It's Supernatural

Sid: Well, I just got a hold of a CD that was done for us exclusively for a period of time and it’s by Julie Meyer. And she is a Worship Leader at IHOP International House of Prayer, not pancakes. And Julie I have to tell you I’m a feeling kind of person and I feel something on your music. I have felt peace on other artist’s music before but yours is a different type of peace the most calming peace that I’ve ever…it’s almost like a Psalmist is on a frequency and I’m trying to come up with words in English to describe the frequency that you’re on. What would you describe the frequency you’re on from heaven.

Julie: I don’t know I think part of it is I love to sing the word and when you sing the word those words are alive I mean, they’re alive on the inside. And it has to bring about peace and it has to bring hope because that’s what His word does.

Sid: Well I have to believe and you must have reports of people that have said to you how much peace your music brings them.

Julie: Absolutely, absolutely I have that happen frequently. In fact I started getting emails from counselors that and I love this they said that they put on my CD and they put it on in their waiting room and they made their clients just set there in the presence. Because a CD can carry presence, it’s the word with music and there were several of the counselors. And I get these 2 or 3 times a year and they said that the anger, the offense, the bitterness, it was as if it was washed away when they were setting in this room just listening to the music because it’s the word being sung.

Sid: Well, I have to tell you I’m personally using it for my own soaking music and I am loving it. Now for those that don’t know you I’ll tell a little bit about your background. You had an alcoholic mom and you had a piano and your only peace and solace you could find when you were sad is to retreat and to play that piano. Did it bring you peace when you did that?

Julie: It did I didn’t know the Lord you know when I was young but I ran to the piano and I loved to sing old hymns. And the one hymn that I would sing over and over was “Sweet hour of Prayer, sweet hour of prayer” and I don’t know I just loved the hymn and that became my shelter, the piano it became my refuge and my shelter until many years later when I ran into Jesus.

Sid: Well first you ran into and I can’t I’ll never forget this because it’s the same last name as mine but we’re not related the Roth twins. And you were in a competition of music statewide music competition and they were really begging you to come to Bible studies and they wanted you saved. And you said “If I win this contest I will go.” Did you think you have a chance of winning?

Julie: No. They were Lynette and Jeanette Roth and we all took piano lessons from the same teacher Mrs. Wilson in Wamego, Kansas.

Sid: Hm.

Julie: And we went to these competitions every year and I kind of thought the twins were weird you know, they were identical I could never tell them apart and they both loved music. And I was actually it was third year to go, each year you would either pass and go on to the next year or you would get eliminated. And it was my third year and whoever won like would go to the State. And I remember they were bugging me the whole trip, “Come to Bible study.” And really to get them off of my case I said “You know what if I win I will go to your Bible study” because I knew that I wouldn’t. I was a Junior in High School and there were Musical Majors that were at a Sophomore in college that were there and it was the whole state of Kansas. And I didn’t play that well, I mean I played okay and I went and I sat down by my music teacher and she was nice but she patted my leg and she goes “Well, you could have done better.”

Sid: Hm.

Julie: Because I used to get so nervous when I played the piano you know, I used to make my mother I’d say “Please make fried chicken.” And I would get my hands all greasy and then I would practice my Beethoven and my Bach and my Brahms because if I could play it with greasy fingers then if I got nervous and my fingers sweat I knew that I could play it for the competition. But the funny thing is is that I won the musical division and I remember they said “The first certificate award goes to Julie Soupy” that was my maiden name. And then I won the whole competition I mean of every single musician that was at this I won and I knew I didn’t play that well. And I set there going “I think I think God wants me to go to Bible study and I went.”

Sid: And how long after that did you get saved?

Julie: I got saved that night I mean when I went to Bible I always believed in Jesus I just didn’t know that I needed a personal relationship with Him. My prayers were mostly “God, if you will answer this I promise I’ll never pray again, I’ll never bug you again.” And that was my prayer life and of course He loves the sound of our voice. He loves when we pray, He loves when we talk to Him. But I went right home and I asked Him to come into my life and you know it’s been great, I mean I never backslid, I just was in, I was in in the whole commitment and I love Him more today gosh years later than I would have ever thought imaginable.

Sid: Now you were in a historic meeting some one that is now in heaven right now a Prophet by the name of Bob Jones prophesied a 24 hour House of Prayer which later became known as IHOP International House of Prayer. And you were at that historic first meeting but the thing that intrigues me even more than that is you cried out for about 4 years for God to give you dreams and visions. Why did you even have that prayer?

