It's Supernatural

Sid:  Recently I was a guest on TBN and there was another guest on TBN. I recognized the presence of God, and I said “This man has a story to tell,” and I found out that that inclination by the Holy Spirit it was right.  His name is Pastor Shane Warren, he’s Senior Pastor of the First Assembly of God in West Monroe, Louisiana.  And Shane when you were twelve years old you had such an encounter with God that it forever changed your life, tell me about that.

Shane:  Well, Sid when I was twelve years old first of all I grew up in a home I had great parents, but none of us served the Lord, none of my grandparents served the Lord; so I didn’t know who Jesus was at all.  And my grandfather had a farm, and from time to time I would go to his house. I loved staying with him, and he had built me a fort in the back of this farm.  And I had one day went out to this fort and sat down in this fort for whatever reason, and looked up and there was a man standing before me. I’ve heard people say that His clothes were like white, it looked like He was clothed in the sun, it was like the brightest thing you could ever see.  He was standing in front of me, and for years Sid I’ve looked for words to describe how I felt that day when the Lord Jesus appeared to me and they only thing that I can find in the scripture is in Isaiah 6 when the Bible says, “Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up and he said, I am undone.”  I was twelve years old, I hadn’t really, I hadn’t committed any major terrible sin so to speak of, but I knew that something was undone in me and yet at the same time it was like I was just bathed or washed like in a bathtub of the most pure love that any human being could ever experience in their life.  And I started to weep and at this time this man walked up to me, put his right hand upon my head, my forehead and he said, “I’ve called you to the nations,” and when he said that I closed my eyes and I started weeping more and I could feel His hand upon my head and so thinking He was still there I opened my eyes only to find that He was gone.  And at that moment I knew something drastic, you know of course that happened in my life.  I didn’t see a ghost, it wasn’t that kind of an apparition appearing, this was something that was real.  So I jumped up, ran as fast I could run to my grandfather’s house approached him and said I called him Pop I said, “Pop tell me what I just saw, what just happened” and I shared it with him and he started to weep.  And he said, “Son I’m not sure, but you have an aunt that has just started going to church and will take you to her.”  And at that time her name was Barbara and I went to her and shared my story and shared what I had seen and she said, “I believe that you saw Jesus.”  And that was the beginning of my journey Sid I had a Supernatural beginning.  You know your show being named “It’s Supernatural” I just don’t think that people grasp how big and how wonderful and how supernatural our God really is.  And that’s how this thing started with me.

Sid:  What changes occurred after that visitation, what changes occurred in your life?

Shane:  Yeah, immediately you know my whole demeanor, my whole outlook, my whole feel of where I was going in life you know at twelve you have dreams of being a fireman, or a police officer, or a president, but from that point forward I knew that there was something on my life that I was going to do in the work of the Lord.  And you know that aunt led me to a church service, that church service was in an old Assembly of God Church in Nashville, Tennessee and the preacher that service that morning was Easter Sunday morning 1982. For whatever reason you know they took up the offering at the first of the service so the guys got up to walk down the front; I’d never been in church in my life when they stood up that’s when I thought everybody did so I just ran down to the front and you know the preacher whose name is Bill Carver, he’s still alive to this day looked at me and said, “Young man, what do you need?”  I said, “I don’t know.”  He said, “Have you received Jesus, I said, “No I haven’t that’s what I need.” He led me to Jesus that day again that was 1982 Easter Sunday morning, Resurrection Sunday, I don’t like the word Easter, I like the word Resurrection Sunday morning.  And that was the Resurrection of my soul that day. It began a supernatural walk for me that has continued to this day and has made me hungry and more hungry every day for supernatural things of God.

Sid:  Now when you had that visitation and the Lord put His hand on your head did He speak anything?

Shane:  Yeah, He spoke to me and He said, “I’ve called you to the nations,” and what’s interesting to the nations.

Sid:  But what does that mean today looking back at that?

Shane:  Well looking back, you know now I’ve been in numerous countries of the world, probably more than I can count. I’ve been in almost every state in America preaching the gospel and sharing the love of Jesus Christ, and seeing miracles by His hands as He demonstrates the gospel to people everywhere.

