The Future of the Church, Compromise and Spirit-Led Living @EncounterTodayTV

0:00 Hello everyone. I'm Stephen Strang and welcome to the Strang Report. Thank you for watching. You know, if you watch my channel and listen to my podcast, you know that my most recent book is called Spirit-Led Living in an Upside Down World because I know that many people just like you want to have a victorious life, want to be on the top and not the bottom, want to understand what's going on. And we can only do that through the power of the Holy Spirit. And it is indeed an upside down world. Well, today on the Strang Report, we're going to take a very different look at the book. And it's the look through the eyes of Alan DiDio, who invited me to be on his very successful podcast to talk about the book.

0:55 I was greatly honored to be on with him. I've done quite a bit of media and every once in a while when there's something that I've done that I think that you would like, then I share it with you. And I got permission from Alan to share the video. But let me tell you what you're going to hear because we talked about a lot of the challenges facing the church. And one of the first questions he asked me was what was the greatest danger of Christians. And you'll be interested in my reply. We talked about past instances of revival and specifically the opposition to the Holy Spirit's work. We talked about the signs of the time and how to recognize the end times. That's kind of his focus if you know his ministry at all.

1:42 We also talked about how there's such a hunger for spiritual revival. I believe that you probably feel like that or you wouldn't be watching. And then I encourage Christians not to play down their influence. Now, you know, I know this material fairly well. I mean, I've lived it in a way. But every interview is different. And Alan asked me some good questions, some good leading questions. And we just talked. And I just shared what was in my heart. I remember that we, he did, it's pretty long. It's a little bit over an hour. We did about an hour and 15 minutes and I asked him afterwards, I said, why did it go longer and he wanted to edit some things out. It turned out he didn't edit anything out.

2:23 They added a lot of graphics. I was very, very impressed with the production. I think that you'll enjoy it. It is a little bit long, but I think that you'll enjoy it. And hopefully you'll learn something. That's the point. It's not because it's my video. It's because you can learn something. And then I will add one more message at the end. So here, unedited is Alan DeDeo's podcast. I hope you enjoy it.

3:44 We've just come out swinging with a new book about how to live a Spirit-filled life. He's not compromising. He refuses to hold back. And today on Encounter Today we are so thrilled and honored to have this General of the Faith with us. You're not going to want to miss a moment as he walks through the last few decades and shares with us the parallels between the struggles of the 60's, the charismatic movement that followed, and what we're seeing today. Plus you're going to get some insight into what the Lord has to say to His Church moving forward into this new season as we head into 2024. If you're believing to live a Spirit-led life, we want to stand in faith with you. What exactly do you need prayer for? Let us know in the comments. One can chase a thousand, but two can put ten thousand to flight. Let's stand in faith together. Place your prayer requests in the comments and we're going to stand in agreement for your breakthrough. Buckle up. Here he is, Stephen Strang. It is so good to have you on Encounter Today. Well thank you. It's a privilege to be on with you. I've been looking forward to this. Well this is one of those really difficult interviews because you have such a unique perspective. Decades of experience.

4:53 Kind of a bird's eye view of what's been happening in the body of Christ over that period of time. And I want to talk to you. You've got an amazing new book out, Spirit-Led Living in an Upside Down World. We have the link in the description. We'll dive into that here in a moment. But the church has been under attack lately. As we head into 2024, what do you think is the biggest threat to the body of Christ? What should we be watching out for moving forward? I think the number one temptation for people in the body of Christ is to compromise. Our whole culture wants us to compromise. I mean as much as becoming woke so to speak. You know like there's some people that if you don't say, I'm talking about secular people who don't even follow God. And there's a pressure in the body of Christ to go along to get along. And I believe that that is much worse than any kind of governmental censorship, tech censorship, any of that. In fact, I wrote a book called God and Cancel Culture and I said that the most dangerous kind of cancel culture is self-cancellation.

6:05 Wow. And in a similar kind of way, the worst thing that can happen to Christians is for Christians to compromise, go along, back off, not be bold, change their theology to fit the script that the world's going along with. Yeah, and it's easier than ever now to feel that way, not just politically but spiritually. I often think that the spiritual conflicts we see are often reflected in the political conflicts we see. And there's been like a militant march of the reform cessationist movement to come against charisma and the moving of the Holy Spirit, not charisma, you in general, but the charismatic movement. For those who are kind of caught up in the middle of that and kind of feel they don't know what side to be on or they're feeling pressure to compromise, what would you say to them?

6:58 Well there's several things I could say. First of all, I've been active in Christian journalism since the 1970s. Wow. I know it's hard for you to believe but it's true. And you know this was long before the internet. It was before Jimmy Carter, etc., etc. And we had cancel culture back then but it was the cessationists trying to cancel those who believe in the Holy Spirit. Really? You know it's a different kind of cessationism. In fact, back in that day there was a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the denominational churches. You know it's what we now call the charismatic movement. It went by different names. But I mean there were spirit-filled Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, they would have annual conferences. It was probably biggest among Roman Catholics. They would have annual meetings. They would have, they usually had an office that kind of coordinated everything, newsletters and so forth. But back then some of the denominations really, really, really came against the work of the Holy Spirit. I mean even a few trials for heresy. And they made it so difficult that either they kicked people out or these leaders just became, and sometimes it was more than leaders, sometimes it was whole congregations, they would just leave the denomination. Sometimes they would go across the street to a Pentecostal church where they were welcome. And in the process those charismatic movements and those denominations

8:32 are basically gone. Gone. Totally gone. So the cancel culture of the day kind of got rid of it. And we could go all the way back through history of where there's, you know, all the way back to the early church. I mean look at all the problems in the Corinthian church and you know some of the other churches that Paul wrote letters to to try to correct them. And I'm not really a historian but I'm interested in history so maybe I'm an amateur historian and I followed this. So there has always been a tension, always. And it's really a tension between good and evil that's manifested with people and denominations and structures and other things. We're aware of what's happening now and yes it does seem worse. I mean that's why I called it the upside down world. And it does seem that we are speeding toward the end of time. There's no question with cryptocurrency, one world government, everyone calling for peace, peace, peace, etc., etc., etc. But you know what? There have been a number of times throughout history in which people said that Jesus was going to come. In fact there was one fellow that in 1988, and I remember this, he wrote a book called 88 Reasons Jesus Was Going to Come in 88. And it took, there were some Christian TV stations I know that raised a lot of money by giving away, playing it up. And you know, apparently nobody told

10:05 this fellow that Jesus himself said nobody knows the day or the hour. And he finally went back into the woodwork as everybody else does. But if you study history in the 1840s there were Adventists who believed in the coming of Jesus who actually went up and sat on a mountain because there was a prophet who said Jesus was going to come between one day and another day. Jesus did not come. And that was actually the beginning of the Seventh Day Adventist movement. It was kind of like, you know, hardly anybody remembers that. And now you know Seventh Day Adventists are respected by most people. They also had the special doctrine about worshiping on the seventh day, which there are some other groups that do too, whereas as you know most Christians mainly worship on Sunday. But I mean, I'm just giving that as a little example. If you know anything about World War II there are all kinds of people that thought that Mussolini was the Antichrist. They never seemed to think it was Hitler. Maybe it was Mussolini was in Rome. Of course that came to nothing. And someone said one time that the past is never as perfect as we remember and the future is probably never as scary as we fear. And I think there is some truth to that. Now we cannot become nonchalant and blasé and say, well, you know, it's the same old, same old.

11:33 In fact, are you old enough to remember the Brenda Lee story or song that was, is that all there is to a fire? You know, she sings a sad ballad about, you know, there's a fire and after it's over, is that all there is? And it comes down to, is that all there is to love? And there are people that treat life that way. It's a very melancholy, sad way to look at life and we can't look at end times. In fact, I think that the enemy would want to get us off guard. He wants us to not take these things seriously and just say, well, this is just more of the same. So I don't mean to talk out of both sides of my mouth.

12:35 It's just that I think that we have to keep things in perspective and the perspective and I've in the different interviews that I've done on the book, I've mentioned this God has a purpose for us being here. None of us decided we wanted to be born and to be alive in 2023. We didn't pick our parents. We didn't pick the time of history. God did that and he has a plan and purpose and all, all we can do, and I hope this doesn't sound like some cliche, but all we can do is to be faithful and obedient to God and to God's word in this period of time and do what we can do. What happens in world events is way beyond what you and I can talk about. And there are some things that we have no control over. If there's nuclear war, for example, you can rebuke the missiles and plead the blood of Jesus and everything else and you're still going to die if the bomb falls on you I mean that's just what happens. And the problem that I've seen is sometimes people are so intense and usually they're sincere people. They're so intense and so weird that it's like the little boy crying wolf. You know everybody else doesn't want to look weird like that and they won't even hardly pay any attention to the danger. So when a real wolf comes everybody doesn't take it seriously which in some ways Alan is going back to your

14:06 first question what is the biggest danger and I and I think not taking it seriously not seeing the signs of the times. You know Jesus talked about this. He said that secular people could look at the sky and tell what the weather is going to be tomorrow and that the followers of God couldn't even see the signs and I think that he was probably talking about the signs of the Messiah coming and so forth which was you know him in his own ministry but we have to be wise. He said himself that sometimes the children of darkness were smarter than the children of light and that is a terrible thing to have to say about Christian people because if anything if we study the Word of God, God is very clear in his word how we should live. If we're led by the Holy Spirit we have and this is something that I play up or not play up but emphasize in my book Spirit-Led Living in an Upside Down World if we're led by the Spirit of God we ought to be way ahead of the others and really the way the world is now people are looking for answers. Just in the last few days I've had conversations about how people flock to like Mario Morillo meetings because they're so hungry for reality. And right now I want to say that Jesus Christ is Lord over America.

15:39 No weapon formed against you shall prosper. Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail. Let's give God a shout right now. And some of the revivals that have happened I was talking to one of the leaders of the revival that happened up in Gainesville Georgia just last month and they were talking about revival tourism and I've never heard of such a thing but apparently people are so hungry to see a genuine move of God that they will travel long distances sometimes through other countries to experience these revivals and in the case of the Gainesville revival this leader was explaining to me that they actually brought it to a close partly because they did not want to have revival meetings night after night after night where all the people were from other states who came in to get blessed nothing wrong with getting blessed and the local people couldn't even get in and so they were having no impact in the local community and I really felt that when they explained it that way and I'm not sure exactly how much they said publicly but I think they would have explained some of it. I thought that showed a lot of wisdom but the point I'm making is people are so hungry partly because they don't see it. We don't have moves of

17:14 God in most churches even most churches that would call themselves spirit-filled or Pentecostal or Charismatic is just kind of this you know usually you feel better when you go and if you worship and if you're in God's presence and the word of God is explained of course you feel better and you enjoy having been to service but there isn't a real move of God like there is in some of these revival meetings and people are hungry for that so my point in bringing this up is that Christians like you and me and those who are watching we need to realize that people want what we have and not be timid and pull back and think that we're just a tiny little minority. We aren't. The body of Christ is you know I haven't looked at the statistics later you know it seems to me that I can remember when world population passed three billion I was a good deal younger and I think it's double that now it keeps going up and up and up but Christianity is certainly the largest world religion and even if everyone isn't serving God the way they should which has always been true it's still an awful lot of people that acknowledge the lordship of Jesus and try to some extent to live by biblical principles there's more of us than them. The media and the academia and some of the other institutions like entertainment and so forth they try to

18:48 make it seem like they're winning and we're losing but that's not the case in fact that thinking is one of the reasons I wrote the book Spirit-Led Living an Upside Down World because I get a sense that a lot of Christians are discouraged and they don't really remember who they are in Christ and it was my way using my own experiences and my covering the Christian community over a period of several decades to remind people what the word of God says about the power of the Holy Spirit and how we can make a difference in the world today. It's such an empowering read to the experiences and the testimonies that you share but you bring you bring this unique perspective I believe apart from the word of God the most accurate prophetic voice is history because history tends to repeat itself and as you've kind of shared back in the 70s you kind of had these cessationist witch trials if you will and we're seeing the same thing today from your perspective do you feel like we're kind of on the cusp we're seeing these revivals kind of breaking out do you think we're on the cusp of another great awakening do you see that in the church's future? I absolutely do and you know I will admit that there is a glass half full or half empty and I want to always be an optimist and see it as half full but let's take the charismatic movement for example I've had discussions with church historians like Vincent Sinan and others about

20:18 these kinds of things generally with revivals you don't really recognize revival until after it's over and looking back you can see what really happened and generally it takes a while for these things to become manifested in a big way so let's I'll start with the Pentecostal revival Pentecostalism came out of the holiness movement which would have included the Methodist Church and a whole lot of different denominations in the late 1880s it from that came the Prohibition movement and there were a lot of do's and don'ts the Nazarenes a lot of different groups came out of the holiness movement my own family came out of that movement and back in that era there are a lot of people praying to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit which is a term that you and I would be well aware of and a lot of the people who are watching and listening but they didn't know what what it was there there are some denominations like the Church of God that had like the second work of grace Charles Wesley talked about you know how he had he was strangely warmed you know like a second time but the point I'm leading up to is in 1900 in fact it's kind of interesting the real term between centuries is not with the zero year but with you know you start with 01 so like 1800 is

21:50 really the last year of the 1800s if you can follow that now yes this happened with last millennia with 2000 and 2001 is commonly thought of differently but literally on the night between 1900 and 1901 there are some students into into Pica Kansas Kansas and who were praying and they were seeking the baptism in the Holy Spirit and those lady named Agnes Osmond this is well documented history who spoke in tongues and these early Pentecostals said this is it this is it this is the baptism of the Holy Spirit and it was just really a handful of people and a few little churches like it went from Topeka Kansas down to Houston which is where William Seymour who is a black preacher who because of Jim Crow laws had to sit I mean it's hard for you and me to even imagine this he wasn't allowed in the classroom he had to sit in the hallway and listen through the door I mean it sounds awful yeah but he was he was touched by God he went to Los Angeles went to a home prayer meeting on Bonnie Bray Street I've been there it was just an average middle class home and there was a prophecy that that prayer meeting would go around the world now you and I have probably been in prayer meetings for somebody will give a prophecy of some kind that some you know great thing is going to happen and it's debatable whether or not it did but you know

23:25 that prophecy came true it became the Azusa Street revival and spread around the world and it was absolutely amazing what happened a newspaper reporter from Los Angeles came to cover it to make fun of it some man stands and talks about how God is going to judge San Francisco and within 24 hours was the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and it was the coverage of that that just made it go around the world and people came from everywhere to experience it and took Pentecost back to wherever they were from I mean there are denominations that started that way there were a couple of denominations that weren't Pentecostal but the leadership received this experience and the church of God in Christ is one the Church of God now headquartered in Cleveland Tennessee is another one this is a part of their church history so in a somewhat similar way and I was kind of giving that as my opinion of the back back story the charismatic movement Vincent Sinan used to say that it was considered that it took place on Easter Sunday in 1960 now I can remember Easter Sunday in 1960 I was a pretty small boy but I mean I can't remember that era I was not aware of all this that was going on but Dennis Bennett who is the rector at the Episcopal Church in Vanden Heise California got up on Easter Sunday and testified to have

25:00 having received the baptism in the Holy Spirit the baptism in the Holy Ghost is a reward after many years of faithful Christian living because you can't get too far until you have it people come and they say but I'm not worthy to receive the Holy Ghost who in the world is how are you going to be worthy to receive the Holy Ghost when it is the Holy Ghost that makes you worthy let's get this idea out of our head what is the requisite for receiving the Holy Spirit repentance acceptance of Jesus trust and faith in him and in his blood that's the requirement he was fired the same day it was such a news item that Newsweek magazine actually did a story about it now he moved up to Seattle he started a church or took over a church he had a great ministry I had the privilege of knowing him the last few years of his life but there are people who say the charismatic movement actually started now that's because it would have been recognized by the press but really it was going back all the way to the healing revivals of the 1940 late 1940s with Oral Roberts and so forth Catherine Coleman full gospel businessman was very very influential they would have these breakfast and they would have speakers who talked about receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit and all kinds of denominational people who would have never lowered themselves to go to a Pentecostal church where people clap their hands and shouted and acted weird but they would come to a breakfast in a nice hotel and it full gospel businessman which

26:35 there is isn't a big like it used to be it had an enormous effect so here you had early days of the charismatic movement going on all in the 50s and then it really didn't get going until it was poured out in 1967 in first in Pittsburgh with a prayer group of Catholic students then it jumped over to Notre Dame and really took off and now there are millions of Catholics who testify to having a prayer language they're the ones that gave us this term prayer language before Pentecostals just called it speaking in tongues or some variation of that and so here you have all this happening in a somewhat similar way and I said all that to say this I believe that we're seeing the part in the 50s and early 60s it won't really be recognized until later and you know I don't know are you old enough to remember that old song showers of blessing they you know they don't sing it much anymore but the lyric goes mercy drops round us are falling but for the showers we plead we plead and I think that a lot of the things we're seeing the revival at Asbury Mario Murillo's meetings what happened in Gainesville Georgia recently at Jensen Franklin's Church these are like showers of blessing and listen in the middle of a drought a few raindrops are

28:09 a blessing but we you know we want it to be poured out like a thunderstorm to end the drought I think that part of it is because things are getting worse and worse and worse and the worst things get people are more desperate for God and I think that we've seen this through history look how bad things were in the world when Martin Luther came on the scene look how bad things were in England it's hard for us who aren't English to really remember but England was so bad that Karl Marx a German ended up in England and when he saw how capitalism worked in England and how the working-class people were so put down that's when he wrote the Communist Manifesto he wrote it in England but there are historians who believe that John Wesley and the Methodist movement changed England so much that they avoided having a revolution like the French did which would have been just a few a couple of decades before that England was right to have a French Revolution in England and it was the gospel would today that we have the same thing happen with people turning to God by the by the tens and hundreds and millions tens and hundreds of thousands and millions and so I I know this is a very long answer to a very short question but I'm just trying to give you you know my take historically

29:40 on what's happening and I think that there is reason to believe if you look for it if you don't look for it you won't see it and the secular people don't want to see it they want to say we in fact some of the woke people in terms of things like same-sex marriage and all this kind of stuff they've actually said we won you lost and you know it's like after World War two when the Allies won and the ones that lost they were just out of power and you know their governments and so forth went away and they established new governments and they're saying this is a cultural war and you guys lost I don't agree with that at all I don't agree with it but if we go along with that thinking and just kind of turn power over to them thinking that we're powerless then in a way they would have won in fact in any war if one side just kind of gives up and turns it over to the other side they win without firing a shot so my book in its own way and I realize a small way in terms of the big picture is to try to remind people that we have the power of the Holy Spirit to stand against this as the body of Christ but also to stand against it personally so that we don't have to I mean you you can be full depressed if you sit and watch the news all the time you could be depressed I only watch news on an as needed basis to sort

31:11 of keep up with what's happening with the presidential primaries or or the war between Israel and Hamas because I don't want to be discouraged I mean they do stories all the time about drag queen story hour you know it is a relatively few times that it happens but they play it up it makes it seem like it's every day in every library it's really not and now at the same time if Christians wanted to do something like that they wouldn't do it because the people that run the libraries are mostly kind of on the other side so to speak and they think this is cool they think indoctrinating children is cool well we don't agree with that and we need to stand up and as we stand up it's like it happened in Virginia that if you follow the governor's race a couple of years ago it was because of what was happening in the school boards where parents were standing up and complaining about some of these woke things that were happening in the schools and you know what happened what it shows you how crazy our government or at least parts of our government is the FBI was looking into those parents and calling them domestic terrorists if you can believe that yeah and you know people stood up and said no we're not domestic terrorists you need to be taking care of the terrorists that are coming across our southern border without even getting stopped you know

32:42 trying to fit in with all the people that are coming here for economic reasons I mean there's a lot of the stuff and I know I'm getting political and that's not really the purpose of our discussion here but you know I mean even even some of the candidates that have stood up dare I mention Donald Trump you know if anything he's he's standing up to the bullies even though he is not exactly an exemplary Christian so to speak which people criticize him for but I'm thinking since when do we expect our presidents to be great Christians I mean was Lyndon Johnson you know it was well known he did stuff in the White House and John Kennedy and you know I don't want to be too explicit here but I mean we've always had leaders that weren't perfect and I'm not here to discuss Donald Trump although I wrote three books about him because I do think that that God raises up imperfect leaders and aren't we glad Alan because that means that if he can use imperfect leaders he can use you and me yeah so important and wow when we talk about revival and when we talk about the move of the Holy Spirit you can see the passion in your eyes those of you watching this are you are you receiving from this let me know in the comments what's what's jumping out at you but you can see your love for the history of the moving of the Holy Spirit the baptism in the Holy Spirit why do you feel that's so urgent I believe that the baptism Holy Spirit is one of the great apologetics of our day that we need to be sharing it evangelizing

34:16 if you will the baptism in the Holy Spirit across America around the world but you can see that passion in you why is that so important for you well I think it's important to be all we can be in Christ and there's a lot of things we need to do we need to prove our spirituality by acts of kindness you know James talked about that we need to in the way that we live and act the Bible would call them fruit of the spirit but also to stand up against I'll say says tannic tack or spiritual warfare because the Bible very clearly says we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers well how if you're a human being how are you going to stand up to demonic attack and you know sometimes demonic attack is an actual demon sometimes is a generational curse that comes down through your bloodline you know a lot of why is it that so many alcoholics are the children and grandchildren of alcoholics I mean you know that's a whole different discussion that's true and sometimes it's just strongholds that people let happen in their lives where you know and I'll tell you one of the biggest ones is offense in fact we've all seen most people who have church hurt and that's a real thing this is it's as true as PTSD church

35:47 hurt it's because of offenses and you know they they expected leaders to be perfect or they expected to something happen and they don't and then they get offended and some of those people are the nastiest people you've ever seen and you know unless you've been through some kind of church split you don't know what the definition of nasty and this is well we need to not be like that and how can we how can we not be like that well we can have the power of the Holy Spirit the power of the Holy Spirit comes to us through the baptism and the Holy Spirit now when I was a kid it seemed like the old older folks or the adults were always talking about being filled and it was like a one-time thing and then they were praying for years and years to be refilled well the Bible says to keep being filled with the spirit yes and it's something that we can actually pray every day and and in my in my personal time and when I'm alone and quiet and trying to think about the Lord I will pray and I will pray in the spirit I I write about this and in my book I have a whole chapter on hearing from God and also praying and on how to receive the baptism Holy Spirit and all those kinds of things and one of them is that the the Lord can speak to us you know even as we pray in other tongues I tell a story about Oral Roberts that I had the privilege of knowing him the last well let's see I would have known

37:17 him the last two decades of his life and he took a personal interest in me I'm I never understood why but I think he'd maybe read Charisma magazine and then when I came along it was like oh this is a nice young man and I just he was a great man of God and he would tell this story that when God called him to start a university I don't even think he hard well I've read his biography he did have some training but it certainly was not at a major university and he bought this land in Tulsa which in itself was a miracle and he would go out and walk the farmland and pray and he told how he would pray in tongues and he would ask the Holy Spirit to interpret his own prayer language and in the interpretation he was getting kind of how shall I say it not the vision but kind of the instructions on what to do and today it's a great university if you've ever been out there it's it just shows when a man has a vision and can believe God the great things can happen so in the book I tell stories like this to encourage people I don't write as the this book is not written as theology I am not a theologian I've never been a theologian I'll never be a theologian I you know all of us as Christians need to have a firm theology based on the Word of God and there are things we can learn without being an accommodation we just can I'm a journalist

38:52 I'm a layman and so I write in a way that people can understand or at least I hope they can understand and people relate to stories so one of the gifts of the Spirit is the word of wisdom a lot of people don't really know what that means but it's where the Holy Spirit reveals something to you that you would never know if the Holy Spirit didn't reveal it and there was a story about Reinhard Bonnke the great German evangelist who the last couple decades of his life had his headquarters in Orlando where I live and I I had known him over the years and I actually went to one of his great crusades in Nigeria in the year 2000 and there were over a over a million people there and I had heard about this and I walked the crowd and saw how they counted and came back a believer that yes there were a million people there it was just incredible but when he moved to Orlando a few years later I got to know him better and he grew up in a Christian home but he had a brother who never followed Christ and who actually was either an atheist or a functioning atheist and his brother came into a very difficult period in his life a lot of things went wrong including a divorce and his health I tell the story much better in the book and he was considering taking his own life and he prayed and he said Lord if you're real have my brother Reinhard who is a man of God have him reach out to me and at the same time Reinhard had

40:26 a dream that his brother had jumped off a bridge and it concerned him and he wrote him a letter this was before the days of the internet email and just urged him to turn his life over to Christ and the letter came and it was such an answer it was a word of Reinhard had a word of wisdom he had no idea what was happening they lived in different countries and didn't have they didn't communicate that often but his brother ended up turning his life over to Christ and so there are stories like that I tell a story with prophecy you know there's different kinds of prophecy including you know John the beloved told prophecy in the book of Revelation of course what was going to happen but there's also a prophetic word that that I might give to you or you to me or somebody with a prophetic gift says I believe that the Lord is leading you to do so-and-so and and the Lord's going to open these doors well we had that happen with Jonathan Cahn and I know that you had a very good interview with him not long ago but Jonathan Cahn had never written a book he was not very well known outside of messianic Judaism circles I had even though I had crossed paths with him once he was not somebody I really knew but the Lord had given him a book which became the harbinger and he wrote it but he didn't know what to do with it he was he was praying

41:59 he was literally praying and saying Lord I've got to make a decision what to do and so I'm going to use this trip he was on a plane trip to a Dallas Texas I'm gonna use this trip to really seek you well that he had to transfer planes in Charlotte it was horrible weather he ended up in the waiting area about two in the morning you know I go into all the details but there was a man with a prophetic gift his name is huby sin we have since become friends he was my friend at the time and he had a gift it was usually an encouraging word and he would ask the Lord is it when he traveled Lord is there someone you want me to bless with you know give him a prophetic word and the Lord said yes I want you to speak to this Jewish looking man that's sitting with with his little Bible kind of going like this he looked all the world like an Orthodox Jew and huby said no I do not feel like witnessing to an Orthodox Jew because sometimes it can be a very very awkward situate you know conversation at but the Lord the Lord would not let him not speak to him so he spoke up and said to Jonathan what's the good word well Jonathan looks up and sees this businessman and he is a businessman he's a CPA and he just assumed he wasn't saved and he answered and said Jesus loves you and they instantly knew that each other were believers and huby said you know

43:30 the Lord has shown me that he has given you a message that will shake the nations and you're in the valley of decision about which direction to go and I mean it was so spot on of what Jonathan was literally praying for he said oh we've got to sit together on the airplane which they did he said now give me that word again and he was taking a yellow pad and trying to write it down long story short huby said I don't know a lot about the world of publishing but I do know Steve Strang do you want me to mention something to him and Jonathan said you know if you feel like to do it that's fine with me so Jonathan wrote me and said I met this guy in the airport who says he's written a book are you interested well right I mean let's face it I mean if you were a publisher what would you say and I said I would need to know a whole lot more but if you're interested I know that I'm interested and can I learn more and Jonathan took that as a sign from the Lord and of course that was you know when we found out about the book and talked to him we could tell it was special we had no idea that it would sell two million copies or that it would spawn all the other books but I mean that was that was a prophetic word and I tell that story I also tell a story about how the same man huby sin gave a word to David Tyree who did that catch on the helmet and he was actually David Tyree CPA that's how he knew him and he knew David was a believer

