Sid: I believe this is God’s strategic time for you to start doing the works of Jesus. It’s no longer the pastor, or the evangelist, or the teacher as the superstar. It’s thee Superstar His name is Yeshua Jesus empowering you. Now I have Pastor Bill Johnson on the telephone I’m speaking to him at his office in Redding, California where he is Senior Pastor of Bethel Church. And you make a statement in your book Bill that “Satan is empowered through man’s agreement” explain that.
Bill: Satan could not come into the Garden, the Garden of Eden, and possess Adam and Eve. The only thing that he could do is talk until they came into agreement. When they came into agreement of course they partook of the forbidden fruit and the enemy was empowered to take that place of dominion they had and use that dominion over a planet to keep it in darkness. And it happens today, when people make agreement, when I fall into fear and shame, guilt any of those things all that is my agreement with the enemy. He brings and accusation my way; I agree with him when I do it I empower him to kill, still and destroy in my life.
Sid: Bill, Jesus walked in tremendous authority, tremendous power and you say that many Christians understand the power of God but they don’t understand the authority of God. What do you mean by that?
Bill: Jesus in Luke 9 verse 1 said that “He gave His disciples both power and authority over sickness, disease and over devils.” And what I mean when I say “We move by power” most of us that work in miracles know how to recognize the move of the Spirit in a meeting and move with Him. I like to describe it as catching a wave, catching the wave of the Spirit of God in a certain setting that brings about miracles. And it’s essential that we learn how to recognize the move of God and move with Him instead of trying to force Him to move with us. But there’s another aspect of ministry and that’s the realm of authority. When you’re in a shopping mall or you’re down at the park and you’re at some of these public places you don’t sense the Spirit of God moving; there’s no worship team; there’s nobody directing a meeting where power of God is moving a certain direction. You are there as a representative of the Kingdom of God. You are there as an ambassador of another world representing the King and His Kingdom. And out of that position that’s where we have to learn how to move out of authority. Instead of catching the wave we are creating the wave. God gives us a certain measure of responsibility to actually initiate something because of who He has made us to be. A good example, a young man is down at the park with his grandmom at kind of a church picnic. There’s a woman there on a walker she has cancer from the waist down; she’s going in for surgery the next day. And he says “How about if I pray for you and she says “I don’t believe in healing but you can pray for the doctors.” And he says “How about if we just see what God wants to do?” And she says “Fine but I don’t pray for healing.” So he prays for her when he through she says “I don’t believe in healing because he had prayed some prayer of faith.” She went to the doctor the next day and the pre-surgery examination the doctor said “I don’t know how to tell you this but you don’t have cancer anymore.” There was no wave to catch in that moment; all he did was move out of the authority of who God made him to be and it brought a miracle to destroy cancer in her body.
Sid: Well as far as the authority goes it’s a question of understanding this and I believe in your book you’ve done a brilliant teaching on understanding authority. And there is an anointing on what you’ve written “When Heaven Invades Earth.” I image that a lot of this came from teaching in your school of the supernatural and ministering yourself over the years.
Bill: Yes, absolutely.
Sid: Is this your first book?
Bill: Yes, it is.
Sid: How come you waiting so long to do a book?
Bill: (Laughing) I don’t know it took me awhile to get that one done.
Sid: Well, it’s well worth reading.
Bill: Thanks.
Sid: For instance a lot of people that have written about what your book is like I’ve interviewed Todd Bentley who moves in tremendous signs and wonders. This is what he says about your book. “I’ve read many books on healing and miracles. This book is more than just healing information it contains revelatory teaching and keys to living in the supernatural. I believe this book contains some hidden truths and revelation being shared in these last days a must for those wanting to receive and minister a Kingdom of power, healing, signs and wonders.” Tell me where worship fits into this whole mix Bill.