Sid:  Speaking of miracles at age seventeen something new started happening from what I understand when you feel the Lord touch your head like he did when you were age twelve miracles breakout; you begin to see things in the Spirit, but at seventeen this is off the chart you know peoples’ names and addresses; things about their future; you see glows around them; tell me one person.  Oh how about that person where you knew about their dream.

Shane:  Well, this happened several years ago, I was in a church and was on the platform; there was a choir of about sixty to seventy people behind me approximately 800 to 1,000 people in the audience.  And when I walked up on the platform the night before to back up, the night before I had had a dream and in this dream I was standing in somebody’s dream.  I know that sounds weird, but that’s the only way I know how to describe what I’m telling you.  I was standing in somebody’s dream and I was watching this dream unfold.  And then so the next day when I woke up I knew that something special was going to happen at that service.  When I walked on the platform and I got the microphone and began my portion of the service I said, “There’s somebody here and I said, “Last night or you had a dream that’s a reoccurring dream” and I gave the entire dream.  Little did I know standing behind me in the choir loft was a young lady and she lifted her hand and I called her out and I said “This is the dream you had and she said, “Yes.”  And I said, “Does anybody else know about this dream?”  And she said “Yes.”  And I said, “So you’ve told what I’m telling you to other people?”  She said, “Yes,” and I said not only have you had this dream, but immediately God gave me two more dreams that she had had that were reoccurring dreams and I said “You have had two more dreams.”  I gave her those dreams and then God gave me the interpretation of all three like a story beginning put together that was about her future.  Now on this side of that dream and that interpretation we and her parents have all seen that come to past everything that was spoken in that dream and the interpretations.  But when I said that her and her parents immediately were slain in the Spirit on the platform, and God began to move in the gift of word of knowledge and word of wisdom and word of prophecy throughout the congregation. Literally hundreds of people receiving you know things from the Lord.  But when those things happen I can literally feel His hand like I felt that day setting in the woods when He put His hand upon my head and said, those words to me, “I’ve called you to the nations.”

Sid:  Out of curiosity, how much faith is involved when you speak a word?  By that I mean do you hear it real clear, is it just an impression; is it a voice?

Shane:  It comes in different ways at different times, back when I was fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old I would go into sometimes I would go into restaurants for example and the waitress would be waiting on us and I was with my parents and I didn’t know what it was; the church that I was in didn’t teach about those things and so you know I would like for example the waitress I would say “You’re going to have a beautiful baby and his name is going to be Michael or something to that effect.”  And the lady would say “How did you know that I’m pregnant?”  And I said, “I didn’t.”  “Well, I’ve already picked out a name and his name was Michael.”  And I didn’t know what those things were at first so it was so ignorant; I was so ignorant and simple when I approached it.  So there are times that it takes extraordinary levels of faith to step out in courage to deliver what God’s given me.  And other times it almost comes out before I’ve realized I’ve said it and that how I prefer it to happen.  But then there’s abundance of times where I’ve been in places and God just used me to preach the word, and not necessarily flow in word of knowledge and word of wisdom and word of prophesy. When I’ve asked Him about that He said, “Is not My word a word of knowledge, a word of wisdom, a word of prophesy.”  And I’ve said, “Yes, it is.”  And so you know it just flows at different levels, the Bible says that those gifts are given by the Holy Spirit to everyman severally as He wills.  So they’re not something you can turn on and off like a waterfall, they are something that if you’ll surrender to and submit to the Holy Spirit will use you in and I believe He’ll use every believer in that given the opportunity to flow through them.

Sid: … You literally have prayed over this book that people that read the book and learn how to worship would be able to enter the throne room just like you; would be able to live in the throne room 24-7.  Are you getting any feedback from people that have heard your 3 CD series called “Living in the Throne Room,” or read the book “Secrets of the Well?”

Shane:  Oh sure, right now thousands of people have purchased and read that book and listened to those messages you know intimacy with God is the key…

Sid:  Now a one new man should have their own Bible, and that’s why I’m delighted to be interviewing Bill Morford today on the brand new fresh translation of the entire Bible called “The One New Man Bible.”  And the thing that is so wonderful to me is that he has the approved Hebrew Scriptures. It was a publication that was published by the Hebrew Publishing Company, it would be approved by any Jew in the world and that’s what he uses the bases of his Hebrew scriptures.  And then the New Testament, what did you use as the bases of that, although it is a fresh translation you still needed a Greek Translation, what did you use for that?

Bill:  I used the fourth addition United Bible Society Greek text.

Sid:  Now why did you choose that?

Bill:  Because it’s the newest, the latest, the United Bible Society is a group that meets in Germany, but their multinational. And they have made their life work to be searching the ancient Greek manuscripts to determine which ones are closest to the original.  They use methods similar to that used in researching the Greek Classics, but it’s called textual criticism. But that’s the most accurate that we have and the closest to what was written in the first century.

Sid:  Okay, so you have this approved Jewish Scriptures; you have the best Greek translation; you study Greek under a top expert; you study Hebrew under the expert of experts Rabbi Eliezer Ben-Yehuda.  Who is the grandson of the man Ben Yehudah who’s the grandson of the man that literally pioneered Modern Hebrew in Israel.  Without him we would not be able to have one language for all these Jew coming from the four corners of the earth that are being restored.  Why was it important for you to bring out the power that was formerly neglected in the New Covenant, why was that important for you to bring it out?

Bill:  God is very very powerful in the way He talks and the way that He directs people.  One of my favorite examples is when He spoke to Moses.  He said to go into Pharaoh; He didn’t say plead with Moses “Let My People go.”  What He said was go in to command them, “Send My people away.”  I mean that makes a world of difference and you can imagine for a slave Pharaoh could behead without having second thought going and standing in front of Pharaoh and giving him a commandment to do something that Pharaoh very definitely did not want to do.  And yet Pharaoh could see that the Spirit of God on Moses and on Aaron and he did not kill them obviously; and he even said pray for me, so Pharaoh was intimated by God’s presence in Moses and it doesn’t show when he goes in and pleads with Moses.  But when you understand that Moses didn’t go into plead with Pharaoh Moses went in there to command him and that’s just to me one of the most awesome statements in scripture.

Sid:  Well as I’m looking over your fresh brand new translation, you deal with things that most of us that are listening right now don’t have a clue, but it’s so important.  For instance, you have the Hebrew negative and imperative tense do not in bold, explain why you did that.

Bill:  Because this is one Rabbi Ben-Yehuda was very strong on, he said that there’s no comparative to the Hebrew negative command, the negative imperative that the closest I can come with is don’t even think about doing.  But it’s even stronger than that, and it’s used a number of times.  In fact one of the words that is often missed translated is the Hebrew word for respect, revere or awe and we translate it as fear.  Well God commands us not only not to have fear, He commands us to not be in awe at any of our enemy, any of our dangerous circumstances.  Any unpleasantness that we have, we are not to be awed by that, we’re to be just take it in stride and it’s a command to do that. Just God wants us to know who we are in Him.  We have to know, we have the Spirit of the living God in us and that just as Moses was taught to go into Pharaoh, we are to approach the world in the same way.  But Moses was the most humble man in the world so we have a question of humility plus self-confidence, that when we know we have the Lord in us, and He is directing us and we are in His perfect will.  We have the strength and the ability to do anything.

Sid:  Now why is it important for a Christian that isn’t Jewish that’s not in a Jewish culture to understand the Jewish roots of Christianity?  Why is that important?

Bill:  Well, because Jesus was born a Jew, He lived a Jew, he died a Jew. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever into the future.  We need to understand what He understood; we need to worship as He worshipped; we need to celebrate the holidays that He celebrated.  We just need to copy Him; were supposed to become more like Him.

Sid:  Let me ask you this, you were a Spirit filled believer, you understood Healing, you loved the Lord, but in 1984 when you went to Israel you knew that there was something wrong.  Now that you’ve done all these studies I don’t know how you did it there is some 4,300 footnotes on words and customs and culture, a 170 page glossary.  What difference has it made to your life Bill Morford?

