Sid Roth - Lioness Arising
Sid Roth: Hello. Sid Roth here. Welcome to my world where it's naturally supernatural. My guest, Lisa Bevere, is married to bestselling author, John Bevere. You probably read the book, "The Bait of Satan". Well Lisa, on the first date with John, he prays for her and she gets free from a disease that is even mystifying doctors today, instantly. What caused this stay at home soccer mom to be a world-class speaker and author, just like her husband, to travel the nations rescuing women sold into sex traffic? She says it's time for you to rise. It's going to have the same effect on you. No more couch potato. Lisa, tell me about that first date with John.
Lisa Bevere Well he shouldn't have been asking me out, but he did. He invited me to a Bible study picnic, and I was just thinking free food. I had no idea I was about ready to be ambushed by the spirit of God. So I go to this date. They're all singing songs. You need to think about this. This is back in 1981, when the songs were bad. And so they were singing with one guitar and one person had their hand up in the air. I'm a college student. I'm thinking, why do you have your hand up? Do you have a question? You have a song sheet. Just look at your song sheet. I was getting nervous. And I began to look down at the song sheet, and I read this one line in the song, Sid, that says, "When God looks at me, He doesn't see me, He sees Jesus". And I heard the Holy Spirit speak in that moment, "I can't look at you. You need a covering". And I turned to John and I said, "Is this true that God could ever look at me and not see me"? And he said, yes. John didn't understand what that meant to me. John was a good Catholic boy who became saved. I was a bad person who desperately needed a savior. So we were walking around the campus and he began to unpack the Bible from Genesis to the Book of Revelation. I began to panic because I heard there was thing called a Rapture. I was worried he was going to disappear and I would never be able to get saved. And so I finally just interrupted him. I said, "I want to do this thing, this Christian thing. Whatever it is, I want to do it right now". And he said, "Well okay, but I'm not done preaching". And he put the fear of God in me, and I'm just like shaking. And so finally I was like compelled. I was like, we need to do this right now. And so I got born again, spirit-filled and healed on our first date. Because John said to me, "Now you're saved". And I said, "What does that mean? What do you mean saved"? He said, "It means your whole again, spirit, soul and body". And I had not been whole, Sid, for a very long time. And when I heard about wholeness, I said, "So I can have cheese now"? He's like, "What are you talking about"? I said, "You said 'whole'". I said, "I can't have dairy products. I have lactose intolerance, I have IBS. I live in constant pain". And he was like, okay God. He just grabbed my hand. He was 22, I was 21. We're not in a church service, we're on a college park bench, and he said, "Jesus, if you can save her, you can heal her". And so I got born again, spirit filled and healed on the first day, and I thought, I might as well marry that guy.
Sid Roth: Now, that's an ingenious way of proposing. But what do you feel when that was happening?
Lisa Bevere You know, nobody could tell me I wasn't healed. You know what happened for me? I felt the warmth of love come into my very being and untie all the knots that had been there since I was 15. I just remember feeling a warmth and a presence of God, and I was just overwhelmed by his goodness, and that was it for me. I went back to my college dorm room, and I said, "Jesus, I need you to wait in the hall just a moment. I have some things I need to get out of this room". And I went in, and I got out all the beer, I got out all the pornography, and I just threw it away, and I said, just come on in. And I spent all night looking through the Book of Paul, because John had said, Paul said this and Paul said that. And so I thought there was a Book of Paul. And I was, I don't know, this is seriously what he had to work with. I had The Way Bible. I stood it on its head and I was like, help me open to the Book of Paul, and it opened up to Corinthians, "If any man be in Christ, behold, he is a new creation". And I was like, God is talking to me! It was profound. It was amazing and I'm so thankful that my life changed.
Sid Roth: So she obviously marries John and has a family. She's a stay at home mom.
Lisa Bevere I wanted to be in the background.
Sid Roth: Wants to, never saw a microphone she liked, wanted to be in the background as she just said. But one day she had the most vivid, the most profound vision of her life. Tell me about it.
Lisa Bevere So I went to bed one night a large exhausted pregnant woman, and I found myself wide awake standing in front of a lioness. She was laying on her side on top of a platform of stone and on the front of the platform was the word "Numbers" and the Roman numerals XXIII. Sid, this lioness, she never moved, but I realized that she was actually more alive than me. I don't know if anybody has, everybody is going to Heaven, but in Heaven, everything is prototype, and here it's just shadow. It looked like her fir was combed gold. And I looked at this lioness and I felt like something inside of me was expanding. And when I felt like I actually couldn't take anything more in, I heard a voice behind me say, "With the birth of this son, you will awaken a lioness". And I began to shake, and I came fully awake, And it was morning time, and I was laying in my bed immersed in the presence of God thinking, what just happened? What just happened? Sid, I don't wake fully. I take two to three hours to awake. But that particular morning, it was high alert. And when I felt like I could actually stretch my hand out, grab my NIV Bible, I opened it up to Numbers 23.
Sid Roth: Which was the Roman numeral you saw.
Lisa Bevere Roman numerals, yes. And this is what I read in Verse 24: "These people rise up like a lioness. They rouse themselves like a lion that does not rest until devours its prey and drinks the blood of its victims". I'm like, what in the world does it have to do with me? These are fierce words on fragile Bible pages. But see, the truth is, Sid, my husband had been pressing me. He had said, "It's not right for you to be comfortable when other people are uncomfortable. It's not right for you to be silent when so many girls in our youth group need you to be a mother to them". And I would say, "Don't you dare talk to me like I'm a congregation. I am your wife. You need to feel sorry for me. I have limits on my life". And at that moment, God said, "No, actually I created you to be fearless. I created you to be free and if you can't look around to find that, I'm going to give you a vision larger than anything you've seen for a fierce awakening". And I did give birth to my fourth son, and I named him Arden Christopher, which means "fiery, determined anointed one". And with his birth, my world began to open up. I began to try to reach...
Sid Roth: Hold that thought. The change that occurred in Lisa is wonderful. But I tell you that God wants that same change in your life. When we come back, I want to find out how Lisa's life has changed and how it's going to impact yours. Don't go away.
Sid Roth: Lisa, so she has this vision of this lioness, she opens her Bible, she reads about the lioness arising. What, well first of all, who is the lioness to you?
Lisa Bevere So Jesus is the lion of the Tribe of Judah.
Sid Roth: Right.
Lisa Bevere And his bride who is the church, I believe is the lioness. And I believe that God is having a fierce awakening. And I think, you know, you're even seeing women coming alongside the men, finding out that they have a voice. They don't have a voice to push the men aside. They are actually adding their voice to the men's voice. And so for me, the lioness is what God wants the church to rise up and look like. So Sid, what happened for me is God sort of opening doors for me. I started traveling, I started ministering and I began to think it was about me. I began to think, wow, I'm not a coward anymore. I'm not a captive anymore. I'm free. I'm traveling and speaking in these big conferences. I'm a lioness. And God was like, "No, this is not about you. I said with the birth of your son you would awaken a lioness". And that is a fierce waking call for his church, and we need to be a people who know how to live in the light, but hunt in the dark, and that is the prophetic anointing that is coming on the church, to live in the light, but hunt in the dark, to see what is hidden, see what is captive. We need to be a people whose eyes are lit from within and that is something that lions have. They have an ability to interpret light of their environment to vision.
Sid Roth: And you know, you explain that lions in the dark can see. So how does a believer see in the dark?
Lisa Bevere Well because we're lit from within. See, it's two, it's very much a tragic thing. I love how you open up some of the programs. We have people in the church who are praying scared prayers: "Oh God, can you please save us. It's going to be such a bad time. I going to lose all my money". You know what? We're supposed to pray scared prayers. We're supposed to pray the prayers that are the Word of God. We're supposed to pray scary prayers. We're supposed to pray prayers that are so fierce, so strong, so God-ridden, that they scare us when they come out of our ears. That is the way of the lioness. The lion, it doesn't' live in fear of what's in its environment. We need to understand that that is the strength that God wants to impart to his people. And so we need to find out who we are and we need to find out what our strength is. And Sid, while I was studying and preaching this, I said, God, you know, just in case, I had that dream a long time ago. Just in case, if this is something, you know, you don't want me to write on, you don't want me to talk on, I just need a confirmation from you. And that night, now I live in Colorado, so this is a kind of frame of reference. That night, I found out my son had a school project. Eight p.m., Mom I have a school project. I go down the stairs, I tear about the three older boys' school projects. I bring him the poster board. He's like, no, this isn't right. You have to brave a blizzard. So I go out, brave a blizzard, have my other three boys, you know, start to build his project from, have it all spread on the table when my husband does something that I would normally have called annoying. But when you've been married for more than 10 years and it's still happening you need to call it cute. So anyway, he has this cute habit of calling me and putting me on the phone with strangers and that night was no exception. He said, "I have a man you need to talk to". I'm like, "No, I'm sorry, I'm doing a school project now. I don't need to talk to a stranger". And he said, "No, you need to talk to this person". So this guy calls me and he said, "Lisa, your husband mentioned that you're teaching on lioness rising. He said that lions are the best killers, but lionesses are the best hunters". He said, "I'm going to tell you why your work is important". He said, "Do you know we are not winning the war in Afghanistan"? And I said, "I did know that". And he said, "Do you want to know why"? And I said, "Sure". He said, "Because we can't speak to the women". And he said, "When you can't speak to the women you can't flip the culture, and when you can't flip a culture, you can't win a war". He said, "I am in charge of assembling special operative teams here at Fort Bragg". And he said, "Up until this point we have focused on men because of the danger". He said, "But now we are sending in special operative women who are going to tell the Afghan women they have voice and value. They're going to take care of their minor medical needs. They're going to deliver their babies and they're going to tell them why democracy will serve their sons and daughters well". He said, "They're about ready to be deployed. It is called Team Lioness. May I have a copy of your resources for all of them"? So I got to resource Team Lioness going out of Fort Bragg then Team Lioness going out of the Marines, out of Camp Lejeune. So if the U.S. military understands that without the involvement of women, we will fight, but we will not win. It is time that we understand in the Body of Christ that we need both the men and the women to win, and that has always been God's dream .And God's dream is the enemy's nightmare.
Sid Roth: Okay. There is someone watching right now.
Lisa Bevere Yeah.
Sid Roth: And you are crying out in your heart, God, there must be something more. What would you say to them?
Lisa Bevere You know, I'm speaking straight to your spirit. There is something inside of you, you know you were created for something so much more than what you have seen. You have been living a life afraid. Well God has not given you a spirit of fear. God did not save you to tame you. He saved you to release you to be everything that he created you to be. I dare you, I dare you to stop being afraid of your strengths, in Jesus' name.
Sid Roth: When we come back, Lisa is going to talk about how this stay at home mom is traveling to some of the hot spots of the world, rescuing women sold into slavery and sex trade. I mean, some of things you do, I am amazed. And guess what? Anything Lisa can do, you can do better. We'll be right back.
Sid Roth: I had a lot of trouble imaging the life that you've had since this Lioness Arising occurred, this vision occurred. You were minding your own business reading a magazine about sex traffic. What happened?
Lisa Bevere You know, I was sitting there turning the pages and I was hearing about sex trafficking. And instead of just saying, you know, that's really sad, I just began to weep. I let it pierce my heart. And I said, "God, if there is anything I can do, if there's any strength I can lend, I'm your girl", and I just believed God would take those moments. Because two weeks later, I had a phone call from Life Today, and they said, "It's come to our attention that there are girls being sex trafficked". Can we send you undercover into the brothels in Thailand"? Then I went to Cambodia. Then I went to India and we went undercover into the brothels. We got the girls' stories. We go the kids rescued. We talked to these people.
Sid Roth: Let me take you, I need to see a particular woman that's in sex trafficking. You're in Cambodia. You're out at midnight. You're in the worst part of town. Your husband should have never let you do that.
Lisa Bevere Yes, he shouldn't have.
Sid Roth: But he didn't know, maybe.
Lisa Bevere He still doesn't know. He's going to know now.
Sid Roth: Okay. Tell me what you saw, what you said.
Lisa Bevere Well there are so many stories first and foremost. But so many of these young girls, this is their story. They're in poverty. They dared to dream. They dared to dream there could be something more for their life. They dared to dream they could get a job. They dared to dream that there might be a family that would take them in as an au pair and they can maybe better themselves. And so they leave with somebody they trust. Usually it's an aunt, an aunt that can just be a trusted woman. They leave with a woman or an uncle and they go into this big city. They're illiterate. And all of a sudden, they find themselves locked up into a room and sold. They're sold for their virginity, they're gang raped, they're humiliated. They're trapped into this lifestyle where they sometimes live in cages and they're chained to the beds. And then pretty soon when they have completely destroyed their spirit, they unchain them, because they know they'll never leave, because they have no hope. And so what we would do is we would travel with them and we would say, we need you to dream again, what would you hope for? And if you get them to connect with the hope, then they'll come out. But there were some women that said, "I just want to die, but will you take my daughter, will you take her. She's six. Before they traffic her, will you take her". Sid, it was the most heartbreaking revelation that the depravity of humans outside of God can do anything like that. It was just terrifying. And we would just talk to them. We would get their stories and then we would give them possible, you know, we'd get them out and we'd give them medical attention. Then we'd give them counseling then we would also give them education or job skills to get out of it.
Sid Roth: Tell me one specific person that got out and what happened to this one woman.
Lisa Bevere Yeah. Well there was one beautiful girl that got out and she was just, she just turned her life around and she became a beautician, which I know doesn't sound like for our people very much, a beautician. But she said, "You know what, it's not enough for me just to have a future, I'm going to actually become a rescuer". And so now this one girl that got out is now one of the advocates and one of the rescuers for other girls. You know, Sid, I want to tell you one particular story. There was a raid in India and they rescued 22 girls. And then they kept hearing a noise, and they just happened to realize that there was a false wall, and there was 11 minor children ranging from 12 to 14 that had been hidden in a wall, who would have died, who would have died because of the heat and no water, and no air. And those girls are all free. In the last year and a half, we've been able to rescue 330 girls in Southeast Asia.
Sid Roth: If you hadn't had that vision of the lioness, would you have ever lived the life you're living now?
Lisa Bevere No. I would have been captive to fear. I would have lived small. And more than likely my children would have also been afraid. Do you know that when I got free I positioned my son's will. This is what I've learned, Sid. Our children inherit one of two things: either God's promises or our fears, and the things that we do not deal with come back to haunt our children. And so this vision put something inside of me that my family hadn't put in me, that my husband tried but couldn't put in me. God took me outside of myself and said, "Your world needs to be so much larger than your fears". And we need a people here that have a fierce faith. And see, they have no problem believing that about a lion, but that fearful wonder is your genesis. It is how God knit you together. You are stunning and we have dumbed that word down to mean beautiful. But you are not beautiful because you are attractive. You are beautiful because stunning means that when you become all that you were created to be, you will stun the enemy. You will arrest him. You will stop him in his tracks. And it is time the church understand that our beauty is in our function and not in our form.
Sid Roth: Lisa, I need you to pray that the lioness, and by the way, that's for men and women, would arise, right now.
Lisa Bevere Absolutely. Heavenly Father, I just thank you, that perilous times give birth to courageous people. Father, I thank you that there's a fierce uprising, that people are throwing off the limitations, that they're remembering who they are, that they remember whose they are, that they remember what their territory is. Father, I thank you for every person that has suffered loss. I thank you that they'll take back that ground. Father, I thank you that for a release of the boldness, of the lion of the Tribe of Judah. I thank you that the bride will begin to pray prayers that include more than just themselves, that they know the creator of all Heaven, all the universe. And they'll pray prayers that are so fierce that it will rise from a whisper to a roar, in Jesus' name. Amen. Sid :And I can picture the lion of the Tribe of Judah roaring over you right now, and fearing Jesus' name. You leave that household. You leave that woman. You leave that man, and depression and hurt be gone in Jesus' name. Lisa. Yes, amen.