.
Sid Roth: That's how I want you to hear God. I want you to hear God. And Richard has been raised up, and he's going to supernaturally teach you when we come back what God has taught him as to how you can hear God's voice. It is normal. Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice".
Richard Mull: Amen.
Sid Roth: So Richard, you're counseling a pastor. He's been married 18 years. He wants out. He wants divorce. If you could not hear God's voice, he would have gotten a divorce. Do you agree?
Richard Mull: Very likely, yeah.
Sid Roth: What happened?
Richard Mull: It was about 11:00 at night, which is not my time of day. So I wanted the Lord to give the insight quickly. And was driving there and just asked the Lord to reveal what the route where she was right off the bat. We kind of said our introductory hellos. And as I was sitting down, I said, "Who's Karen"? He looked at me and said, "I don't know". I said, "Anybody in your church named Karen"? He said, "No". "Somebody from your past named Karen"? He said, "There was a girl I dated when I was 15". And then the Holy Spirit showed me and I said, "her picture is in your wallet". And he was like, "Yeah". "And her phone number is on the back of the picture". And he said, "Yeah". And I said, "You had sexual relations with her when you were 15". He said, "Yeah". I said, "You still fantasize about having a relationship with her if something happens to her marriage and you're out of marriage". And he was like, "Yeah". I said, "You've had ungodly soul time for 36 years and you need to break or you're going to be miserable out of your marriage and out of your ministry". I said, "Are you ready to break that"? And it took him 15 minutes to be willing to do that. And I almost told him, "I'm done. There's nothing I can do for you if you're going to hold on that," when he said, "No, I know I need to do this". And he repented to that ungodly soul time, renounced it, and God saved his marriage, saved his ministry, and a denominational pastor has healing and deliverance in his church now.
Sid Roth: You see what happens when you can hear a voice, the voice of God? He knows everything. What are some of the hindrances you found to hearing the voice of God?
Richard Mull: One of the hindrances is often all the other voices in our head. We've got what our families are going to think, what our friends are going to think. We've got the enemy. For a long time, I wasn't even, I dealt with the demonic. But I didn't realize how much the enemy spoke to me. One day, I had even had some tempting thoughts. And I began immediately to renounce those. And the Holy Spirit spoke to me. He goes, "Those weren't your thoughts". And I thought, how could they not be my thoughts? They were in my head. And the Holy Spirit revealed to me that the enemy implanted those thoughts. He had spoken back to me. And often when I teach and hearing God's voice, I'll say, you can't resist. If someone gives you an idea, you'll get a picture of it. So I want you to prepare yourself. Be an audience. I don't want you to get a picture in your mind of what I say. Is everybody ready? And I'll say something, no matter what it is, and people instantly get an image in their mind. So the enemy is willing to give false visions, false dreams. We can hear his voice, and our own self will can stand in the way of us hearing God. Sometimes just distractions, we get up every day and we put music on, we put the television on and we don't take time to listen. My wife can be three feet from me, talking to me and my ears function completely well, but I don't hear a word she's saying, because I'm paying attention to the Sport Center or I think she's talking to someone else, and I'm not listening. The same with the Holy Spirit. He could be there speaking to us, but our attention is focused somewhere else, and because we're not listening, we don't hear what he's saying.
Sid Roth: Do you think that's probably one of the biggest hindrance, we just flat don't listen or we don't even know how He speaks to us?
Richard Mull: We don't even know. I used to ask God to speak to me and it would really frustrate me, because I had all these images in my head. And I was pretty sure, and it's interesting because this is another survey that I do that's fairly universal. I was pretty sure when I did hear God, it would be perfectly silent in my mind and all of a sudden, a booming James Earl Jones or Morgan Freeman-style voice would come rumbling with the clouds and the thunder, and then I would hear God. I didn't realize, because no one said, like said to Jeremiah, "Jeremiah, what do you see"? No one ever asked me, Richard, what do you see? I never paid attention to what I saw. I was seeing visions as long as I could remember. And I would have thoughts, and it would be God type thoughts. But I was pretty sure they were my thoughts, because no one ever talked about the Spirit.
Sid Roth: You know, the first time I heard a word of knowledge, I heard the word "hearing". I didn't have a clue what to do with it. I wasn't even sure it was God. So I had to experiment.
Richard Mull: Yeah. And that's how you grow. As you test those things, after a while, I know that I hear God. My wife knows that I hear God. My children know that I hear God. People close to me, it's like..
Sid Roth: Give me a couple of tips on how to hear God.
Richard Mull: I think early on it's important for you to get quiet, because you want to focus your attention. I used to think God could only speak in the silence because that's what I got used to. And I've been in places where the music was so loud you can't hear yourself, and the Spirit of God in the still small whisper was so clear. I was like, okay God, you broke that paradigm down. So it doesn't have to be quiet. But it helps when you're quiet and you're able to focus your attention. It's also, I think, very important to write it down.
Sid Roth: Yeah, but I'm lazy. I don't want to write it down.
Richard Mull: You know, I receive things and it's so normal to debate. Is this God? Is this me? And I tell people, write down everything that comes to your mind. Ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you. Write down everything that comes to your mind, because it's usually very easy afterwards to discern, this was God, this was own thoughts, this came from the enemy. And I believe when we ask God to speak to us and we write down what His spirit puts in our spirit and our mind begins to process what hits our spirit, that we're going to find that what we're writing is the words that God speaks to us. But it is important to test those things afterwards. I usually teach people to do this. And I was teaching two young Russian girls, totally independent of each other. They were sisters, one away at a boarding school, one living with mom and dad. Both of them had the exact same experience. The first words that they wrote down were, "Get away from these people. They're going hurt you. They don't know what they're doing". I said, "Thank you for writing that down. Is that all you wrote down"? They're like, "No". At first I said, "Where do you think that came from"? They said, "That was the demons that talk to me". I said, "Do you talk about demons"? And they were like, "No". I said, "What makes you say they're demons"? They were, "I know I've had demons my whole life". I was like, okay.
Sid Roth: We have 15 seconds. I want you to shout into the camera, "Freedom". Would you do that.
Richard Mull: Freedom in Jesus' name!
Sid Roth: Freedom in Jesus' name!