Bill: You know our experience in worship started about 30 years ago. My dad began to teach on the priority of ministry to God. And I can tell you that is really where it all began because in worship is where you discover His manifest presence more clearly than anywhere else. And in that’s how you get to become familiar with the anointing, with the presence of God. How to move with God what His heartbeat is for people. The presence of God is the greatest gift that we have and He inhabits the praises of His people. We have this encounter with His presence in worship that we don’t have anywhere else. So worship is really where all of this started for us is becoming acquainted with the presence of power of God in worship. The only natural overflow is to see healing and deliverance and salvation to lost people. All of that is the overflow of a real recognition of His presence.
Sid: Now you make a big deal in your book, in fact I’ll quote from it, you say “Any gospel that doesn’t work in the marketplace doesn’t work.”
Bill: (Laughing)
Sid: We think of Benny Hinn and his miracle crusades.
Bill: Yeah.
Sid: But as I read the Bible there weren’t these giant miracle crusades, Jesus had them, but they were in the highways and byways going to the people that wouldn’t come to the miracle crusades.
Bill: Yes, I love the Benny Hinn’s of this world and what they are doing and they really help to raise an awareness of what God intends to do with everyone. But it’s got to work out on the streets and so that’s what we go after. We don’t have dorms for our students we plant them in homes all around the city so that we can invade the neighborhood so we can invade the shopping malls, the coffee shops. We have tremendous displays of signs and wonders right out in public places. In fact, I think that we have more people being healed in public than in church. And we have a lot of people healed in church.
Sid: Give me some examples of people that are healed in public places. You’re students actually go… tell me the truth now do they really go to bridges and look under them to see if there are some homeless people that they can pray for?
Bill: Yeah, they’ll get a word of knowledge God will say “There’s somebody under such and such a bridge that you need to pray for.” So they’ll go looking for them. A couple of young men are sitting in a house and the Lord says to them “Somebody needs a miracle at Starbucks.” So they drive down there, they sit outside on the tables and they’ll just wait and a few minutes later a guy comes up on crutches it happens to be a star athlete in town. He had a very serious accident with his lower back tailbone leg area. And two guys went over and asked him if they could pray for him. They did and he absolutely went ballistic he sprinted and ran around the parking lot jumping and just making a scene because he was so stunned over his miracle. And right there in a public place and he is the one who is letting the whole world know so to speak that God healed him down at a coffee shop. And it was just a couple of young men sitting at home and the Lord spoke to them and said “There’s someone who needs a miracle at Starbucks.”
Sid: Listen, there’s someone right now who needs a miracle that’s listening to us and I believe that you can move in the authority God has given you in the name of Jesus and pray for them to be healed. Would you do that Bill?
Bill: I would love to. We see enormous amounts of people healed from automobile accidents that have suffered for 10, 20 and 30 years. So let me start with that, Father, I pray first in the Name of the Lord Jesus that You would release an anointing that breaks the yoke. We stand against the spirit of infirmity and affliction that torments people’s bodies now in Jesus Name. I’m asking Lord that You would touch people that have been afflicted 10, 20, 30 years because of accidents and that bones would be healed. They would be reset, the muscles would be reattached, that the spirit of infirmity that has abstained that accident would be broken now in the name of Jesus. For arthritis, for all of the conditions; the digestive issues; the torment in the stomach area; the colon diseases the colitis and Crohn’s disease I stand against that infirmity in the Name of Jesus. And I rebuke cancer, I rebuke cancer we refuse to stand in intimidation over what the Goliath of the medical community. And we say cancer we rebuke you in Jesus name. I command rebellious cells to be destroyed and for there to be a creative miracle in the name of Jesus. Lord open blind eyes, let eyes be open, let them be restored. For death ears, deaf and dumb spirit I stand against you in Jesus name. And declare the healing word into the ears of people. God I just ask for an anointing not only for healing, but that you would actually restore people’s hearts of confidence to be able to pursue You the God of the impossible once again. That people would learn to cry out and to trust You and just to step into that place of risk, just making room for You to show up and do what You do. You’re the extravagant Father, You’re the great lover of our souls so I ask for courage; the anointing for courage to come upon the Body of Christ in Jesus Name.
Sid: Thank you so much Bill Johnson. Mishpochah you feel that anointing on his prayer. That whole book is filled with that anointing “When Heaven Invades Earth.”
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth