Sid Roth - How to Unleash the Power of Heaven
Sid Roth: Hello. Sid Roth here. Welcome to my world where it's naturally supernatural. My guest has found that wherever he goes he can release the Spirit of God. I mean, he walks into buying a cell phone. You've bought cell phones before. And he's just talking, but he's bringing the Spirit of God in this place and h's figured out how to be conscious of it and how the presence of God will just radiate wherever he goes. And guess what? The people in the cell phone store fall over slain in the Spirit. You're trusting in an understanding in how to walk in the presence of God like that? I am. You know, miracles just flow off of my guest. I mean, he's just, I'm just having to put some makeup on me and the makeup artist is telling me she has a rod in her leg. It causes her to waddle and have discomfort. And so I said, Bill, go pray for her. And just a few seconds ago, she was doing makeup, and she said, "This is amazing". No, it's not. It's normal, normal as defined by the Bible. Now Bill, just kind of whet their appetite. What kind of miracles are happening now that are kind of spectacular going on in your life? Is there a trend?
Bill Johnson: There seems to be seasons. I don't understand that. But there seems to be shifts in focus and emphasis. In the last few years we've had a great number of people healed of head trauma, very serious brain injuries, fatal things that were terminal diseases of the brain all the way down to dyslexia, bi-polar, those kinds of things. We've also had a lot of people healed with metal in their body where they had restricted movement or you could feel a metal plate in the wrist, and the screws and all of that. I really was encouraged from James Maloney, actually, to go after this because he has had so much breakthrough in that area. So I just started taking a risk looking for the problem and then praying for the people, and you can feel that it's gone, the rod, the plates. The things that would prevent them from bending they now have complete mobility. It's extraordinary.
Sid Roth: Randy Clark did his doctorate thesis. How many people did he say had metal turn to bone, approximately?
Bill Johnson: It's hundreds. It's hundreds of people in his study that he has names, addresses, everything. Folks, over, I think it was, I think he did it over a three-year period of time. It's hundreds of people, not those that just raised their hand to say, but actually were able to follow up and verify. And it's an extraordinary miracle.
Sid Roth: Now I think you're extraordinary and I'm going to tell you why. Five generations of pastors and his son is the sixth generation. I think that's phenomenal. You are a blessed man. But even with all of that, you really didn't feel qualified to move in the supernatural or the spectacular things that are commonplace for you right now. What changed it?
Bill Johnson: Oh goodness. I would pray for a season over people. Nothing would happen. I would read on how to pray for people. Nothing would ever happen. Nobody ever got healed. I had some died but nobody would get healed.
Sid Roth: By the way, he may be joking. But actually had that happen to me. I started praying people. Someone died.
Bill Johnson: I'm not joking. It happened to me, too. But anyway, it just wouldn't leave the pages of scripture. So while I would leave it for a season, I would come back and be encouraged, and go after it. No breakthrough. Finally, in 1987, somebody encouraged me to go to a John Weber conference. And I saw, I heard them teach what I had been teaching for quite an extended period of time. So nothing was different in that aspect. But I saw that they took risks that I wasn't willing to take. And I came home. I didn't pray any differently. I started looking for problems, which was a new twist for me. But I didn't pray differently, but people started getting healed. It just, it wasn't just on me. It was actually on the entire church, which was what I wanted. I wanted everybody to get in on it, you know. And so I came home, began to look for problems, pray for people, and miracles actually started immediately. And the one that really lit me up, ignited my heart was a miracle that took place in a store. It was in a public place. It was just a friend who was not a believer, confessed their problems, had to retire at an early age with his arthritis. And I just said, God wants to heal you. Took two minutes to pray, whatever. Dramatically, dramatically healed.
Sid Roth: What was he healed of?
Bill Johnson: Arthritis all through the joints. He couldn't pull tools. He couldn't reach for boxes on his shelf. He owned a business and he was going to have to retire and quit at a young age, in his 40s. And he was just dramatically, dramatically, in moments.
Sid Roth: Are you telling me everyone that is born again can walk in to the Kingdom and have miracles happen?
Bill Johnson: Oh yeah, absolutely.
Sid Roth: Everyone.
Bill Johnson: We must.
Sid Roth: And no exceptions.
Bill Johnson: No, exceptions, no.
Sid Roth: They don't have to fight generations of pastors.
Bill Johnson: No, no, no.
Sid Roth: Okay. Nineteen nighty-five, Bill gets desperate. For eight months, he is praying. What are you praying for eight months?
Bill Johnson: Oh my. I get a little teary eyed on this one. I just was praying for more. I just, I knew there was more. We were seeing breakthrough and I was so thankful, and I almost felt greedy. But my heart was exploding with hunger for more, more of God, more of His manifest presence, more of the kinds of breakthroughs that we see in scripture. I cried out day and night. I'd wake up in the middle of the night. I would wake myself praying. I didn't wake up to pray. I'm actually praying in my sleep and I wake myself up praying.
Sid Roth: By the way, you know how I know this is true? His associate pastor went on a retreat with him and he said, all night long he hears this guy pray, "More Lord, more, more", in his sleep. So I know it's true. Then he said one thing more. He said there was like a glow over your face.
Bill Johnson: Yeah. Yeah, I didn't find that out until a year or more later.
Sid Roth: I think God likes us praying for more. That's what I believe, wants you praying for more. Okay. So you prophesy to someone. Maybe at three in the morning you have an encounter with God to someone else. Three in the morning, what happens to you?
Bill Johnson: That same night, I woke up with, you know how you're in a dead sleep and then in an instant, it's a millisecond you're as awake as you could possibly be. And I had what felt like a thousand volts of electricity going through my body, and it was terrifying, exhilarating, all of the above. And I had, the only thing I had control of was my head. I turned my head and I saw the digital clock next to the bed. It was three a.m. exactly. And I instantly remembered the prophetic word I gave to a friend, and I said out loud, I said, "You set me up". Because I knew that this was God, but I couldn't explain it. It was, I was embarrassed. I mean, my arm, I had no control over my limbs. I would try to grab my arms and bring them down. My legs would get more violent. And it was, this just went on and on, and on. And I felt my face turn red. You know, how you blush. I was embarrassed over what was happening.
Sid Roth: Had you ever had any paradigm for this? Had you ever seen something?
Bill Johnson: No, never heard of it. Never heard of it.
Sid Roth: Okay. Hold that thought. When we come back, I'm going to have him pick up. And in the meantime, you keep telling God, "More God, more".
Sid Roth: So my guest, at three in the morning, he's praying, for eight months he's been praying, "God, I want more at any cost". If you had known, Bill Johnson, what that prayer meant, do you think you would have prayed it?
Bill Johnson: I think so, because I honestly prayed it with that kind of abandonment. As much, you know, as much as I knew how, I was saying, that I will be....and I just have to have more.
Sid Roth: Okay. Take me, three in the morning, what's happening to you?
Bill Johnson: Well I, as this presence is on me and this power is shooting through me, scenes begin to pass before my eyes. I could see, first of all, I was reminded of Jacob wresting with an angel, limped the rest of his life. Mary, the mother of Jesus called the mother of an illegitimate child. You know, that stigma. And then the pictures that flashed, I saw myself training to teach for our church. In that condition, realizing there's nobody there that's going to believe this is God. No one. And the next scene, I'm standing in front of my favorite restaurant in town in that condition. I could see myself realizing I'm going to be a mockery to the entire city. And I could tell what the Lord was after, is He was reminding me, I said, at any cost. And what I was coming to realize is that if I say yes to this, I may be in bed the rest of my life. I can't function. I can't do life if I say yes. I'm giving up my right to dignity. I'm giving up my right to function as a normal human being. And I lay there for probably I believe for 20 minutes with tears going down the sides of my face. I said, "I'll take it if I get more of you. You can do anything you want with me, any way you want me, anything you want, I don't care. I'll take the exchange if I get more of you".
Sid Roth: So you're processing obviously. You go back to bed. The next night, what happens?
Bill Johnson: Same thing.
Sid Roth: Same thing.
Bill Johnson: Same thing three nights in a row.
Sid Roth: After this encounter...
Bill Johnson: Yes.
Sid Roth: What was God expecting from you?
Bill Johnson: I, as simple as it is, He didn't want me to be concerned on how I looked to somebody else. He really wanted me to fear God and not man. And the strange thing is, is there's not one of my closest friends that would have said I fear man. But the Lord could see something, it was still there that had not been dealt with. And he seemed to be trusted with me knowing a breakthrough to minister in any measure of revival. You can't be controlled or influenced by the fear of man. It will cripple you. And I feel that the Lord is really wanting me to set all of us free. And for me, it just needed to be something dramatic where I could love people, but not fear them, where I could serve people, but not be controlled them. And I think it's essential for what God is wanting to do on the earth. He's wanting to raise up a generation that can fear God only and love not the life and the death.
Sid Roth: I see this aspect about you, but I see another aspect. I see a man that has compassion for people that are suffering.
Bill Johnson: Yes.
Sid Roth: Where did this come from, this compassion? Jesus had this compassion.
Bill Johnson: I would think it's from him. It's just you get close and you feel his heart. You know, you feel his heart for anything. You feel his pleasure. I sometimes, honestly, I'll do an experiment. I'll put my hand on somebody's shoulder just to affectionately touch them. But what I'm really doing is I can sense the pleasure of the Lord for that person. And when you sense the pleasure of God for people, it's so hard to criticize them. It's so hard to think evil of them or, you know, all you want to do is to sow into their best, to call them into their destiny. When you discover that pleasure of the Lord for people, I think it's closely connected to this compassion thing that Jesus was moved by compassion. Compassion always brings a miracle. Sympathy just brings comfort in a problem.
Sid Roth: You told me that sometimes before you'll enter a store, you'll just be still. Explain what you'll do before you go into a retail store or someone's home, or something like that.
