It's Supernatural

DAVID: Now I want to tell a story real briefly. There was a man who was teaching his daughter to pray. And well, teaching her to pray he would guide her each night. And then he decides I’m going to allow her to pray on her own just so she can learn to talk to God. So one night he’s passing by her room and he puts his ear to the door and he listens in on her prayers. She’s not praying. She’s saying the alphabet singing in A, B, C, D E F G. This happens for two or three nights. And he says, eventually I have to go and tell her that this is not how you pray. So he goes and talks to her. He says, “Sweetie, listen, we talked about talking to God and you’re saying the alphabet, but you have to actually talk to God.” She says, “Daddy, I am talking to God, except I just give him the alphabet. And then he can arrange the letters however he wants.”

DAVID: That’s what you do when you’re praying in tongues, the Holy Spirit can only fill what is empty. If I’m praying words of understanding, I’m praying words with meaning and my intention attached to those words. But when I pray syllables and sounds without meaning, I’m praying surrendered syllables, and sounds that the Holy Spirit can fill. It’s by faith. Leave it to the Holy Spirit, to hide the power of God like that behind such a childlike act of faith.

DAVID: Now, when it comes to receiving that gift, we have to stop believing this lie that is not within our control. The greatest revelation someone can receive when trying to receive this gift and overcome that blockage is the fact that you are in control of the gift. Why would Paul the apostle devote a whole chapter first Corinthians 14, a whole chapter to how to control the gift, if the gift could not be controlled? The key, then, stop overthinking it. Stop analyzing it. Stop questioning it. Jesus said, if you asked for the Holy Spirit, I’m not going to give you something else. Trust him, trust his word. And you release the sounds as you release the sounds in faith the Holy Spirit comes and adds his meaning. Everything we do that is spiritual is a partnership with God, a blend between the practical and the supernatural. If you will do the difficult, God will do the impossible.

SID: I want you to pray, to release the presence of God on you, that we would hunger and thirst for this oneness. This surrender to the Spirit.

DAVID: Father in the name of Jesus, I pray for that one receiving this now. And I ask you to set their hearts on fire. You said in your word that the Holy Spirit is the one who sets our hearts on fire for Jesus, with love. And I ask you now to let the fire, some of you are sensing, I can sense it right now. Some of you are sensing like a strong heat coming on you. Some of you are sensing like electricity. Don’t be afraid. That’s the presence of the Holy Spirit. This is the real deal. And I want you to receive that right now. Father, in the name of Jesus, let them sense that power from on high, strengthen them and stir the desires of the spirit, such as never before. Take them, beyond what they can imagine and pull them into the depths of the Holy Ghost. In the name of Jesus, we pray. I want you to say because you believe it, say, “Amen.”

SID: Amen.

SID: Now, my guest, Michael Maiden, says all believers can prophesy. How can you be so certain?

MICHAEL: Well, first of all, the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 14, that all can prophesy. Joel prophesied about the Holy Spirit being poured out and sons and daughters, and old men and young men, everybody, every generation can prophesy. It’s part of God’s great gifting to us through the Holy Spirit.

SID: Well, what is your experience when you teach people that have never heard such things? Give me an example when you teach, as far as the percentage of people that begin to prophesy.

MICHAEL: The book of 1 Corinthians 14 talks about, it says pursue love and desire spiritual gifts, and especially the gift of prophecy. I teach on that and then we have people pray for each other. I’ve done this around the world so many times, and 85, 90% of people feel like they’ve heard from God. They give someone a prophecy and there’s so much joy. The room erupts with satisfaction and joy when people hear God’s … Jesus said this in John 10, “My sheep know My voice, hear My voice.” So people find so much joy, and really excitement, when they know the Holy Spirit is speaking to them.

SID: Now, when people still say, “I did what you said, but I hear nothing.” What is usually the problem?

MICHAEL: Every Christian has heard God’s voice. In fact, probably every person. When we say we haven’t heard God’s voice, it’s because there’s other noise. There’s static, as you said, in our hearts that we have to calm down, we have to bring peace. When we’re at peace, we are best able to hear God’s voice. It’s so important for us to get to that place of peace, because that’s where we can feel and be led by the Spirit and hear the still small voice of the Holy Spirit. God’s speaking, sometimes people are in so much turmoil, or anxiety, or pain, or confusion they just can’t hear that still small voice.

SID: Oh, Michael, as I look at you now, you were very successful a while ago, but you got diagnosed manically and clinically depressed. How large was your church at that time?

MICHAEL: We had a church, about 4,000 people in 1995, and I was just so young. I was 37. Our treasurer, a local businessman, we had our accounts with him and he embezzled $20 million from us while we were building our building. We were building a 5,000 seat, 4,800 seat auditorium. So we were in the front page of the paper at, 10 times, headlines. I had 6 lawsuits, 15 concurrent attorneys. Our church attendance dwindled from 4,000 to about 150 people. I became seriously manically and suicidally depressed. I knew I was depressed because I was finishing my PhD in psychology, so we talking about the timing of the Lord. I was 37 and I thought my life was over, but Jesus healed me.

SID: Tell me what happened to your son while this was going on?

MICHAEL: Yeah, my oldest son started self-medicating. He was just a young man, 12 or 13, and we were homeless. So many negative things happened, and he started just trying to take care of his pain.

SID: Did you say homeless?

MICHAEL: Yeah. We were homeless for six months and we actually lived with people that were kind to us.

SID: That had to be such a comedown from where you were.

SID: Now, that’s the way it should be. Okay, you have an amazing witnessing style, absolutely amazing. He walks up to someone and he says just a simple question, “Have you ever felt the power of God?” And then what?

JOE: Well—

SID: Give me an example.

JOE: Yeah. One particular night in front of a bar called the Blue Planet known for LSD and Ecstasy. I’ve got a friend of mine, we’re out sharing the gospel and he’s arguing with this guy about Jesus. I’ve never argued anybody into the Kingdom of God. So I walked over to him, I said, “Have you ever felt the power of God?” He said, “No.” I said, “Would you like to?” He said, “Yes.” I laid hands on him. I said, “Lord, I pray the fire of God would come right now in Jesus’ name.” He looked at me and said, “I want to get saved right now.” I led him to Christ, I laid hands on him again.

The second time I laid hands on him he doubled over under the power of God, began to manifest demons and started throwing up on the sidewalk. He comes back up, totally set free. I laid hands on him a third time, I just said, “Fire.” He doubles over, Sid, and went, “[speaking tongues],” comes back up, I said, “What are you doing?” He said, “I have no idea.” So I laid hands on him again. I mean, it’s working, the fire is flowing, why change it? I laid hands… We complicate it so many times.

I laid hands on him again, he doubles over again, [speaking tongues], comes back up. I said, “Have you ever said that?” He said, “Never in my life.” He was saved, delivered of demons and baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues in less than five minutes. Why? Is it because I’m a good preacher? No. Is it because of going to Bible school? No, it’s because I’m available and I want to tell you. You say, “I’d like for God to use me to like that,” all you have to do is be available.

SID: I want you to look in the camera and I want you to tell everyone watching this that they can do anything you can do and they can do it better.

JOE: Absolutely, I want to tell you, you don’t have to be a pastor, someone on television. The Bible says that the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is in you. You don’t need another service, you don’t need another prayer meeting, you need to step out in faith and believe that God can use you. Lay hands on your waiter, your next-door neighbor, the flight attendant, just step out, God is waiting for you.

SID: Tell me about the Jewish woman that just showed up at your service, out—

JOE: We were in Texas and this particular morning we preached and powerful service. This Jewish girl was dating a young man from the church whose parents attended the church. They would not have come. The parents begged them, “Please come, please come, please come.” They show up on a Sunday morning, they hear the word of God, they receive a prophetic word personally to them and she gives her life to Christ. That night we were having a healing service and she said, before, she would make statements, “I will never go to a crazy charismatic service,” but she had a disease akin to leukemia. That night she came. I preached on healing, she comes to the alter, she gets hit by the power of God, falls out unconscious, gets up totally healed. This is how she knew. She goes to the bathroom and the disease in some form or fashion caused scales. They came off of her, she went—