Bill:  It has increased my faith; increased my understanding with God; increased my understanding of scripture as I can relate it more to my life today.  And it has given me more power in my prophetic words. I am ordained at Christian International under Bishop Hammond and we do a lot of prophecy.

Sid:  Bill, I understand why you’re so excited about the Jewish roots. For instance, the average Christian doesn’t know unless they had your Bible of course that communion literally comes out of Passover, explain that.

Bill:  Oh, that’s beautiful it comes from Exodus 6 verses 6 & 7, and what we do when we’re taking communion it’s given properly in Luke 22 starting with verse 17.  When Jesus lifted the first cup what He was referring to from Exodus 6 verse 6 is God said, “I will bring you out from Egypt.”  Which to all of us modern Christians means that He is bringing us out of the world, Egypt represents the world, the worldliness which were supposed to be…

Sid:  Wait, well for starters some may not even realize at the Passover meal we have four cups of wine so the first cup means what?

Bill:  I will bring you out from Egypt that God is bringing us out from our desire for worldly things and from the oppression of the world.  And the second cup which is being drunk during the meal is I will rescue you from your bondage and that’s deliverance from all demonic spirits that we have with that cup.  The third cup is called the cup of redemption, and this is the one that Jesus lifted and said “This is the cup of the renewed covenant in my blood which is being poured out for you today.”

Sid:  It’s so much richer when you understand in context and that whole context the first church totally understood but we don’t understand it today.  How can anyone comprehend communion without knowing Passover Bill?

Bill:  Right, you can’t do it; you get the full understanding when you know that. So that is footnoted in the Bible then that’s in, there’s an article in the seasons of the Lord in my glossary on that.

Sid:  You must have studied a lot of Jewish literature to do 4,300 footnotes and a 170 page glossary.

Bill:  That I did, that I did I have a wonderful library now for reference books.  I can just go anywhere in the Bible and backup the things that I have put in those footnotes; they’re very real to me and they’re real to everybody, That’s why this was important.

Sid:  Bill, we’re out of time.

Sid:  Now two of my most favorite people in the healing ministry Charles and Francis Hunter, many of you are familiar with their ministry.  They were really pioneers in the healing ministry.  And just recently Francis has been promoted and she went home to be with the Lord.  And I have on the telephone her daughter, Joan Hunter.  And I asked, Joan did her mother know that she was ready to go and what did you say Joan?

Joan:  Yes, she did.  She told me that you know, she knew that she was getting ready to go and she says, don’t worry, you know my last breath here and my next breath will be with Jesus.

Sid:  And, but even though there’s still the human element and there’s a natural process called grieving.  And there are many that are listening to us Joan that have gone through this grieving process or are still in the grieving process but I have seen over the years that sometimes it almost gets demonic and they’re in the grieving process much longer than they should be.  How did this work with you?

Joan:  Well, in my particular case any time that there is a traumatic experience, say death, many times; all the times it will affect the heart.  And can open up the door for a spirit of trauma and a spirit of grief.  And I felt that grief coming on me about a week or two after my Mom had gone and I said, “Grief you cannot make your home in me.”  And I said, “Any spirit of grief, any spirit of trauma, is commanded to go.”  I felt my voice weakening, which a lot of time trauma will settle in the voice and in the vocal chords.  And I said, “Father right now in the Name of Jesus, I command every bit of trauma and grief to leave my body in Jesus Name.”  And it instantly left and I said Hallelujah and my voice was completely back to normal, just instantly like that and it was absolutely awesome what God has done in my life through this time.  That I say, okay you don’t have to deal and put up with a spirit of grief, and now I have actually proven it, that you don’t have to put up with it and that you can get rid of it.  And now there’s a time of loss and I miss my Mom and I miss her calling me and leaving me voice mails and saying you know “How many miracles did you have, and how’s the service and things like that.”  It’s you know I want to tell her about my new book and how well it’s doing, but she’s not there to tell and so there’s a natural missing of the communication that I had with my Mom here on the earth, but the heaviness, the grief, the sorrow, the trauma of my Mom with her death is just not there.  And it is so miraculous what God has done in my life.  As you know in my life, as you know through the years my life is a testimony of that if God can do it for me, God can do it for anybody.

Sid:  Yeah, you know what I’m thinking about as you’re speaking, because I’m thinking about your Mother and oh, I go back many, many years with your Mother and Father.  I remember as a new Jewish believer going to one of their meetings and they would hands on people and they’d be slain in the Spirit and it wasn’t that well known, back then.  It was kind of a rarity for that to happen.  And I remember, she said, “Well anyone else that once to do it we want everyone to just come up and lay hands on people and I remember going up; I was just in the audience and laying hands on people and they started being slain in the Spirit.  I was so astounded.

Joan:  You were a real believer at that point!

Sid:  Oh, I was but one of the thoughts that I have as I’m speaking to you is how inadequate you felt to step into their shoes and as a matter of fact what did you share with me about your Mother’s mantle?

Joan:  Well, stepping into what God has called me to do being their daughter was hard enough.  And people tried to make me a second generation Francis Hunter.  And as in comparison to me being a first and only generation of Joan Hunter and what God has called Joan to do.  And as I sharing with Sid about the mantle was that two weeks before my Mom died she has this beautiful necklace with diamonds and everything and the center of it is a heart.  And she said, I want to put it on you, her fingers were no longer nimble, she just couldn’t do it and so I learned forward as the caregiver actually put the necklace on me and she symbolically put the necklace on me.  And she says wear this for me and she says with my necklace, I give you my mantle.  And instantaneously from that moment on there has been; two weeks before she left a dramatic difference in the services of getting an increased anointing because of the mantle.  And it has been amazing.  And even the number of people that are getting slain in the Spirit in the services has increased and the miracles that have happened and just in the last two weeks, I’ve seen thousands of healings.

Sid:  Well, I have to say this publically, we had when you did our radio and television show last, we had more miracles occur than anyone that I had ever interviewed.  And so I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen with this increase for the radio and for the television.  But, I’m also reminded of a young girl that was literally forced by her mother to come out of her comfort zone.  Is that true?

Joan:  Yes, and I remember traveling with Mom and Dad you know when I was in my early twenties and I’m past my mid fifties now, but when I was in my early twenties and I knew that people didn’t come to see me, they came to see them.  And it was like dealing with people you know wanting to see Mom and Dad rather than you know, I don’t care who prays for me I just want Jesus to heal me.  And to this day I will never compare to my mother.  But I’m not supposed to compare to my mother.  I’m supposed to be, I’m her daughter, I have a lot of similarities because she is my Mom, but I’m not my Mom.  But having to deal with such a strong personality as she had and, but that could and it did cause me to go to the background to not be seen to go to the big curtain and hide.  But when I knew that God had called me to come out from behind the curtain, to come out from my comfort zone and my hiding and that God could use me just as much if not more than my mother.

Sid:  And you were very public about, you were devastated by a divorce and thought that would be the end of your healing ministry.

Joan:  That would be the end of every ministry, sure.  And you know with being forced with divorce, it’s ten years ago, it’s hard to believe, but you know he was living a double life as a homosexual and because of that life style, God had released me to get the divorce because you know in covenant with somebody you’re also involved in that lifestyle whether you are actually participating in it or not.  It is a form of condoning it and God just said, “I’ve freed you up.” And it was like, people were telling God can’t use you anymore because you’re divorced.  And I’m like how come these people are still getting healed and this is happening?  But people say that you can’t use me.  And at that point I just talked to God and I said, “What am I suppose to do and he said, “Just remember there not the ones that called you, I am.”  And that gave me so much freedom knowing that God was the one that called me, God forgave me of the divorce even though it wasn’t my fault, any part of it, you know in actually getting the divorce was forgiven.  And it enabled me go on and to be all that God had called me to be.  And even though his unfaithfulness to God and to me, meaning my ex-husband that did not mean that I was not faithful to God.  And God has seen my faithfulness through these years.  And he has certainly met my need in every area and it’s just been incredible.  It’s very easy to succumb to the word divorce and this that and the other and the loss of your spouse.  And you know children and whatever and parents and we can succumb to that and allow it to shut us down or we can in turn allow it to build us up into all that God has for us.

