Sid Roth - Reaching The World
Sid Roth: Hello. Sid Roth here. Welcome to my world where it's naturally supernatural. Now many of you, not most of you, know Gordon Robertson, host of the 700 Club. But there's something you don't know and I found this out a number of years ago. But I really found it out a few days ago. When I interviewed Gordon Robertson for our radio program, I'm not exaggerating, there was a river of healing, and I'm reminded of Ezekiel. Ezekiel says, "Wherever that river goes there is l'chiam. There is life". So I'm telling you, sickness, demons, you're on notice. The river is here. So Gordon Robertson, he's raised in a very prominent family. Everyone knows his dad, Pat Robertson, but you probably don't know of his grandfather. He was a U.S. senator, a U.S. congressman, very well known. And Gordon sees the contrast early. You can't hide things from kids. He sees his parents struggling, eating soybeans, praying for them to pay the bills at the end of the month. He goes to his grandfather's house and he sees a style he would like. So at five years old, they started getting prophetic words. They said you would be with the 700 Club. You would be a host of the 700 Club.
Gordon Robertson: Yes they did.
Sid Roth: What's going on in the mind of a five-year-old when you hear this?
Gordon Robertson: I didn't want to do that. That was what was going on in my mind. I saw the price my parents paid and I didn't want to pay that. And I actually thought, as young as that, that this, ministry costs too much. You could have so much more if you weren't a minister.
Sid Roth: So he determines, I'm going to be an attorney. I'm going to be like my grandfather. I like the way he's living. So he goes to Yale, graduates, top in one of the most prestigious firms in Virginia he's part of. He's very successful. He's very happy. He has a nice family. But he gets a phone call from a friend by the name of John Jimenez. He was the pastor of Rock Church and John is now in Heaven. But he knew that John heard from God, and John said, "God told me you're supposed to come with me to India. I'm leaving in a couple of days". What did you say?
Gordon Robertson: I didn't have the guts to say no, you're crazy. My lawyer brain kicked in. I knew the United States and India, you had to have a visa in order to travel there.
Sid Roth: Of course.
Gordon Robertson: So I asked John, "When are you leaving"? He said, "Monday morning". It was Thursday afternoon. I said, "I got ya, I got this". I said, "John, if you can get the visa, I'll go".
Sid Roth: Good lawyer thinking.
Gordon Robertson: Bad lawyer thinking.
Sid Roth: What Gordon didn't know is John played chess with him with a guide that is a better advisor than attorney, the Holy Spirit, and he had already set up the process to get his visa. So he gets the visa. He's on the plane. I mean, you must have been saying, I am nuts to be going.
Gordon Robertson: Yeah. Why am I here? What am I doing? Why am I going to India? This makes no sense. And to clear my schedule was, that was a task in and of itself.
Sid Roth: Okay. It gets worse. He gets there and John says, "You're preaching tonight to 15,000 Hindus".
Gordon Robertson: Right.
Sid Roth: Fifteen, how many times had you preached before?
Gordon Robertson: None.
Sid Roth: None.
Gordon Robertson: None. I had gotten up in a church when I was 12 years old and talked, but I had never preached in my life.
Sid Roth: Fifteen, 15,000 Hindus. How would you like to be thrown in to that?
Gordon Robertson: And so here I am, 15,000 in Rajahmundry, India. And the thing about that was it got me praying again.
Sid Roth: Would you say you were a little backslidden?
Gordon Robertson: I was way backslidden.
Sid Roth: Okay.
Gordon Robertson: You know, I was an apostate, but I was way backslidden. I was not living for the Lord in any way, shape or form. And to say, okay, now you're going to preach, okay, I need God. I need God to answer some prayers. And so I got up and I'm, I preached in front of 15,000 Hindus. Had no idea how to do an altar call and preached things that I learned at my daddy's knee. And to my absolute amazement, without an altar call, people came forward to receive salvation.
Sid Roth: Tell me about that one man, briefly, the Brahman.
Gordon Robertson: There was a Brahman couple who came to me and said, I'll never forget it, "Your words pierced our hearts like arrows. We cannot help but believe in this Jesus you preach". At the time, I didn't know Brahmans never get converted. I didn't know what it meant socially for them that they literally were saying, we're leaving everything. We're leaving our position, we're leaving our money, leaving our family in order to embrace a new faith, a new God. And but I did know this, that conversions were happening. It wasn't me. It was God at work.
Sid Roth: You're mystified to see these results. He can't sleep, three in the morning. And you don't realize that in the Hindu religion there are certain feast days, and they're up all night because they believe during these midnight morning hours, demons can't touch them. But you go out and you get right with God. What happened?
Gordon Robertson: I got right with God. I rededicated my life to Him. I had been baptized when I was young and filled with the Holy Spirit when I was 12, and gone my own way starting at age 14. Here I am 35 years old and I said, "God forgive me. I've lived for me. I haven't lived for you". And just felt that peace that passes all understanding. It was there. It was, God answers prayer. He particularly answers the prayer of a contrite man. And I started walking the city and with every step I said, "I claim this land and its people for Jesus". And I'm walking and I hear this big noise down at the river, and it's a Hindu temple, and there it's the night of Siva, the God of destruction, and they're worshiping this God. And I go into the temple. I first checked, Lord, is this of you? Am I going to be okay in this place? And He says, yes. And I go in. And the first thing I see is a Hindu woman bowing down and offering sacrifice to a stone cow where she placed incense sticks so the smoke from the incense would go in the nostrils of this stone cow. And she wasn't going through some ritual. She earnestly prayed. She got on her hands and knees in the dust in front of this idol to pray for an answer. And I had three amazing reactions. The first one was anger. How dare you, made in the image of God, how dare you bow down to this stone. What are you thinking? And the second one was, you pray to the stone cow, I'll pray to the living God. We'll see who answers. It's almost like in Elijah, the prophets of Baal. And then I heard a voice behind me say, "No one has ever told her". And I broke me. You know, here she had lived her whole life and no one told her ever that there was another way, that there was a God you don't worship with images made of wood and stone. You worship Him with your life. You worship Him, the invisible all-powerful God. No one had ever told her.
Sid Roth: When your heart broke, and that's what it's telling me, that's what you're saying right now, God poured His love upon you. You call it a baptism of love. What was that like?
Gordon Robertson: He appeared to me and, you know, you read about visions in the Bible and you go, how did that happen. But He, it was like the eyes, my eyes were open and I could see Him, and I finally understood, in Him we live and move, and have our being. He's always around us. It's just He, it's hidden from our normal vision. I was wide awake and I saw the Lord and then I was able to see how much He loved these people. In the middle of their idolatry He loved them and how much He loved me. In the middle of my rebellion He loved me. He hadn't abandoned me and turned his back on me. It was like oceans and oceans of love. How much He wanted not just to be reconciled with me, but to be reconciled to these people. In the middle of their idolatry He wanted them to know Him.
Sid Roth: And it had such an effect on Gordon that he lets his wife know, back in the States, we're going to be missionaries. His wife thinks he's meshuggah. That's Hebrew for a little crazy. He gets back home and gets right into the rut of, you know, of business. Then he's, I've invested do much of my life. I'm so successful. I'm not going to do that. You know, it kind of got, it faded a little. And then you had a dream and you wound up in Heaven.
Gordon Robertson: I had a dream. Again, I'm right, Jesus is right in front of me. I can see him and it's just like in the vision at the River Temple. And there was so much love, and that love is there. The outpouring and just, it's truly indescribable. And I know it's the end of the age. I know, you know, we're done and it's time to enjoy Heaven. Except I hear a noise behind me, and I turn around and it's all these Asian faces, more than I can count. They were all single file and they, there was a dark gulf between me and Jesus, and them. In single file, they walked up to a rocky point, pointed up at me and said, "If you would come, I would have believed".
Sid Roth: Now Gordon had no choice. He had to go into ministry. And you started some amazing things. You started 700 Club Asia, a school in the Philippines. When you were doing the 700 Club Asia, the ratings tripled, and someone by the name of Pat Robertson in the States, what is going on with my son? And then a prophet comes to you, and what does he say?
Gordon Robertson: He, it was Bill Hammond, and he says to me, didn't know me. He picked me out of a crowd in a Filipino coliseum, and I was standing at the back. I was actually trying to hide. And he said, "You, the sandy haired guy in the back, come forward". I'm starting to look around, where's the sandy haired guy. And I'm with a group of Filipinos. I'm the sandy haired guy. And he calls me forward and he said, "God wants your face and voice to go around the world".
Sid Roth: And the rest is history. Well Gordon was raised in a family that understood the Jew in Israel. And from a little child he understood God's purpose for the Jew in Israel. But he got what I call a Jewish heart when he was at the Western Wall. Briefly, what happened?
Gordon Robertson: I was just 11 years old. It was 1969 and Jerusalem was no longer trodden under the foot of the gentiles. And the joy at the Western Wall with them dancing with Torah scrolls, it touched me, because the Glory of the Lord was there. The Lord and His people had returned to Jerusalem. So it was, I guess, my goy version of a bar mitzvah to be at the Wailing Wall to see that. And I made sure my three children have had the same experience. When they were 12 years old, I took all three of them individually. And my son, I'll never forget, we just finished coming back from the Wailing Wall and we're holding hands. It was such a moment for me. He turns to me. He says, "Dad, I feel like I'm home".
Sid Roth: But tell me what happened to your heart at that moment. What did God do in your heart?
Gordon Robertson: You're home. You know, this is Zion. You're at the place where it all happened. You're at the place where Abraham offered Isaac. You're at the place where Jesus offered himself. You're at the center of it all. And the Bible says, "He'll draw his people to Zion".
Sid Roth: And you Gordon has such a heart felt deep burden for Israel and the Jewish people to know their messiah. He just produced the most amazing and powerful one and half hour film on Israel the nation of hope It covers the history, the ragthering of the Jewish people from the four corners of the earth with dramatic re-entactments and historic footage. It shares how Israel is fulfilling a prophecy. and will be the place where every remaining prohecy shall be fufilled. Lets take a look at a clip from this powerfull film and I have to tell you If you don't have it right on the Jew in Israel you will go into further heresay, I want you to have it right.
Sid Roth: You see why I got exited about that? It all started in Israel. It's all going to end in Israel. But you were in India and you had a revelation from God on healing. Please explain that.
Gordon Robertson: I was preaching in India. I had already started the Asian Center for Missions. I was with a group of missionaries. I was mentoring them and discipling them how to be missionaries, how to preach the Gospel. And we were seeing outpourings of the Holy Spirit. We were seeing salvations. But I had not yet moved into the gift of healing and frankly I didn't want to be a faith healer. I'm getting ready to speak and God speaks to me in that still small voice, "I want to heal the sick today". And my gut reaction was, no you don't. I don't want to be that guy.
Sid Roth: I see some of you saying the same thing.
Gordon Robertson: And you know, I lost the argument with God. I preached for the next 30 minute to myself and preached on faith, not knowing what faith really was, and having inklings, but not that direct experience. At the end of it I said, "God spoke to me and He said He wanted to heal the sick today. Is there anyone sick here"? It was a small crowd, about 75 people. And one woman at the back raised her hand, and I'm going, yea! Because she stood up. So that means she could raise her hand, she could move her arms, she could stand, she could move her legs. She heard me, so she's not deaf. She's looking at me, so she's not blind. All right. God is taking me easy. And then my heart sank because she picked up a 12 year old boy who had never walked in his life. He had gotten polio as an infant and his legs were all twisted and curled. Polio is a horrible disease and it just, my heart broke. And what do you do? And so I did what I knew and I broke out James, Chapter 5. Let's get the elders. Let's anoint with oil. Let's pray. And we did all of that, and nothing happened. And it was my turn to question God. All right, God, I'm doing all I know. A voice of anguish replied, "When will you rely on me"? And at first, I thought it was a rebuke, that I had been doing it wrong. And then something deep within my spirit sprang up. How about now? Can I rely on you now? And that seemed like, yeah. And it came to me in a flash, Jesus never prayed for the sick. He commanded sickness to leave and it obeyed him. And so I thought that was the best idea I had ever had. So I took a step back from the little boy and I pointed at him, and I said, "Get up and walk".
Sid Roth: You commanded him.
Gordon Robertson: I commanded him. And there was something, we talk about faith being substance. There was a substance literally in the air between me and him and I could see he got it, and he got up and walked. It was like a horse, a foul who's just been born, that little stumbling walk at first. And so I went to the other side and said, "Walk over here". And every step he got stronger. It's like you could see his legs literally unfurl and muscle came. It was just absolutely astounding. Found out his sister had never spoken in her life, commanded, just one word: "Speak". First word was "Hallelujah"! Second word was "Hosanna"! And then she realized she was speaking and she said in Telugu, "Ama ama", which means, mommy, mom. And she ran to her mother. That place erupted that day. People demanded baptism, not, I didn't have to convince anyone. They demanded it. Today I don't want the sun to go down without being baptized. And so we had an impromptu baptism service with 15 to 18 people getting baptized right there at that church. And that changed me, and changed my perception. Because when Jesus speaks, when God speaks, He speaks for all eternity. I want to heal the sick today, is for every day. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever.
Sid Roth: And you know what? The river is here. I believe as Gordon prays for you right now that there's going, I'm hearing so many words. Backs are healed, hips are healed. Gordon, talk to the people.
Gordon Robertson: Lord, right now we just lift up those who are infirmed and we ask right now for faith to be released. Faith is a gift from you. So we look to you, the author and finisher of our faith. We look to you as the redeemer, the healer, the savior. For by your stripes, is by nothing we've done, by your stripes we are healed. And so we command sickness now in Jesus' name, leave these bodies. Pain, leave now in the name of Jesus and return no more. Cancer, dry up, reproduce no more and depart now in the name of Jesus. There's a woman watching, your name is Elena, you've had blinding headaches. It's like a band of pain around your forehead, stretching back to the backside on the right of your head. God is healing that. He's broken that band of pain over you right now in Jesus' name. Sid, what has God given you?
Sid Roth: Even before the show started, He was telling me pain of any kind. But I'll tell you something I have found. I'm going to take what God told Gordon and I'm going to say, I command you in Yeshua, in Jesus' name to, if you have a pain in your neck, you just bend your head. If you have a pain in your back, you bow down and you'll stand up and bow down. You in the studio audience, come on. You're not spectators. If you have any pain in your body I command you stand up and test it. If you have pain in your fingers and pain in your wrists, pain in your knees, pain in your head, pain in your neck, wherever, you start moving around. And the others, keep your pain if you just don't want to do that. But let me tell you, there's a river going on here and do not miss the moment of your visitation at home. Do not miss the moment of visitation because these fingers, the pain is gone. It's gone. The wrist, it's gone. In just one moment, find out how you can get this Powerfull DVD movie The Hope for free. It shares how Israel is the fufillment of bilbe prophecy.