Julie: You know I just wanted to know Him I mean I just wanted to see Him. I have amazing friends and they were always telling me about their encounters and their dreams and I was just hungry to know Him. And I just remember sitting down one day saying “I don’t just don’t want to sign up that after I die I meet You, I want to meet You on this side.” And it was just a hunger that I just wanted to know Him.

Sid: Now in addition to being a Worship Leader in addition to this hunger you also were a soccer mom with 3 boys. And out of curiosity they’re people listening to us right now and they’re being pulled apart as soccer moms and housewives and they got so much to do how were you able to carve out that time?

Julie: You know I have 3 boys my husband and myself. My husband and I have 3 boys we have Isaac and then we have identical twins also.

Sid: Double trouble, oh double blessing (Laughing.)

Julie: Double blessings, the blessings of the Lord can be hard sometimes though. And when I had my twins I couldn’t go anywhere for 2 years. Everything shut down and there was no web stream and no any…you know nothing then. But you know what really helped me I love this because ever since 1983 that’s when I was at the prayer meeting with Bob Jones and Mike Bickle and Bob began to prophesy about the day where the Lord would raise up 24-7 Houses of Prayer. But what I always did is I would take scripture and maybe it was just 2 scriptures and I would take it and I would pray it, I would, and then I would sing it.

Sid: You know I just thought when I read that in your book I just started doing that I would never sing scripture. But the reason that really clicked with me was because as an evangelist years ago I used to have long healing lines I don’t do that now I operate primarily through words of knowledge and I found something amazing when I would sing over someone they would…the anointing would go into them stronger then when I would speak over someone. I don’t understand it and then if you’re singing scripture you can’t get any stronger than that.

Julie: No, that’s right.

Sid: But you understand that maybe you can help me, why is it singing of scripture seems to be more powerful than speaking of scripture?

Julie: It is powerful and when I studied the life of David, King David that I love and the most dire of circumstances he would always write “I will sing to the Lord a new song.” And when you study him it is said of King David that he went to war with a sword in his hand and a song on his lips and I love that. There is something about singing and the reason is your ears have to hear your sound too that’s when it just gets written upon your heart.

Sid: I have good news for everyone listening can’t carry a tune so if I can do it you have no excuses okay.

Julie: Exactly, we’re all supposed to make a joyful noise unto the Lord anyway.

Sid: Julie, tell me about the song “God is Alive” I want to start with that from you’re a…we have the 2 CD albums one is brand new and we have it on exclusive basis. And your brand new book “Dreams and Supernatural Encounters.” And I don’t know what feedback you’re getting but I can tell you that I know what happened to me. And this is what my staff is telling me they are telling me that they actually feel that there in your dreams and visions and the messages you have from God there not just for you they’re for them. It’s just like God was giving it just to them, have you heard that before?

Julie: That’s the main testimony that I hear from every single person that they will email me or write me just personal letters and say “I felt like I was in the dream when I was reading it.” And “The emotional pain that I was walking through as I began to read the dream and just see a new facet and understand the love that Jesus has for us that suddenly it was as if that pain and that sting was washed away because they saw the truth of who Jesus is.”

Sid: Tell me about the song “God is Alive.”

Julie: “God is Alive” I wrote when I was with my friend Joshua Mills.

Sid: I’ve interviewed Joshua, he’s the one that has all of that gold dust and plays the piano.

Julie: He does and it happens all the time! And he was preaching a sermon and he was going “God is alive” and he was saying “Hallelujah I must praise Yah.” And it was almost coming out of his mouth. His sermon was as if it was coming out like a song. And I just began to write down his words but as I’m writing them I can hear a melody. And I literally and Joshua will probably remember this when he was done with his message I went up and I sang the song.

Sid: Let’s hear it right now! “God is Alive.” (0.14.53 – 0.19:24)

God is alive, it’s too late to tell me God is not alive, it’s too late to tell me Jesus isn’t the Messiah I know Him! “This is eternal life that you might have experiential knowledge of God through Jesus, this is eternal life.” I want everyone everywhere to know Him. And I recently got back from a trip to Israel and I had this is unprecedented 500 unsaved Jewish people came out to a lecture on the supernatural. And I’m going to tell you miracles occurred and the majority of them stood up and made professions of faith, unprecedented, unheard of in Israel. Don’t you tell me God isn’t alive, it’s too late! And I’m going to tell you something else we’re coming into something pretty trying times on planet earth but God is alive and this book “Dreams and Supernatural Encounters” by Julie Meyer is going to change your understanding of the invisible realm. I believe that her dreams and visions are messages from God on how to have intimacy with Him no matter what is going on in your life and if you have intimacy with God you have everything. And then the 2 CD’s trust me the peace, the tranquility that it’s going to bring in your life. The 2 CD’s one of them is a brand new exclusive soaking CD….When we come back I want to find out a lot more about singing scripture.