Bill Johnson: Yeah. Will sometimes I realize, for example, I'm going into a store. It's kind of the people who own it are involved in all different kinds of strange things. So I'll pause for a moment on the outside, not to bind, not to loose, not to engage in any kind of warfare. I'm just turning my attention towards the Holy Spirit, my affection towards Him. And as soon as I recognize His presence resting upon me, then I go in the store. And I don't have to say anything. Things, there's an atmosphere shift in the building when He rests upon you. My whole deal is the Holy Spirit is in every believer, but He doesn't always rest upon every believer. And that's what I think are challenges. Learn to be a person that hosts Him in the sense that He rests upon us, because He's in me for my sake, but He comes upon me for yours. He comes upon me for the sake of people around me.
Sid Roth: So correct me if I'm wrong. But what I'm hearing you say is you come to your senses, my terminology. You come to your senses. You begin to tell God how grateful you are for all He's done in your life. You begin to just have your heart touch His. Then when you walk into a retail establishment, He's in the whole atmosphere around you. You must change the atmosphere in some stores.
Bill Johnson: Well I hope so. We're supposed to.
Sid Roth: Tell me about the time you went to a gas station.
Bill Johnson: I was just, this was back when we had to stand in line at a particular station to pay. You couldn't pay at the pump. And I walked into the gas station and the two people in front of me started, they were laughing, just uncontrollably. And I thought maybe they knew each other. I thought maybe one of them had told a joke to the other one, or something, you know. And finally, one of them broke loose, ran out of the store, pushed through the glass doors, turned around and just stared at me from the other side of the glass. I, you know, I don't know what happened. But righteousness, peace and joy, the joy part became manifest there and they didn't even know what they got a taste of. But they really did get a taste of the liberating presence of the joy of God.
Sid Roth: I have to tell you something funny. My uncle I gave a video to, and he's no longer here right now. But and the video was a Rodney Howard Brown video, and people had that same joy that Bill is talking about right now. But they, but Rodney wasn't doing anything funny. And he called me on the phone and he said, "These people are crazy. This guy is not funny. I'm funnier than him, but he's getting more laughs than I'm getting". We'll be right back.
Sid Roth: You know, I'm convinced that there is something called an immersion or a baptism of the Holy Spirit and then it goes on, and fire. It seems to me, Bill, that's what happened to you in your bed. You were baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire. Have you studied people in history that similar things have occurred? Tell me one.
Bill Johnson: Yeah. I, there's quite a few of them that have had those encounters. John G. Lake is one of my heroes in history. And he met all the qualifications for one who was baptized in the Holy Spirit in a doctrinal sense. But he was so hungry for more that he knew he didn't have all that was available, and that need just began to cry out to God, and he experienced something that was extreme, and very, very traumatic. But that made the huge shift in his life from what would be considered normal by most believers into a lifestyle where he would pray for over a hundred people a day, saying a hundred thousand verified healings in Spokane. And the story goes on and on. But it started at that Divine encounter, that what I would call or you would call in this context a baptism of fire.
Sid Roth: If I was to force you to tell me something after all of these years of walking with the fire of God, seeing miracles in almost any man on the planet, more miracles, what is the one thing or two things you wish you had known from day one of ministry?
Bill Johnson: If I could go back 40 years and counsel me I would turn my attention more towards the goodness of God. I wished I would have known how good He was. I theologically knew that and I have had a great father. He's in Heaven now. So I had a good image of a good father. That wasn't a problem. But I just did not know how good he was. I didn't know how extreme. I didn't realize it's impossible to exaggerate his goodness. I can distort it. I can destroy it. I can defile it, but I can't exaggerate it.
Sid Roth: Can you demonstrate His goodness right now by praying for people as God directs? And I can tell you, right now someone with pain in the back of the neck has just been healed. Would you pray whatever God shows you right now.
Bill Johnson: Of course. Holy Spirit, I ask that you release the power right now upon people's bodies that were a testimony, metal dissolving in people's bodies. that the metal plates exist and the torment exists. I, the people that are in chronic, chronic pain that never lets up because of that. Surgery gone bad, we're just saying, Lord, bring restoration as only you can do. Restore. We pray this for the Glory of God. We pray this for the Glory of God. Pray as well, Lord, that you would restore people's sense of confidence of being loved by a Father that there would be such a revelation. My cries of people that feel the embrace of the perfect father, a father that will not let go. And that that realization be released all through the TV audience, that there would be encounters and experiences. We want to grow in the confidence of your greatness, your significance. I pray for that. I pray as well that no disease would stand before the power of the name Jesus through this broadcast that from cancer to mental illness, schizophrenia, to torment on the mind, all of these things would be lifted and literally driven out of people's lives for the honor of the name Jesus. Increase that anointing for breakthrough, Lord. Amen.
Sid Roth: Would you pray one more very quick prayer for the fire of God to fall on people.
Bill Johnson: Yeah. That is our cry. Father, release over every place this is viewed that there be a release of a baptism of fire, a baptism of fire. God, we lay aside all of our experiences, restrictions and restraints in our thinking and we just say, God we want more at any cost. Give us a baptism of fire, something that opens us up to the heart of God for the people. I pray this in Jesus' name.
Sid Roth: More. God, I want more. God, you be praying that right now. You be praying that. God I want more. Tell Him that. More, God, we want more. Thank you Lord.