Sid Roth - Experience the Music of Revival
Sid Roth: Hello. Sid Roth here. Welcome to my world where it's naturally supernatural. Just breathe in the supernatural air of Heaven. My guest was the worship leader for one of the greatest moves of God, revivals of the 20th century. Four million came from all over the world to a church in a city called Pensacola, Florida. His passion as a worship leader is to so reach his heart to God that the presence of God comes in, and in God's presence, all, say it with me, all things are possible. You know, Lindell Cooley was raised in an amazing family. His families were believers, they were worship leaders. They did worship for so many well known people like A.A. Allen. He grew up hearing about miracles, hearing about revival meetings. That was normal for him. And in fact, at age 14, what happened to you, Lindell Cooley?
Lindell Cooley: I was in a service on a Sunday night and the Lord just showed me a vision, and spoke to me and said, "I'm going to use you to take worship to nations".
Sid Roth: What does a 14-year-old think about words like that?
Lindell Cooley: At the year I was 14 there was no such thing as worship to the nations as we know it. There were hymn books. So I just felt this immediate need to learn how to play an instrument. I played drums, and of course, we have a joke that musicians and drummers are not the same thing. But I felt this immediate need, I got to learn how to play something that carries a melody, because I'm supposed to do this in front of people, at 14.
Sid Roth: But you know what really provokes me to jealousy? Outside of praying in supernatural languages and singing, and that, I don't carry a tune. This guy, it's a supernatural gift of being able, you just hum a song to him and he can play it on the piano. That started immediately.
Lindell Cooley: Immediately.
Sid Roth: Not fair. I protest! So I asked him, what was the number one song to have God show up at the Brownsville revival, and he didn't blink an eye, and he said, "Look What the Lord Has Done".
Lindell Cooley: That's right.
Sid Roth: Tell me about the woman that was in the balcony where they had this sign.
Sid Roth: No dancing.
Lindell Cooley: "No Dancing". because they're afraid the balcony would fall.
Sid Roth: Tell me about her.
Lindell Cooley: She walked up to the balcony and she had really not been walking with the Lord the way she should. She was really cold in her heart. And so we were singing, "Look What the Lord Has Done" and she said, "I was, it had been so long since I heard from the Lord and I heard the Lord immediately in my spirit say, 'Lisa, go down there and dance'". Lisa: No.
Lindell Cooley: And she said, "No, I'm not going to dance, Lord. I don't do that". He said, "Go dance". She said, "I started moving toward the stairs thinking that you would be finished with the song, and I'm arguing with God all the way". You can't argue with God. "So I'm arguing with God all the way down the steps, 'I can't do this, I can't do this, I don't do this'". She said, "I got to the main floor and you will still singing". And she said, "I thought, okay, whatever, I'll just jump up and down". She said, "When I jumped up the first time I hit the ground I immediately had tears coming down my face". She said, "And every time I hit the ground from jumping up, I felt something. It felt like weights and chains falling off of me, and years of things falling off of me".
Sid Roth: Do you want weights and chains falling of you? Do you? I'm going to tell you something. All right. This is, we're going right into the Brownsville meeting right now. Studio audience, you stand up. You at home, I give orders, stand up. And I want you to do a little jumping because look what the Lord has done.
Sid Roth: Okay. So Lindell is a worship leader in a very large church in, what is it, Nashville and your career is zooming. You're doing work with Dolly Parton, Garth Brooks. And he resigns from the church, and he decides he's going to hang out with intellectuals. He starts studying psychology. And I don't get it, Lindell. You grew up miracles. You told me stories about your mother and your grandmother dying of cancer, your grandmother, and she has a miracle, and she gets healed. You've seen all these things and you get to the point you get so cynical.
Lindell Cooley: Yes.
Sid Roth: How does someone coming from there get there?
Lindell Cooley: I guess, Sid, the same way Peter denied Jesus three times. You become so accustomed to what the Lord is doing and then you start reading books and you know, it's important what we allow to influence us. It's very important. It's important the atmosphere we have at home. It's important who we listen to, who we come under the influence of.
Sid Roth: Okay. You are unfortunately, so many young people this is happening to. So he gets, for lack of a better word, he didn't go into blatant sin, but he gets cold to the things of God.
Lindell Cooley: Absolutely.
Sid Roth: He even questions speaking in supernatural languages, which he's done his whole life. So he gets a phone call from John Kilpatrick.
Lindell Cooley: Yes sir.
Sid Roth: From Pensacola, Florida. John says, "I have a job for you". Lindell says, "I'm not interested". Jon says, "I don't care". Lindell, he says, "I'm going to meet you". He gets to his hometown at something like, what?
Lindell Cooley: Eleven o'clock.
Sid Roth: Eleven p.m. at night. And Lindell says, "I know how to get rid of this guy". Guess where he meets? In a bar. Of course, that's about all anything that would be open for a snack at that time of night. He figured that would do it. Didn't stop John one iota.
Lindell Cooley: Didn't phase him.
Sid Roth: So Lindell has a backup plan. He writes down 27 things that have to be done where he goes to work, of which he knew none of them John Kilpatrick would agree with. Now John doesn't even look at the list. I'm sorry, John can't see the list. John proceeds to read the first seven things on the list without reading it, saying, "By the way, you can do this, you can do this".
Lindell Cooley: And they were insane. They were insane. No office hours. Nobody hires anybody without office hours. It was insane.
Sid Roth: Okay. So by the seventh, what happened?
Lindell Cooley: And I put my hand up, and I go, "John, stop. Just stop. I'll take your stupid job".
Sid Roth: But then he says he's cold and what did John say to you?