Sid: We want everyone everywhere to get unstuck, unstuck? Well, what do you mean by that Sid? Well, I’m glad you asked. You see everyone that’s a true believer is caught in some point in their life in a move of God’s Spirit but history records that most people that get caught in a move of God’s Spirit at least to come to the Lord get stuck. And then they see something new that happens and they say “Well, that’s not God because that’s not the way God operates with me.” I mean as if we have the audacity to think we know everything of God. Even the gospels state that if everything that Yeshua, Jesus, did was recorded in books there wouldn’t be enough books to contain it. Well it’s time to get unstuck, why? Because the word of God says the best wine is for last. Do you remember the wedding supper of Cana? The Master of the Feast said to the Bridegroom you have saved the best wine for last.” Wines a type of the Holy Spirit, the best move of the Holy Spirit is last.” And the Messiah said “That when you have a new wine, a new outpouring of God’s Spirit, you need a new wineskin.” And I’m looking at what we call church is the new wine skin and I’m saying we need a new wine skin to contain the best that is reserved for last. But you know what is even more important than the new wine skin in the church? The new wine skin in us and that’s why I have on the telephone Dr. Dale Fife. One of our supporters said “Sid I just got a hold of his book and it is doing more for my intimacy with God than anything that I’ve seen before you got to read it.” So I got a hold of this book it’s called “The Secret Place” subtitled “Passionately Pursuing His Presence.” And the moment I opened this book Dr. Dale Fife says “He believes angels accompanies every one of these books.” The moment I opened this book the presence of God came on me and that was God saying “Hey, there’s something in here Sid that you have to learn and your Mishpochah must learn.” So on January 1^st 1999 a pastor that accomplished a lot for God that was involved as a Pastor in a Methodist Church and then he got involved in something real radical with 3 different denominations came together and it was interracial and interdenominational and three churches came together and God really moved and he started something called the barn which young people that were not even acceptable in most churches became acceptable. So he knew the Spirit of God, he knew about the moves of God’s Spirit but Dale there was a desperation inside of you tell me about it.

Dale: It’s a joy to be with you Sid I firmly agree with you that we need to embrace what God is doing in the present moment. And after 30 years of ministry in a more traditional setting sometimes I pastured a small church outside Johnstown, PA in a coal mining community, from there into a larger denominational church, and then a community church. And an inner city church and a barn ministry and then on to Connecticut where I’m pasturing now but in my heart of hearts the long that has continually pressed me into God is a desire for intimacy with Him. And after 30 some years of ministry I just was so hungry for God and so destructed, stuck on the normal responsibility of ministry, the administrative things. And on the first day of 1999 I went into my study at home locked the door, I said “God I’m locking myself in in with You.” Took the phone off the hock and sat down in my what I call now my prayer chair. And I opened my journal I have an 8½ x 11 hardbound journal and I took a pen and I sat there in God’s presence and I said “God I desperately need to draw closer to You, how can I minister to your people if I have no intimacy with You?” And…

Sid: By the way anyone that saw you minister and knew what you did that is the last thing they think you’d be praying. They would say “Ha, I wish I had the same intimacy with God that Pastor Dale has.”

Dale: Well I think that’s true in God’s grace and His gifts are without repentance and the anointing of God comes upon us not for our benefit but for the benefit of those we minister to. And many times we’ll say “Well, Lord we need to be anointed.” And I remember one particular day God said “Listen, I’ll anoint you when the time comes for you to minister and that’s when you’ll need it because My anointing is not for you it’s for those you minister to.” And so God was gracing me in ministry and there were many powerful moments in my life but there was such a longing in my heart for a deeper relationship with God than I’ve never known.

Sid: You know Dale that’s what’s going on inside of heart right now and that’s what’s going on inside of most of our listeners right now there’s this longing. And there is this how do we get from point… I’m a real logical thinker.

Dale: Hmm, hmm.

Sid: My biggest asset is my greatest liability “How do I get from point A to point B I know where I’m at but I am totally dissatisfied where I’m at. I’ve got to get greater intimacy God “How do I do it?” And I’ve been crying out for it, but tell me what happened that day January 1^st 1999.

Dale: Well even as you express your heart Sid it reminds me of a vision the Lord gave me one day of a priest ministering the Old Testament Tabernacle and his responsibility was to carry the ashes from the altar out of the Tabernacle. Day after day he would come in and he would be close to the presence of God but not in the presence of God. And a longing developed in his heart after all of those years of just carrying ashes of firewood that he came to the point where he was desperate where he said “I need to get into the Holy of Holies.” So I think that’s a perfect description of where I was on that day and as I sat in my study I prayed this prayer “Lord Jesus I just long for intimacy with You.” And something came deep out of my Spirit unpremeditated just a longing. And I believe it’s the cry of every human being alive today that cry for intimacy with God. And I said this prayer I said “God I want to be like Enoch, I want to walk with You.”

Sid: Now that wasn’t premeditated I mean it just came out of your spirit?

Dale: It did, it wasn’t like I said “Well, I’m going to go and pray this prayer.” It just was birthed it’s almost like the cry of my life. “God I want to be like Enoch, I want to walk with You and be Your friend.” In that moment that I prayed that prayer I heard the voice of the Spirit say to me “Son, I’m going to come and answer your prayer and I’m going to walk with you like I walked with Enoch, I long for you to be My friend.” And that prayer and that moment literally changed my life because God became to come day after day after day in such a powerful way into my study at home as I would sit in His presence. I remember one particular day Sid that I went into my study at 8:00 in the morning and sat in God’s presence seeing and hearing, seeing vision and hearing what God was saying to me for 9 hours without interruption. The presence of God was so powerful in the room.

Sid: Now you can’t do that without God’s grace without the presence of God there.

Dale: No, tears were streaming down my face, the glory of God so present that I could hardly see to write in my journal what God was saying to me. And in fact one particular day my wife was so concerned because I had been locked in my study for so long she actually snuck out the front door walked around the house and peaked in the window to see if I was still on the earth she thought I had gone home like Enoch did. (Chuckle) Another woman a powerful intercessor walked into our home one day and I was on one of what I call now my Enoch walks with God. She walked into the house and she to my wife “What is going on in this place, God’s presence is so powerful in this house I can’t… what is happening?” And my wife began to explain what was going on.” And she said “I can sense the presence and the glory of God in this house.” It was just amazing what was going on and it was actually you had mentioned to your listeners about the book “The Secret Place.” I never started out to write a book, I started out to see God and in those days of powerful intimacy it was about 2 weeks into this experience when I had almost filled the journal with the prophetic revelation of what God was saying to me. And one day I said to the Lord I said “Father, You were showing me so many things surely there for more than just me.” And the voice of the Spirit said “They are son, and I want you to write them in a book and they’re for My church and for My people.” And so I said “Why me, who am I just I’m hidden back here in the trees in my study and I kind of felt like Moses God pick somebody else to do this.” And I even said “Well Lord how will I even get a book published?” And the Lord said “Son you obey Me and I’ll take care of the rest.” And so I really didn’t intend to write a book, in fact when this book was published it is 95% straight out of my journal as I wrote it in God’s presence.

Sid: But you know refresh my memory because I spoke to you a while ago and you said something about you really believe an angel accompanies every book that’s someone gets.

Dale: I believe that because in the book and if you know the listeners will read they’ll understand that there was a point in my journey with the Lord that the Lord gave me a powerful vision and in that vision He said “I will release an angel to carry this word to my people.”

Sid: Well some people that a lot of us are familiar with Tommy Tenney, Dr. Kingsley Fletcher, Mark Chironna, I mean Mark says “Get ready for an incredible journey into the presence of the Living God within these pages you’ll experience a depth of prophetic revelation and insight that will provoke you to respond to God’s invitation to intimacy.”

Sid: I promise you that over these next 2 weeks if you follow through on what you’re about ready to hear, there’s no way that you will not be red hot for the Messiah. Plus as an extra benefit you’ll be healed of all of your diseases. Sound intriguing? I have on the telephone Dr. John Miller he’s a chiropractor from Tampa, Florida,4 but that’s not why I have him on the telephone I have him on the phone because for the last 20 years he has studied something that has literally been stolen from the Church. It’s communion, well you say “How’s communion been stolen from the Church?” Because the deep understanding of communion, just as most of the deep understanding of all of the Biblical festivals, as you know communion came from the last Passover Seder, or what is known as the Last Supper. We’re at a time now that God is restoring these mysteries right back to the church again. I have to ask you a question Dr. John Miller “Here you are a Chiropractor you’re devoted to healing people. If people understood communion and participated in it the way that God intended would you and others like you be out of business for real Christians?”

John: For real Christians that’s for sure. Paul said in 1^st Corinthians 11:29 and 30 “For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.” As you know that word sleep in the Greek means prematurely dead. So as a physician about 20 years ago that caught my eye where Paul is telling the Christian not discerning the Lord’s body this is the reason that you’re weak and sickly and end up dying prematurely.

Sid: Question what does it mean not discerning the Lord’s body?

John: Well there are 2 elements to communion: the blood and the body because there are 2 healings to be had at communion. Spiritual healing came through the shedding of the blood of Jesus, physical healing came through the strips of His body. It says “By His strips we were healed.” Now I was raised in churches all of my grandfathers on my mother’s side are pastors. I watched 6 people come to the communion table eat and drink and leave sick. Well that doesn’t match with what Paul just said. The problem is they never realized they never discerned or realized that when they eat the bread it’s too put them in remembrance of Jesus taking the stripes at Calvary. Before they crucified Him and He died to pay for their sins He took that horrible beating to pay for their physical healing. In Matthew 8:17 it says “Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.” So as the Centurion soldier was placing those 39 stripes on the back of Jesus God was laying our sicknesses, our diseases on Him.

Sid: But why, why don’t we understand this today? I mean mentally through mental ascent any good Christian would say “I agree what John’s saying and I’ve taken communion all of my life and I don’t get healed. Why?”

John: Well everything that God provide through what Jesus did comes by faith. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word. I taught this in Pastors and Missionary Seminars throughout the world and every time we’ve concluded with communion people have come up and told me after the service that they’ve been taking communion 30 and 40 years and tonight they understood it differently. And many of them were healed on the spot.

Sid: Tell me about this Troy Miller, I want to know about him.

John: Troy Miller is a pastor’s Pastor. He’s a just a wonderful preacher and a great musician he plays like 17 instruments professionally. But when I was on the Perry Stone speaking on communion they played a clip of a testimony and as best I recall it he had the cancer of the kidneys. And they had taken a biopsy of his kidney and sent it to pathology. In the meantime, God had spoken to his mother and told her to go to the hospital and have communion with Troy.

Sid: Well as I understand it he was dying from kidney failure and his only hope was either a transplant or dialysis.

John: Right, right he was in real grave condition. And they had communion for the healing of his kidney. And not only was the kidney in his body healed but the Pathologist said “He watched the cancer cells die in the specimen that he was looking at under the microscope.”

Sid: As a doctor give me your spin on that.

John: Spiritual law supersedes physical law, God spoke this earth into existence. See there are two sciences, the science of the spirit and the science of physics, the science of this world. God was the Creator of both He created everything spiritually by speaking it into existence. That’s spiritual law, but then the material that He created they have certain laws that they go by such as gravity. Now God has been trying to get us to get out of this world that we’re looking at. We live in a physical body so we’re affected by physical laws and the spirit laws we have to have our eyes open to like “Elijah on the mountain when the armies surrounded him and his servant said “What are we going to do?” And the Elijah said “Well greater is the number that’s with us than with them.” And God had to open the eyes of the servant so that he could see the angels that were encamped around them. That’s what God is having to do to His people today and it’s my belief that things are going to get so bad in this world that if a person doesn’t know how to walk by the Spiritual laws that they’re not going to make it. What the things that we’re facing now when my great friend Hal Lindsey wrote the book “Late Great Planet Earth” and he said 1/3 of the people will die of germs in the end time taken from Luke or Matthew 24 where Jesus stated these things. They’ll be increased earthquakes and such as that, Hal told me that medical Christian Medical contacted him and said “Your crazy in this day and age of antibiotics we’ll never have another disease that we can’t control.” Now look what we have, AIDS is the first disease to ever face wiping our every nation, we’ve got about 8 germs that we know of that if they get loosed from the rain forest they would wipe out the world. We’ve got a staph that could eat your arm off in a day and we don’t have an antibiotic that will work against it. When I was young we had a TB hospital in our town and it closed because TB was eradicated now their reopening TB hospitals all through the United States. So God’s people are going to have to start living by God’s supernatural laws rather than the physical laws that we’ve been entertaining from this world.

Sid: You know John I was reading about the Passover that’s coming up in a few weeks. It talks about the blood of an unblemished Lamb over the doorposts of the home and none of the plagues and that’s the word it uses none of the plagues could enter that home or anyone that was inside of that home. Then I look at Deuteronomy 28 and it talked about “You’ll have none of the curses and none of the diseases, I mean it includes it’s so inclusive it includes everything by the blood of an unblemished lamb and if that would do it how much more remembrance of the blood of Jesus.

John: Oh man yes!

Sid: I mean that that is the answer I don’t think anyone could be fearful if they had as much faith as the Jewish people had at the original Passover in communion.

John: Exactly right.

Sid: You know what I’m believing is the next 2 weeks you are going to be teaching every day on communion and by the time that we get to Friday in a week we’re going to all take communion together and I’m believing we’re going to have more healing miracles than all of the shows we’ve ever done with any guest in the entire history of this ministry. I am so looking forward to this. Mishpochah I want you to put your faith out there; I want you to absolutely believe that this is going to be the moment for your deliverance. The moment and as I understanding from your teaching John it’s not just physical deliverance it’s spiritual deliverance, it’s having to do with your mind, with every arena of life. I can’t think of a more appropriate time to be doing this…

Sid: My guest by way of telephone is Dr. John Garr we’ll be talking to him this week about his book about restoring our lost legacy. And let me read from the back of the book:

“We’ve Been Robbed!” These words of a Methodist Bishop in Brazil and Anglican Leader in India, and a Pentecostal Overseer in Africa express the sentiments of thousands of Christians around the world when they first discovered through the challenging teaching of Dr. John Garr the extent to which they have been deprived of the Hebrew heritage of their Christian faith. For the past 19 centuries millions of believers have been denied their Biblical legacy, the riches of the Hebrew foundations of their faith. Christian Judaeophobia, anti-Judaism, and anti-Semitism have conspired to rob them of the treasures of their inheritance.

I have to tell you John a lot of information in your book I was aware of, but you’ve put it together in such a wonderful fashion. And you have information in here that I was not aware of it’s been so helpful. I have to start out with a question that I posed to myself so many times. “How did something that started in a Jewish land Israel by Jewish people based on the Jewish scriptures, and the Jewish Messiah, and the Jewish blood of atonement, and the Jewish Festivals become the opposite of Judaism as we know it today how did that happen?

John: Well I think that we’ve not only have the $64 thousand question we’ve probably brought the $64 billion dollar question, how could it have been possible.

Sid: I mean is it what I just read from the back of your book “We’ve Been Robbed?”

John: We have been robbed and it’s basically all you can say is a conspiracy of the powers of evil that has been worked out very deceptively in the history of the Christian Church. I don’t think we have to go back and question the motives of many of the Hellenic and the Latin Fathers of the Church the Greek and Latin Fathers of the Church in their efforts to contextualize the gospel into the societies in which they live, but the problem is in the effort to contextualize they crossed the line into syncretism and started to try to blend Greek philosophy and in some cases the Greek Paultheistic system with the Hebraic faith of Jesus and the apostles.

Sid: Weren’t they afraid to do this I mean God is there?

John: You know a lot of question about that and I think they should have certainly been afraid of it; they should have been very careful that they would maintain the purity of the faith of Jesus and the apostles. But again I think that they were making an effort to try to contextualize. But we do know that certain of the Greek Fathers and in particular origin and the Tertullian started out with an effort to syncretize, or blend together, Neo-Platonist philosophy. Of course they were both Neo-Platonist philosophers and to take that philosophy of the Greek world and blend it with the earliest Christian faith. And of course when you know that something about the history of both of them they’re like oil and water they just don’t mix.

Sid: Yes but some of the apostles and the disciples of the apostles must have fought this ferociously. I would have had I been there.

John: Yes and the history of the records that we have they were continuing battles over many of these issues up to the first 4^th centuries of the Church in particular. Once we got up to the fourth and fifth centuries the process had been pretty much completed the Church had become Hellenized and then subsequently Latinized so the pure faith of Jesus and the apostles was pretty much lost. And this is one reason for the reformation in the 16^th century and the counter reformation that was also taking place in the Roman Catholic Church at the same time was an effort at least to begin a step toward restoration and renewal in that reformative process. But the reality is we were in a terrible state that was far removed from the faith of Jesus and the apostles because as you so well said it was a Jewish faith. Christianity in its beginning as the early Jesus movement was not even thought of as being Christianity at all it was just another group within Judaism that was attempting to make their view normality. As a matter of fact…

Sid: But wait a second in the New Testament it refers to believers in Jesus as Christians.

John: Well the statement was made they were first called Christians at Antioch and this was about 10 years after the ascension of Jesus and was first used as a term of derision from the people outside the movement. The earliest term that we can arrive at that we can understand is that they were probably called the notsrim after the Hebrew word Netser, which means the root and Jesus was or the stem and the shaft of Jesse. And so they were patterning after that way so that they were actually trying to manifest the life of Jesus and they were being identify with that. By the time you come to Antioch and the Greek language they were called Christians because they seemed to be followers of Christ and this new strange new religion (Laughing) was being promoted from the outside and so they were called Christians.

Sid: But as you point out in your book it was actually in a derogatory sense the name Christian.

