Sid: Sid Roth here with Mark Virkler talking about something that is music to your ears, “How you can hear clearly the voice of God.” Now you teach Mark on meditation of scripture in a different way than I’ve ever heard someone teach this before, explain.
Mark: Well you know when I grew up I just memorized the verse “To study and show yourself approved and I kind of never got to all the verses that says “Mediate on My word day and night.” So I asked the Lord “What’s the difference between study and meditation?” He showed me the difference when you meditate part of mediation is you’re praying over the word and your allowing God to illumine the word to your heart. And the way we experience that verse it leaps off the pages of scripture, hit you between the eyes and you know God has just opened that verse to you right there and right then. And I thought that every listener has had that experience.
Sid: Yeah but not enough!
Mark: (Laughing) well you can have it every single time you go the Bible.
Sid: Really I mean every…once and awhile I’ll have a Rhema; I’ll have you know scripture jump off the page. But are you telling me I can have it every day?
Mark: I guarantee you can have it every day because I do and I never used to and I do and….
Sid: So tell me I’m all ears.
Mark: Okay well you posture your heart instead of going to the Bible and saying “I can figure it out;” which is dependent on my brain and my abilities and me. I go to the Bible with a humble attitude and say “Holy Spirit would you show me what’s here?” And so I’m humble, I’m meek, I’m inviting the Holy Spirit to give me revelation, I’m tuned to flow because out of my innermost being shall flow. So I’m allowing flow to guide the process, I’m allowing flow to tell me where to look and what to look at and what to see and I’m starting with real life issues saying “God I’m struggling with this particular issue can you give me scripture show me principals here?” And I’m imagining here because one of the words for meditation means to imagine so I’m picturing the scene, I’m picturing the disciples, I’m picturing them breaking the loaves and saying “Lord what do you want to say to me about breaking the loaves in my own life and taking limited provision I feel I have right now and multiplying it so that it’s no longer limited?” And then I begin to flow and journal out a half of page of what He saying to me; so all of those elements are part of the book of mediation.
Sid: Now there are a lot of Christians that have a fear of visualization they think it’s New Age what would you say to them about that?
Mark: Well I would say it’s not New Age; I would say that New Agers are free to visualize if they want to they’re free to do anything, they can drive cars, they can get married but that doesn’t mean that I can’t drive cars or I can’t get married just because they do. And so I want to go back to the Bible and say “Does the Bible contain pictures and does it encourage picturing?” Well yeah it does here is what King David says in Acts 2:25 he says “I behold the Lord always in my presence, He is at my right hand and I will not be shaken.” And in Psalm 16:8 he says “I have set the Lord at my right hand.” Well that is a good visualization he decided to picture the Lord right there at his right hand and if King David can do it I can surely do it.
Sid: Yeah but I like the rest of that verse not only is He at his right hand he says “I will not be moved.” That’s pretty cool (Giggling)
Mark: Isn’t that great because you know I get pushed around by life, I get angry, I get frustrated, I get depressed and David says “I’m not going to get any of those things I won’t be moved at all as long as I see Jesus present with me.” Because He’s not getting angry, he’s not getting frustrated He’s calm and if my eyes are on Him I’ll be calm also.
Sid: Now you told me that God showed you 4 principals and each principal of course would take a long time to teach but I wonder if the rest of this show we can approach it a little differently. I’m wondering if you could teach me how to hear God’s voice and then people that are listening will kind of really capture what’s involved. And start me the way God started you I think that’s a good way to start.
Mark: (Laughing) Alright well we’ll just go to Habakkuk 2:1 and 2. Habakkuk said “I’m going to go to my guard-post.” So Key #1 is to have a little prayer closet where you go and quiet yourself down in the presence of God.
Sid: Do you find that it’s important to have the same place not necessarily a closet but the same place every day to pray? Does that help you?
Mark: It helps me and I also find early morning helps me but it doesn’t help my wife because she’s not an early morning person. But when I get up my hearts ready to download revelation it received during the night. And I just tune to flow and I pray for awhile…
Sid: Well revelation you received at night; what kind of revelation you’ve received at night?
Mark: Well it depends on what I asked for when I go to sleep at night I ask God to give me revelation.
Sid: Oh really I just kind of whatever God wants to show me He shows me you get more purposeful.
Mark: I’m more purposeful because the Bible…because our spirits don’t go to sleep our spirits stay awake and they work on anything you tell it to work on.
Sid: You know I’ve interviewed people that tell me they pray in tongues but they tell me when they sleep they’re spirit is praying in tongues all night long.
Mark: Well your spirits going to do when you tell it to do so you know if you go to bed praying in tongues you’ll probably pray in tongues all night. I go to bed sleep saying the name of Jesus over and over. As I breath in and out I’m saying “Jesus.”And if I need peace I say “Peace.” And if I need calm I say “Calm.” And so I go to sleep in the presence of Jesus.
Sid: Well what about…alright let’s take an example give me an example of something you’ve asked God and then received a dream on.
Mark: Well we’ll take this morning well how about this morning’s revelation okay.
Sid: Okay.
Mark: I did a blog a couple of days ago what’s wrong with the Protestant Heritage Foundation?” And I said “Well it’s kind of reactionary to Catholicism,” and I don’t want to be part of a reactionary movement necessarily. And so I’ve had 2 people email me and say “How do I find a really great Spirit anointed church?” And I went to bed thinking about that and the Lord gave me this morning a page and a half outline of saying “We can have Spirit led home groups, or small groups. You can open your home up and you can have these New Testament groups in your home where you meet together where you share the Spirit together, you have words of wisdom, you pray for one another, you lay hands on each other, you get words of wisdom, words of knowledge, you pray in the Spirit and you nurture that in the home group.” And I had a pastor 2 days ago who’s run a home group for 25 years and I called him up this morning and he said “Yeah, I’ll write a story of what we do in our home group and I’ll video tape the whole thing.” And I feel the Lord’s saying today “Paint a picture for people of what they can do in their home, how they can do it, put tools in their hand so that they can turn their homes into these Spirit led home-groups. Give people the freedom to grow in the Spirit and develop the gifts and they have a mini-church right there in their homes.
Sid: Okay, let’s come back to me help me hear God’s voice.
Mark: (Laughing) Alright you want to become still you want to have a guard post and so you know I’ve got to get up to my desk and I’ve got some soft soaking music on the background and I’ve got a smile on my face, I’ve got my hands on the keyboard, I open up a software file and I type in “Lord, what do you want to say to me today?” And I tune to flow and that’s to still my mind to get my mind out of the way.
Sid: Help me out “What do you mean, you tune to flow?”
Mark: (Laughing) Well God’s voice sounds like flowing thoughts that light upon my mind. And the scriptures support for that is John chapter 7:37 – 39. “Out of my inter-most being shall flow rivers of living water.” This He spoke in the Spirit and so when I want to tune to the Spirit within me that verse says “He feels like flow.” So if I want words from the Spirit I tune to flowing thoughts. If I want visions from the Spirit I tune to flowing pictures, if I want God’s emotions I tune to flowing emotions. And earlier in my Christian life I had no understanding of flow; I mean I memorized the verse “Out of my innermost being shall flow.” But I just didn’t own the concept that flow within me is an anointing of the Spirit of God. And when I speak from flow I’m speaking the oracles of God and when I think in flow I have the mind of Christ. And that thing that’s flow guiding my reasoning process. And when I tune my hands to flow and lay them on somebody who’s sick and there’s a flow of heat and energy that’s the anointing of the Spirit to heal the sick and to cast out demons. So anytime I yield the outer faculty to the flow in me that faculty becomes an extension of Jesus for that point in time.
Sid: Now just out of curiosity you sound like a pretty organized person and methodical, have you ever practiced flow while teaching or preaching and what’s happened?
Mark: Well yes I most certainly have what the Lord journeyed and talked to me about my teaching style. He said “Mark your teaching style and preaching style will be adjusted by your lifestyle; and the more you live and flow with Me in your morning devotional time right from flow and take Me with you throughout the day the more your preaching style will be adjusted.” So now I preach from flow, I teach from flow, I just get up smile tune to flow and off we go and we go places and we have rabbit trails that we go and I have to come back to my notes if I even bother to come back to my notes. But people love the teaching style because it’s real, it’s vibrant it’s full of passion and emotion, love. It’s alive with the Spirit where it used to be much more didactic, much more structured I had an outline and I looked at it. So yes my preaching style is now from flow any my speaking style is now from flow, and my speaking style is now from flow, and my counseling style is from flow; everything at this point is from flow and my conversation with you.
Sid: Now you have taught this “How to Hear God’s Voice” for some 35 years so why was there the need to do this new interactive book “Hearing God?” You had plenty of stuff before.
Mark: Well you know this is probably one of the simplest, easiest versions of the whole thing. We spent a little bit less time building the whole theology and a little bit more time just saying “Hey I’m at your side I’m coaching you I’m asking this question just fill it in and just go with it.” So without laying all of the intense foundation we’re just taking the person that just wants to coach and will trust that coach and saying “We’re going to walk you into hearing God’s voice very easily, we’re going to walk you into interpreting dreams very easily, and into interpreting scripture very easily. And we’re going to help you with the first half of a dozen of each one of those cases.
Sid: I have to tell you Mark there is such a flow of the presence of God on our discussion right now I can’t wait to get the reports. And by the way, do you get many reports of people that have sat under your teaching and have been able to do everything that you’ve done and more?
Mark: We get 100’s and 100’s of reports unsolicited reports all the time that come in on our website and on our email. And so we’re blessed beyond beyond belief.
Sid: ….But it’s not just Jewish ministry we are equipping Christians to be normal, normal as defined by the Bible. I got…Mark I got the most wonderful email in yesterday. I’ve had a burden to communicate the true gospel with people that are homosexuals and I have not been that successful. I have friends in the homosexual community but I haven’t been that successful. Well someone started watching our TV show that was gay and they wrote me a letter and they’re saying that they have been totally set free and they attribute it to just learning more about God from It’s Supernatural Television and Messianic Vision Radio. So that made my year as far as I’m concerned. When we come back I want to cover those 4 keys that God showed you.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth