It's Supernatural

SID: Hello. Welcome to my world where it’s naturally supernatural. Just breathe in the rarified air of Heaven. I prophesy to you, you will, you will hear God’s voice. You will! You will hear God’s voice. You will be normal, normal as defined by the Bible. Because my guest has been called by God to mentor you in hearing God’s voice. You know, as my guest travels around the country and he asks people to raise their hands, how many people hear God’s voice on a regular basis? What percentage would you say do not?

RICHARD: Over 90 percent. It doesn’t matter what denomination where I’m speaking over 90 percent cannot say that they hear God on a regular basis.

SID: So you’re in a Baptist Bible college. You go to schools of theology some seven years. How many classes did you have on hearing God’s voice?

RICHARD: Never had one class on hearing God’s voice. There was one teacher that spoke on how there are only four passages in the Bible that talk about God speaking, and how they’re all misunderstood and misinterpreted, that anybody who says that God spoke to them needs professional help. He happened to be a psychology professor.

SID: Did you know the number one profession for suicides? I’ll leave that alone. But let me ask you this. You read a book on why speaking in tongues is not for today and what did you do about it?

RICHARD: Well I wanted a theology about what was wrong with tongues. And so that’s why I asked for the book. Went to my Baptist pastor and he gave me a book, and I devoured it over a weekend. But the problem was I looked up the passages, and I looked at what they really said, and I saw the weakness of this, you know, author’s arguments, became thoroughly convinced that tongues was for real, against my desire, just trying to be honest with what I read. And I said, Lord, if this is for real, would you give me the gift of tongues, and He did right there in my Baptist college dorm room.

SID: Okay. Now, in a Baptist seminary no less. Okay. 1996, two wonderful ministry opportunities, you’re pastoring, they cross your path. But you don’t know which is God. What do you do?

RICHARD: Well my pastor and dear friends of ours, they told me God had spoken to them, that I was supposed to stay. And I thought, well they got skin in the game. How do I know that they’ve heard God? I didn’t know how to hear God’s voice at that point in my life. And so I prayed a crazy prayer for a Baptist pastor. I said, God, either drop a granite stone out of the sky with message in it that I’m supposed stay here, no joke. That’s what I prayed.

SID: And hope it doesn’t hit you in the head.

RICHARD: I’m glad that’s not how He answered. But the second option, and you know, the crazy things we do sometimes. But I said, Lord, send someone to walk in off the street that doesn’t know me from Adam to tell me God told him I’m supposed to stay. I said, if one of those two things happen I will know that it’s you, I’ll never look back and I will stay. And sure enough, after a four-day fast, I told our church leadership that I was resigning effective one year from now, that I was going to use that year to run the ministry, but raise support. And I got a call from the receptionist. That was on Thursday. My fast ended. On Monday morning, I get a call from the receptionist. She said, “There’s a guy out here wants to speak to a pastor.” So I came out into the lobby and there was a guy with a long beard, long hair, dirty hands, missing half his teeth, old beat up pickup truck outside, and he introduced himself, told me just a little bit about his ministry, and said God had told him to come in here and speak to a pastor. I said, “Okay, how can I help you?” I figure he’s going to ask for money for his ministry or something. And he said, “The one thing I know I’m supposed to say is this, sometimes I feel like God wants us to go far away like to another country if that’s where He can use us, where in reality, God wants us to stay right where we are, and that’s where He’s going to use us to make an impact.” He started crying. Said, “I don’t know why I’m saying this, but God told me to come in here and tell this to a pastor.” Brought him back to my office. And there were two other things I had been praying about that week I had never prayed about before, and he gave me specific answers to both of prayers. He sang a little song, walked around, kissed me on my cheek and walked out the door. I was like, okay, this is the most unusual day of my life so far.

SID: Okay. But now it gets better. Eight months later, this guy, this prophet, his name is Cecil, calls you. What does he say?

RICHARD: He said, “God has given me a word for you.” Well the first time he had given me a business card, and I call him a week later, and the phone was dead. And I thought, what a strange thing. I thought maybe it was angel. Why would he give me a card and disappear? I didn’t hear from him for eight months. And then he said, “I’ve got a word for you.” He came to my office. Before he made it back to my office, there were two of our staff members laying prostrate in their office and he had spoken specific words to them. I knew it was the last day on the job because our church didn’t have stuff like that. So I invited him, you know, back into my office. And he said, “Before I tell you what God has given me to give to you, we need to go your house and pray for your wife. She’s having severe back pain.” I was like, how does he know that?

SID: How did he know that?

RICHARD: There was no way. I hadn’t told anyone. I woke up, about two o’clock that morning, my wife wincing in pain because she was pregnant and the baby was pressing on her sciatica. And so I said, “Let’s go.” We got in the car, drove to my house and he prayed for wife, turned and began to speak a word over me, and the next thing I know I was laying on the carpet in my living room.

SID: He was overcome by the Spirit. What did God do when you were overcome by the Spirit?

RICHARD: Began to see a vision right away. One short side note is exactly a week before I had a teenager in my youth group, wanted to share a vision that he had when he was slain in the Spirit, and I asked him, I said, “Can you show me slaying in the Spirit in the Bible.” He didn’t come forth with any passages. And I was thinking, okay if God was going to speak through a vision to someone, I wouldn’t put that past God. But wouldn’t he give it to me, the leader of the ministry, not one of my teenagers. He’s just a drummer in my band. Forgive me Lord for my arrogance. But here I am exactly one week later, laying on the floor having a vision. The first thing I saw was an angel at my feet. And this angel is laying a sheet over on top of me. And as the angel was laying the sheet over me, Cecil said, “There is an angel and he’s putting a mantle on [you].” How does he see what I’m seeing in this vision? And then I saw a sword falling from the sky, end over end, and as it fell, all of a sudden it hit something that I couldn’t see before. But it hit a veil and began to split the veil, and tore the veil as it came all the way to the ground. And then this little, what I would now call a cherub, I didn’t know what it was at the time, it was a small angelic being, poked his head through and said, “Come.” And I went through the veil. And next, it’s interesting because it was a lot like this was a round platform in the middle, and there was a Roman soldier’s helmet spinning over the platform. And I’m just watching it all. It was three-dimensional. It was as real as this set. And then I saw a star begin to descend from above. And the closer it got to me, the more I felt this energy like pulsing through my being to the point when it got fairly close to me, I said, that’s enough. I felt like I was going to explode. My wife had bent down to see that I was still breathing as I laid there. And I sat up, and I thought, okay, my theological God box has just been exploded.

SID: And wait until you find out. He received a mantle and we’re going to have him demonstrate that in a few minutes. We’ll be right back.