John: The origination of the term was derogatory but as we know terms that are used as terms of derogation over a period of time can be adopted by the people to who the name applies for instance the Friends Movement came be called the Quakers because of the experience that they manifest and the people outside started calling them Quakers and eventually they assumed that title to themselves. Another one that’s a good example is the term Jew. Originally the term Jew was used by the people outside of the society of Judah as a term of derision and it became adopted as the term for describing the people from the tribe of Judah and subsequently from all of the tribes of Israel that came to be associated and aligned within the tribe of Judah so that they all became described as Jews.   And so this is not an uncommon phenomenon but the point is originally they were not called Christians. Jesus was not called Christian Jesus was only called a Jew the people that identified Him who were outside the scope of the community of Israel all identified Him as being a Jew. The woman at the well at Samaria said “You are a Jew.” And when Pilot came to a point of crucifying Him he had a legal inscription on the top of the cross “This is Jesus the King of the Jews.”

Sid: Yeah, it reminds me of a book by Francis Schaeffer’s wife, Edith Schaeffer, many years ago called “Christianity is Jewish.”

John: Absolutely, absolutely and when you get back to it you have to acknowledge historically and theologically that Christianity is a Jewish faith.

Sid: So do you believe that God never intended to say have Old Covenant Judaism and Christianity but just had Judaism?

John: I think that was God’s intention all along and in effect what Jesus came to do was to restore Judaism to its original inherent ideal. As a matter of fact Martin Buber made a statement that I think is very important. Martin Buber is one of the great Jewish philosophers of our times. He said “That the earliest Jewish movement was a radical call to doing Torah,” or in other words doing what the word of God says. So in effect it was not an effort to break away from the Biblical or 2^nd Temple Judaism into which Jesus and the apostles were born and lived their lives. But it was an attempt to show that Jesus was the fulfillment and in Him came the forth the fullest flower of understanding of Jewish understanding of the Hebrew scriptures. And also to cause the world and particularly at that time the rest of their fellow Jewish community to recognize their understanding belief in Jesus was the fullness of all the scriptures had to say about the Messiah.

Sid: Maybe that what Paul meant when he said that “The believers are to provoke the Jewish people to jealousy.” You just don’t provoke the Jewish people to believer to jealousy by saying you too can have Easter bunnies and Easter eggs.

John: (Laughing) That’s absolutely true the jealousy element if we’re looking at that one is not jealous of something that one does not possess. And what you’re jealous of is that someone else is using what you think is exclusively yours then your jealous. So obviously the Christians Community as one Jewish person made the statement to me you know talk about our being jealous of Christians “Well frankly, Christians don’t have anything we want.” And the reason for that is because they don’t recognize anything in the traditional Christian model or the Christian Church that they can identify as being Jewish. And again that’s one of the great the problems I think in relational things between the traditional Jewish Community and the Christian Church is because the Christian Church has drifted so far from its original inherent ideal as being a Jewish faith established by a Jewish Lord on the basis of a Jewish book; teaching about the God of the Jews and being established in the land of Jews that the Jews can’t even see anything that identifies Christianity that it’s even related to them.

Sid: You know it’s one thing that we see how the Greco-Roman culture infiltrated the early Church, but it’s a totally another thing that is mind-blowing is how the Christian Church today is so not even intentionally but by its very nature anti-anything that’s Jewish. If Jewish people worship on Saturday we worship on Sunday, it Jewish people have put their hats on in the synagogue we take our hats off in the church. How did that kind of tension occur?

John: Well it’s basically as Christianity began to go into the Gentile world, and there was a lot of persecution in that time frame. One of the things that the leaders in the Third and Fourth Centuries began to distant themselves from Jews and Judaism.

Sid: Why?

John: For the sake of trying to keep themselves from being persecuted. They wanted to be recognized between their communities and be accepted among them and so they started distancing themselves. And so from that dynamic Christianity began defining itself from being not Jewish. By the same token Judaism in turn began define itself as not being not Christian. So our definition our self definition both in both communities has been based more on negatives than it has been on positives and especially in the Christian Community.

Sid: You know the definition, this is mind blowing to me, the definition of being Jewish is something you’re not something you are. The definition of being Jewish is you don’t believe in Jesus.

John: Hm hm.

Sid: I mean come on now give me a break you’re throwing out so many questions if it wasn’t for the fact that God has called Gentiles to provoke Jewish people to jealousy if salvation… Roman’s 11:11 “Salvation has come to the Gentile to provoke the Jew to jealousy. Even forgetting that all the richness that the church has lost in the understanding of the New Covenant by not understanding our Biblical Judaic roots…

SID: Lisa, so she has this vision of this lioness, she opens her Bible, she reads about the lioness arising. What, well first of all, who is the lioness to you?

LISA: So Jesus is the lion of the Tribe of Judah.

SID: Right.

LISA: And his bride who is the church, I believe is the lioness. And I believe that God is having a fierce awakening. And I think, you know, you’re even seeing women coming alongside the men, finding out that they have a voice. They don’t have a voice to push the men aside. They are actually adding their voice to the men’s voice. And so for me, the lioness is what God wants the church to rise up and look like. So Sid, what happened for me is God sort of opening doors for me. I started traveling, I started ministering and I began to think it was about me. I began to think, wow, I’m not a coward anymore. I’m not a captive anymore. I’m free. I’m traveling and speaking in these big conferences. I’m a lioness. And God was like, “No, this is not about you. I said with the birth of your son you would awaken a lioness”. And that is a fierce waking call for his church, and we need to be a people who know how to live in the light, but hunt in the dark, and that is the prophetic anointing that is coming on the church, to live in the light, but hunt in the dark, to see what is hidden, see what is captive. We need to be a people whose eyes are lit from within and that is something that lions have. They have an ability to interpret light of their environment to vision.

SID: And you know, you explain that lions in the dark can see. So how does a believer see in the dark?

LISA: Well because we’re lit from within. See, it’s too, it’s very much a tragic thing. I love how you open up some of the programs. We have people in the church who are praying scared prayers: “Oh God, can you please save us. It’s going to be such a bad time. I’m going to lose all my money.” You know what? We’re not supposed to pray scared prayers. We’re supposed to pray the prayers that are the Word of God. We’re supposed to pray scary prayers. We’re supposed to pray prayers that are so fierce, so strong, so God-ridden, that they scare us when they come to our ears. That is the way of the lioness. The lion, it doesn’t’ live in fear of what’s in its environment. We need to understand that that is the strength that God wants to impart to his people. And so we need to find out who we are and we need to find out what our strength is. And Sid, while I was studying and preaching this, I said, God, you know, just in case, I had that dream a long time ago. Just in case, if this is something, you know, you don’t want me to write on, you don’t want me to talk on, I just need a confirmation from you. And that night, now I live in Colorado, so this is a kind of frame of reference. That night, I found out my son had a school project. Eight p.m., Mom, I have a school project. I go down the stairs, I tear apart the three older boys’ school projects. I bring him the poster board. He’s like, no, this isn’t right. You have to brave a blizzard. So I go out, brave a blizzard, have my other three boys, you know, start to build his project from, have it all spread on the table when my husband does something that I would normally have called annoying. But when you’ve been married for more than 10 years and it’s still happening you need to call it cute. So anyway, he has this cute habit of calling me and putting me on the phone with strangers and that night was no exception. He said, “I have a man you need to talk to.” I’m like, “No, I’m sorry, I’m doing a school project now. I don’t need to talk to a stranger.” And he said, “No, you need to talk to this person.” So this guy calls me and he said, “Lisa, your husband mentioned that you’re teaching on lioness rising. He said that lions are the best killers, but lionesses are the best hunters.” He said, “I’m going to tell you why your work is important.” He said, “Do you know we are not winning the war in Afghanistan?” And I said, “I did know that.” And he said, “Do you want to know why?” And I said, “Sure.” He said, “Because we can’t speak to the women.” And he said, “When you can’t speak to the women you can’t flip the culture, and when you can’t flip a culture, you can’t win a war.” He said, “I am in charge of assembling special operative teams here at Fort Bragg.” And he said, “Up until this point we have focused on men because of the danger.” He said, “But now we are sending in special operative women who are going to tell the Afghan women they have voice and value. They’re going to take care of their minor medical needs. They’re going to deliver their babies and they’re going to tell them why democracy will serve their sons and daughters well.” He said, “They’re about ready to be deployed. It is called Team Lioness. May I have a copy of your resources for all of them?” So I got to resource Team Lioness going out of Fort Bragg, then Team Lioness going out of the Marines, out of Camp Lejeune. So if the U.S. military understands that without the involvement of women, we will fight, but we will not win. It is time that we understand in the Body of Christ that we need both the men and the women to win, and that has always been God’s dream. And God’s dream is the enemy’s nightmare.

SID: Okay. There is someone watching right now.

LISA: Yeah.

SID: And you are crying out in your heart, God, there must be something more. What would you say to them?

LISA: You know, I’m speaking straight to your spirit. There is something inside of you, you know you were created for something so much more than what you have seen. You have been living a life afraid. Well God has not given you a spirit of fear. God did not save you to tame you. He saved you to release you to be everything that he created you to be. I dare you, I dare you to stop being afraid of your strengths, in Jesus’ name.

SID: When we come back, Lisa is going to talk about how this stay at home mom is traveling to some of the hot spots of the world, rescuing women sold into slavery and sex trade. I mean, some of things you do, I am amazed. And guess what? Anything Lisa can do, you can do better. We’ll be right back.