Sid:  …this is the way I look at it, you spend forty years in the healing ministry, most of that time with your parents so we have their generation, what they imparted to you and then what the Holy Spirit imparted to you to build upon what the foundation they gave you.  So it’s almost two generations of studying healing and being and understanding every facet of healing…

Sid:  On yesterday’s broadcast I was talking to violist Ruth Fazal about the Jewish heart that God had given her and she had what she calls an awakening vision in 2007, tell me about that Ruth.

Ruth:  Well, again it was at one of these Glory Nights in my home and it seems like lots of stuff happens there.  And I saw something like, it was like watching a movie and I was actually standing at my keyboard at the time and it was as I was playing I was seeing this movie.  To just tell it really briefly, it’s the sound, it’s seeing a large group of people on a desert.  Their camped there, they’re kind of in a comfortable place and then all of a sudden from the distance there is the sound of the trumpet.   And the sound of the trumpet gets closer and closer and as they begin to hear it and they make themselves ready then we realize that actually the One playing the trumpet is the Lord Himself.  And He’s calling His people away and He’s says it’s urgent, He’s says “You can’t stay here any longer” and He’s like wooing them to come with Him.  And then there’s this incredibly, there’s this ride across the desert plain and seeing them and they’re hanging on for dear life because they don’t know where He’s taking them.  But, then he brings them into the realm of His Glory and it’s a place of encounter.  It’s a place of deep encounter, it’s a place of deep worship and then in the midst of that they hear the sound of all creation groaning and crying out.  And they’re so aware of what God hears.  And then in the midst of that they hear God begin to say to them, “Comfort my people, speak tenderly to Jerusalem.”

Sid:  So there’s a tie in between intimacy with God and comforting His people, that’s what I’m hearing you say.

Ruth:  Yes, that’s it when we touch His heart we are going to find what His heart is beating with.  And His heart is beating with His love for His people.  And we can’t miss it, if you come deep inside His heart, we can’t miss it, there is no way.

Sid:  Well, I believe we’re in a stage right now, you see as I study the scriptures God uses Israel to chastise the nations based on Genesis 12:3.  I’ll bless those who bless His people; I’ll curse those who curse them.  Now, God chastises Israel Himself, but he causes actually nations that he wants to bring under judgment to do things like dividing the land etc.  So I believe that nations are being evaluated by God right now and individuals are being evaluated by God right now.  In your CD and you talk about intimacy with God and thru your violin it literally goes so deep.  Do you have people tell you how deep it ministers to them, healing they’re inner hurts and wounds?

Ruth:  Yeah, absolutely and I think that this is the thing that happens more than anything is that really deep place of connecting with Him and of that healing and of the intimacy.  And you know deep intimacy creates a longer for deeper intimacy and that’s the thing that I find that the longing creates a longing which creates a longing.  And you know the deeper we go the more we want to go.

Sid:  That’s what I’m finding when I personally listen to your music, it’s causing me to want to be closer and closer to the Lord.  Tell me about the selection “Dance” from Songs From the River.

Ruth:  Well, you know the Lord He comes to us and He says, “Will you dance with me?” And it’s oh, such an intimate thing isn’t it?  It’s a, and He draws us so close into Him and it comes a point I think, when He says, “Will you dance with Me?”  Which is, it’s like a partnership, it’s not just about feeling good in the intimacy, it’s about, will you dance with Me?  Will you come and partner with me and see the things that I’m doing and come and do them with Me?  And it’s very much about partnership.  Intimacy is about partnership, so we come to the point where we really want to know what’s on His heart.  And we begin to partner with Him to see those things come about.

Sid:  Now all of your music is spontaneous, it’s live, do you ever feel like sometimes you won’t know what to play?  I mean you’re human, don’t you?

Ruth:  Ha-ha, a…well, you know there was one time when, there was one time when…ha-ha,  there was one time, but it wasn’t because I didn’t know what to play, it was because I couldn’t play.  I was playing actually in a Concentration Camp in Terezin, Theresienstadt and I felt like all music was sucked out of me.  And there was no song, there was nothing and I couldn’t put my bow on the string.  Nothing, and that was such a deep experience of the Lord, until He said to me, I heard Him say, “Play “The Cry,” play “The Cry.”  And so I just almost…

Sid:  The cry of the Jewish people, I mean how many people were murdered there, I mean in that Progue Concentration Camp?

Ruth:  Well, they weren’t so much so murdered there, but they were sent on to the transports.  But for instance my focus was the children, there were more than 15,000 children went through Terezin and about one hundred of them survived.

Sid:  So you literally were playing they’re cries on the violin.

Ruth:  Oh, yeah and I think that what happened was at that moment, the reason I think as I think back on this, the reason I couldn’t play was because I was touching that sense in them of everything was taken away from them, everything was sucked out of them in that time when they were there.  And I think I just touched that for a moment.

Sid:  Are you ready for some deep, deep healing in your spirit?  Deep, deep intimacy with God?  Deep, deep physical healing?  Let’s hear “Dance?”  (Worship Insert)

Sid:  My guest, Chad Dedmon is a young man that God has had His hand on for his whole life, he tried to get away from the call, he tried to get away for being a Pastor’s son, but he couldn’t do it.  And in fact when he was fifteen he had a very unhealthy relationship with a girl and at seventeen he broke up and then he went out to a revival meeting because he was forced to in Pensacola, Florida, the Brownsville Assembly of God and he literally laughed for two day.  Get’s back to his High School and a couple hundred students become radical; many most of them get saved and became radical for Jesus.  So out of curiosity did you find a new girl friend, Chad?

Chad:  Ha ha, no I didn’t actually, when I came back from Florida Jesus asked me “Chad, will you not date any girl for a year and will you date Me?”  And I simply said, “Yes.”  But I took that seriously, I said, “Okay.  Well we’re go to go and we’re to have date night every week.”  So and I would talk to Jesus out loud because I would expect Him to talk back.”  And I thought to myself, Jesus is real and He’s just as real as anyone as I’m talking to you and so I would talk out loud and I would take him out to restaurants and I would order two…

Sid:  Weren’t you concerned about what people would think?  I mean, you know what people do with people like that; they put them in an institution?

Chad:    Yes, yeah I just knew that Jesus is real, he was tangible and I just took seriously what He said, He said, “Date Me for a year.”  So I’m like, what do you do with dates?  You take them out to dinner, you talk to them, you get to know them; you take walks and so I would walk on the beach and it was before blue tooth and I would talk out loud and people would give me a weird look.

Sid:  Now I know that you hear God’s voice, but I would have to assume that most of what’s you did was a one way conversation.

Chad:  Yes, it was probably about 80% one way, but I would hear His voice time in and time in and I would order two meals when I went to a restaurant.  And people would say, “Well, it’s only you, when’s your other member of your party going to be here?”  And I’d say, “Well, He’s already here and He’s in His seat right beside me,” and they would look at me very strangely, but I was like I’m taking Jesus out on dates.

Sid:  And many times, not many times, I think most every evening you would start weeping in your bedroom because the presence of God would be so precious to you; tell me about that.

Chad:  Yeah, it was back when there was cassette tapes and I got one cassette tape from Brownsville and I would just play that and just weep and cry out to God and you know, I would be crying and my Dad would come in and say, “Hey it’s time to mow the lawn.”  And he would just find me on the floor and just a mess just weeping and crying and saying “God I love you, Jesus I love you.”  And he would say to himself, “Well I think I’ll go mow the lawn because this is way better you know then him mowing the lawn, I don’t want to disturb him.”  So it was an incredible season of just desperation of hunger, I mean I’d go on fasts and I would just be seeking God and really feasting on God’s presence.  I really believe that when people fast, when they give up something they should be feasting on God’s presence, they’re not just saying no to something, but their saying yes to Him.

Sid:  And now your Father says, “One of the major catalysts for having an encounter with God is hunger for God,” and what you’re describing is you had a great, great hunger for God.  What advice would you give someone that’s listening to us right now that loves God, but just doesn’t have that hunger, how do they get that hunger?

Chad:  Well, we were all created to be hungry for God; we were all created to encounter God supernaturally.  It says, “Taste and see that God is good.”  When Moses encountered God, God said, “Hey, I am going to show you My goodness, I’m going to reveal my goodness.”  See Moses has an encounter, supernaturally with the King of Glory and it had to do with God’s goodness.  And so it says “Taste and see that He is good” and so we are called to feast; it’s almost like an all you can eat buffet bar.  You get to have as much as you want of God, you get to eat as much as you want of God.  And so it’s really our decision, there is something in us that comes alive and says “God, I want you no matter what it looks like, no matter what the cost, I want a supernatural God that reveals Himself.”  And so that’s the advice I would give is just to begin to cultivate that hunger, begin to surround yourself with hungry people, I mean that’s one of the things…

Sid:  I think that’s a big key, if you surround yourself with lukewarm Christians, guess what you become, lukewarm.

Chad:   It is, it is key I mean that was probably one of the things that changed my life being at the Bethel School of Ministry, that I was surrounded by people that were hungry.  And so we would pray until 5:00 in the morning, that’s what I did in High School.  I would get people around me and we would pray through the night and we were just hungry, we would go out into the streets, we would climb into dumpsters; because we were hungry to see Jesus be supernatural.

Sid:  Now there was one night you were in a dorm room in Brownsville and someone prayed for you, what happened?

Chad:  Yeah, I was in a men’s prayer meeting and I had a bunch of people praying for me, but no one was in front of me.  I closed my eyes and I felt like someone punched me right in the stomach and I went flying about a good seven feet and I began to shake so hard my friend said that I was like a fish out of water being electrocuted.  And I shook so hard my shoes went flying off, my shirt came off and I would shake from one end of the room to the other on the floor and I was having this supernatural encounter with God where I could hear people praying, but it was like background noise.  I was aware of this reality, but it was another reality coming in, breaking in and I began to see this cloud with like this electricity and you can’t really even put it into words, but I got taken into Heaven.  I got taken up in the Spirit and I saw the throne room where I saw the Father sitting on the throne and he leaned towards me and as he got closer to me I saw waves of God’s love.  It just kept on getting deeper and deeper, this revelation of His love and He opened up His mouth and He began to speak, but I didn’t hear anything in my audible, I didn’t hear anything with my ears, but I felt the love of God when He opened up His mouth I could feel what he’s saying in my bones.  It was like electricity going through my body and it was the deepest revelation of the love of the Father that I’ve ever had.

Sid:  Now, you’re doing what the Bible says you’re supposed to do, and that is provoke the Jewish people to jealousy, but I’m already a believer.  But I think that anyone that had experienced the full love of God pouring into them it’s got to be a major life changing event in your life.

Chad:   Yeah, it propelled me into you know the fruit and the miraculous and the supernatural was this Baptism of the Fathers love.  It lasted seventeen hours, but it became a lifestyle.

Sid:  But I understand that people had to carry you around because you couldn’t function.

Chad:  I could not function and actually they tried to get me out of it to try to make curfew and so I was coming out of it and I realized, wait a second I’ve been praying eighteen months to encounter the Father’s love and so I began to thank God. I began to go into thanksgiving and thanksgiving always increases the presence of God.  It always prepares the way for breakthrough and so I began to thank Him and suddenly I went right into the throne room and from that point on I woke up on someone’s floor about fifteen hours later and I was apparently screaming I love Jesus this whole time.  Woke up the whole dorm room, the men’s dorms and woman’s dorms and they began to see what God was doing with me and it became contagious where they began to go into this all night prayer where they started encountering God supernaturally.

Sid:  Now that is normal, how would you like to be normal?  Well, one thing would make you normal is if you had the same Dad that Chad had, Kevin Dedmon.  How about if Kevin mentors you?