It's Supernatural

Sid:  My guest is a living miracle, his name is Bruce Van Natta. I’m speaking to him at his home in Rudolph, Wisconsin. I’m interviewing him on his book that is literally just off the press called “Saved by Angels.”  And there is, I’m going to say this, there is a special anointing on this book that you will begin to hear God, maybe not audible voice, it could be, but in various ways, that perhaps you never even considered before.  This is for average people to do extraordinary events because they serve here and obey an extraordinary God.  The thing that’s so amazing to me Bruce is as I read your book, and I understand your life is the mercy and love of God.  I mean here you had an encounter with God that few people have just as a five year old and you proceeded to live a fairly disobedient life, you would drink, you’d be in to drugs, I mean it was just almost a chronic problem. Yet God still kept reaching down and loving you.  Knowing God the way you did why did you indulge in drugs and alcohol?

Bruce:  Well, you know it’s listening to the wrong voice, it’s listening to that little red guy on your shoulder and believing the lies that he tells you in saying that you’re not worthy of that kind of love.  If you believe that lie that you’re not worthy of that kind of love you would also maybe even believe the lie that there isn’t that kind of love, that God doesn’t love you.  And so a person makes bad choices and pretty soon you get caught up in addictions, and things spin out of control in a person’s life pretty quick.

Sid:  You were actually supernaturally set free of this addiction, tell me briefly about that.

Bruce:  Well, it’s kind of a long story, but the long and short of it I guess, these people were going to go on a mission trip.  They needed money they came to our church looking for sponsorship, I was on a committee, we listen to them speak. I’m driving home and I drive by a van that my wife and I had for sale, I felt like the Holy Spirit said, give them the van for money for this trip. I ignored it because I didn’t want to, I came home and I’m telling my wife about the meeting we had and the first thing my wife said was “You know what we should give them that van.  So I realized the Lord was speaking, so we called them and said you know what we got a gift for you, were going to give you this van, you can sell it you can do with whatever.  Come to find out that same day they had just sold one of their two personal vehicles that they owned, they had sold his vehicle for tickets to go to Africa.  So they sold their own vehicle for tickets, we turned around and gave them that vehicle that day obviously all by the Lord.  So they come over, we give them, we sign the title over we’re giving it to them and as they are getting ready to walk out the door this husband and wife said, “You know is there anything that we can pray for you?”  Never met these people before in my life other than that meeting “Is there anything that we can pray for you?”  Jokingly I said, “Well, you know what I’ve struggled with drug and alcohol addiction for over twenty years and pray for that.”  And so they started asking me a few questions and they said, it sounds like demon of addiction has got his hands on you.  My eyebrows kind of went up and I kind of thought “who are these people and what kind of religion do they practice, because in the mainline denomination church that I attended that was not the kind of stuff that got talked about.  And so they ended up praying over me and when they prayed, the husband and the wife and my wife prayed in a circle, held hands.  And when they prayed over me I was seeing things through my closed eyes this battle above my head and they cast the demon of addiction off of me and a way out of my life and away out of my life and that’s how the Lord set me free.

Sid:  That is so wonderful, there so many areas I want to talk to you about, but why did you write this book “Saved by Angels?”

Bruce:  Well, I have to be honest and say that it wasn’t something that I wanted to do, it was something that I did out of obedience; the Lord kept leading me and guiding me to do it and…

Sid:  Why didn’t you want to do it?

Bruce:  Well, you know what I didn’t feel, and I still sometimes still think about this, it’s hard to tell people about God, it’s hard to tell people about his mercy and His grace and His love and stuff when you look back at your own life and look at all the mistakes that you’ve made. Like you’ve said, and you alluded to, I have made a lot of mistakes and I did not live a Christian godly kind of life the majority of my life.  So people that know me, I was afraid to say oh you hypocrite and stuff like that you know.  I’m sober now and I’m not living the way I used to but because of all those past sins, because of that lifestyle it would be real easy for somebody to point the finger and say “You’ve got no room, you’ve got no place to talk about…”

Sid:  So how did you overcome that voice of the devil talking to you?

Bruce:  Well, you what God speaks to us one of the ways is through scripture and when we look in Corinthians, and you know 1 Corinthians 1:26 “Brothers think of what you were when you were called, not many of you are wise by human standards, not many were influential, not many were of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.  God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong; He chose the lowly things of the world and the despised things, the things that are not to defy things that are not.”  You know that’s what it comes down to, when Paul says he’s chief of sinners you know I’m right in that exact boat.  And so when I stand up in front of people and I talk, and that’s what I do now, I go from place to place and I talk in churches, schools you know jails whatever.  And I can tell them in all honesty that if God would send angels to save me God would send angels to save anybody; it’s the story of the prodigal son it’s back to that parable.  We got a loving Father in heaven who is waiting with outstretched arms waiting for us, yearning for us to turn to repent.  And repent means turn back, He’s just waiting for us to turn back to Him and receive the love and the mercy and the forgiveness that He has so readily available for all of us. No matter where we’re at, no matter what we’ve done, no matter what sins we’ve indulged in.  God is right there to shower us with His mercy and His grace and His love.