Lindell Cooley: I said, "John, I have to just tell you, I have no business being a worship leader. I'm cold in the Lord". And he says, "I've heard from the Lord. The Lord is about to move. He wants you there. You know how to get things right with God. Do that and be there Palm Sunday".
Sid Roth: And you said?
Lindell Cooley: Yes sir.
Sid Roth: Okay. Now there was a man that everyone has heard of, William Booth, founded the Salvation Army.
Lindell Cooley: Yes.
Sid Roth: And he wrote a song, and he wrote a song. I'll tell you what, Lindell, will you go out to the piano, and William Booth wrote this song because the believers were cold. Guess what? Lindell took that hymn and put a little Lindell into it, a lot of the spirit of God into it. I want you to hear Lindell Cooley, "Send the Fire".
Sid Roth: So Lindell, John Kilpatrick, he's not that kind of person. But the spirit of God came on him and he was literally, you saw it, immobile. I mean, they had to put his shoes on. Can you imagine? He couldn't even dress himself in the morning. God was dealing with him. So he's kind of watching all these things. This nice dignified pastor is now undignified. Six months going to the revival, and what happened to you?
Lindell Cooley: For six months, I would finish the worship and the preaching would happen, and we'd go into prayer time, and I would just in the choir loft, and I'd cry. It was six months of birthing. It was six months of restoration. It was where the Lord was literally talking to me every night about things in my life. He said, "You know, you pick this up here, you pick that up there, and you replace me". And I said, "Lord, I want more of you. I want you to change me. I don't feel like I'm worthy to be here. Why am I here? Lord, I shouldn't even be here". And on six months, this went on. Sunday morning at church, six months into the revival, and I'm leading worship, I lost control of myself. Not in my fashion at all. Fell over the keyboard, landed on all the keys. And the usher's, by this time, they're used to this, so they just come and pick me up and shovel me off to the corner and lay me on the floor, and another guy comes and finishes the service. For four hours that day, I laid there and wept for hours, four hours.
Sid Roth: What was going on?
Lindell Cooley: The Lord was just saying, "You know what Lindell, I want to restore your innocence before any of this stuff that allowed to come into your life. I want to take you back to the little boy who used to love me with full abandon". And when I got up out of that floor, Sid, I have never been the same person. I felt like I was 12 again. And it's almost like the most enormous, I don't care, that you could ever have, the cares of life. Most people are bowed down and weighed down with the cares of life. And it's not that we're careless as believers in Christ. It's not that. We show up, we pay our bills. It's not that. It's the other things that we care about so much that cloud up our walk with the Lord. And the Lord just took that layer by layer with my permission. He would talk to me and say, "Today I want to take this away. Today I want to take it away". And what He was doing is He was moving all the clutter out of my life and putting himself right back in the middle". You know, a lot of times we ask the Lord to come in, but we've all got, we've got so much stuff in our house and we think the Lord is going to coexist with it. But He comes in the front door and He goes, "You know what? I don't like the way you decorated here. Let's remove this couch and that chair, and let's get this out of here". But I realized that I allowed the Lord in the front part of my house, but not the whole house. And He says, "If I'm not Lord of everything then I'm not Lord at all". And when you're in that presence of the Lord that's why worship is so critical. In His presence, you lose the care. You realize there's so much more of Him than you have and you want Him just to take over. And that's what He did for me on that six-month Sundays, the Sunday of the six-month revival. Changed my life. I've never been the same person.
Sid Roth: How are you different right now as opposed to the way you were before that happened?
Lindell Cooley: My love for the Lord has never waned. I would allow confusion at times to get in my mind. I would be uncertain of things. Now I've realized that God is a person and as such can be cultivated as a person. That means I can love on Him, I can minister to him, I can talk with Him, I can bless Him, and I can know Him. And now I have a relationship with Him, and it was changed. It was always, I love God with all my heart, but He was always somewhere out there. After that touch of the Lord that day and that surgery over six months, it's now, what I am, I am because of Him, I do because of who I am in Him, not because I'm a minister, not because I'm a singer, not because I'm a preacher. I am a child of God. I'm a son of God who does these other things. So if you take away the music it's fine, I'm still a son of God. If you take away the preaching, I'm still a son of God because I have a relationship with Him. I know Him. I really, Sid, know him. And every person watching, you can know God this way.
Sid Roth: This is eternal life.
Lindell Cooley: Yes.
Sid Roth: That you might know Him. Yes, you must be born from above, born again. But this is eternal life that you might know Him. And I believe that if you rededicate your life right now, you will get your innocence back or perhaps you have never dedicated your life to God. It's a simple prayer, but it will change your life. Ask God to forgive you of all of your sins. Believe His death and resurrection paid it all for you. Say, I make you my Lord, with your mouth.
Lindell Cooley: Yes.
Sid Roth: And I want to return to my innocence. My favorite song from the revival, "I Need You Lord, I Need You More Lord".
Lindell Cooley: I need you Lord more than yesterday. I need you Lord more than words can say. I need you more than ever for I need you Lord. I need you Lord. I need you Lord more than yesterday. I need you Lord more than words can say. I need you, I need you more than ever before. I need Lord, I need you Lord. More than the air breathe, more than the song I sing, more than less of me, I need you more than anything. Lord, as time goes by, I rely on a sign because I never want to go back to my old life. I need you more. I need you more than yesterday more than words can say. I need you. There's never a day I need more of you more than ever before. I need you Lord, I need you Lord. Right here in your presence is where I belong. Now my broken heart I finally found, Lord and I need you. I need you Lord more than yesterday. I need you Lord.