Sid:  Now, you had a series of dreams in reference to where we’re supposed to be with God.

Bruce:  Yes.

Sid:  That I believe will have such impact on our listeners right now, explain.

Bruce:  Yeah, about the first month that I got married, starting the first month that I got married I started to have nightmares I’ll call them about my wife cheating on me and it was always the same kind of scenario.  We would be somewhere or another some good looking attractive man would motion to her, she would go away from me and it would always end up I would be pleading with her, I would say “No, come back, please don’t leave me.”  And what would end up happening I would have to witness and watch her physically cheat on me while I was standing there.  And they were so real that when I would wake up in the morning I would be cold and offish to her even though it was a dream it would affect me that strongly.  And she would be able to tell the nights that I had these dreams and it happened roughly you know I would say over the period of ten years, I probably had three hundred of these dreams. Just putting the numbers together probably three hundred times this happened.  And my wife, I’ll speak for my wife, she never did one thing that would ever make me think that she was going to do something like that.  And so I struggled for this for all this time.  Well one night I’m having this same dream and in my dream this time there’s this guy knocking on our door here at our house holding a night bag in the dream and he’s wanting to be let into the house, and I looked outside and I recognize it as one of my wife’s boyfriends that she had had like in high school.  And I said, “What’s he doing here, she said well, he’s going to spend the night,” in my dream she’s talking to me here.  And she said, “He’s going to spend the night and I plead with her and I said, “Don’t you realize how much that’s going to hurt me, how bad that’s going to make me feel?”  And she just doesn’t understand, I can tell by look in her eyes she doesn’t get it.  And so dingdong the doorbells ringing and the man’s knocking at the door and wanting to be let in and I’m pleading with her.  And now typically what would happen in these dreams I would have to watch her, let the man in and then watch them cheat on me together in front of me.  Well, this time was different, I woke up and I’m lying in our dark bedroom tears are on my face for real, by wife is laying next to me sound asleep, snoring away, bless her soul, and I look over at her laying there sleeping next to me in bed and I repeat the last thing that I said to her in my dream.  And I said, “Why don’t you understand how much I love you and how much this hurts me?”  And at that point the Lord audibly spoke to me and He said, “Bruce, why don’t you understand how much I love you?”  And it was no question in my mind that it was the Lord speaking to me and I said, Well, what I’m in the middle of having this little pity party, and I didn’t see how it had anything with me and God and I said, “Lord I don’t understand” and He said His question again and I said, “Lord I don’t understand.”  And again He put the question back to me and I still didn’t understand and the Lord said, “Bruce every time that you do drugs, every time that you drink, every time that you do anything to try and fulfill hole the hole that you have inside, that you try and replace Me with your cheating on Me. Not only are you cheating on me what you know full well that I can see you and you are doing it in front of Me and you know it.”  And so I realized that the Lord had given me these ten years worth of dreams to show me how He was feeling.  And you know it’s interesting when we look in the Old Testament often times when the Lord was dealing with prophets He would put something in their life that would affect them so that they would understand how He felt about a situation.  And that’s what the Lord was doing to me so I got down on the floor just sobbing, I felt just sick to my stomach and I was crying realizing that all these dreams were how the Lord was trying to show me that I was cheating on Him.  And I got up and I just wanted some comfort so I just opened the Bible, often times I’ll open the Bible up to where ever it opens up to and start reading the place where I opened to and I started reading and it was talking about Jesus being the groom and the church being the bride.  And then the Lord was just bringing it home one more time so that there was no question to what He was saying to me.

Sid:  And I imagine when you’re tempted to be involved in idolatry and that’s putting anything in place of the worthiness of God you think about that and you can’t touch it.

Bruce:  Yeah, and you know I have to be honest that I did do drugs a few more times after that as stupid as that sounds, it’s crazy and illogical as that is I did, but you’re right it’s easy to think about that in this point in my life and say “You know what I don’t want to bring pain to the Lord, I don’t want to make Him feel bad; and it’s interesting that we as people it’s so easy as you said it’s idolatry and it’s so easy for us to put something in place of a relationship with God.”