45:03 and he said I believe I have a word for you do you mind if I give it to you and David said no please do and he's and he knew that David was a strong Christian and wanted a platform but he was one of these people on the NFL that nobody ever heard of and he said the Lord is going to let something happen in the Super Bowl that's going to give you a platform for him and it was that catch they say it was the greatest catch in history so this book is full of these kinds of stories I could take up all our time to know stories and you're not you're not joking the the kind of behind the scenes and these stories of these great generals of the faith the book is full of that and even excerpts from some of the generals of the faith guys you got to get a copy of this book this is going to empower you to live a truly supernatural spirit fed spirit led life so let me ask you a little bit more about this the stories in this book because you're considered by many of us to be a general of the faith yourself but over the decades you've rubbed shoulders with some of the greats some of the giants of the of the 20th century and one of which the book opens with an excerpt from Jack Hayford which I thought was powerful reading through that it was so insightful and so good you had a personal relationship with him what was he really like Jack Hayford we'll talk about a few of the other folks here in a moment too but and what did that relationship mean to you well Jack Hayford had a wonderful church in Van Nuys California in fact just down the street from the church that St. Mark's Episcopal Church I mean literally like six blocks away you can't drive to Jack's church without going

46:37 by this little Episcopal Church it was kind of you just have to ask yourself what the Lord was doing with you know two historic ministries and Jack was a wonderful minister and he would speak at different conferences he's also a songwriter you know he's the one that wrote Majesty and we over time we found out about his ministry got to know him did a cover story in Charisma he ended up being on the cover three different times you know over a period of decades and I had a good relationship with him we we were very close or I was very close to Jamie Buckingham he was in a different era he was kind of the conscience of the charismatic movement he tragically died of cancer before he turned 60 and he had been the editor of Ministry Today magazine and I asked Jack Hayford if he would help us out during this very difficult transition by kind of being sort of the guest editor and he said yes it was the beginning of a so I worked with him much closer he ended up being in that position for many years later he started a seminary which is now the King's University and I was very very involved with that at many levels so I he was at my home I was in his home we were in the office many times there are some office procedures that we use here at Charisma Media that I actually learned from Jack he was just really he was

48:09 a man he was masterful in so many ways and he was the same in behind the scenes as he was in the pulpit he was just very very relatable and you know he was a wonderful man of God but he wasn't without his his own problems he had a wonderful wonderful son-in-law that he handed off church on the on the way to and his son-in-law was 49 years old he had a headache he during a service and he said to one the other man I you know I need to slip out and he collapsed before he got out of the room and died two days later of a brain aneurysm I mean to have a wonderful handoff with a son-in-law who I knew pretty well to have to live through that there were other things like that in Jack's life that happened you know the kinds of things you get to know when you really know people but he was always consistent and he he was a worshiper he had a lot to do with work that you know worship when I was a kid growing up in a Pentecostal church we used to have song leaders and they used to stand and kind of go like this like they were leading a choir I mean that's just and we'd sing there's power in the blood and he's all I need and these great old choruses

49:39 and yes some we would you know of course we would enter into worship but music today is much more worship full yes partly because of people like Jack Hayford and he wrote about the he wrote several books on the Holy Spirit he actually died he was declining the last couple of years so I didn't have much to do with him then he actually died after the book was finished and before it went to press and so we did two things we we put him on the cover and did a big splash in Charisma magazine and I also kind of changed some things around and we actually were able to pull from some materials that we had published we published several books with Jack Hayford he was very prolific and he had many publishers over the years and we used some of it and did include it in the book and I'm glad that it ministered to you.

50:36 Oh such a tremendous tremendous section of the book and the book's full of stuff like that that you throw in there so it's a it's an amazing reading you go through it really fast but you really feel like you're being equipped when you're reading it and at Encounter Today we have a great great honor in the Generals of the Faith from Lester Somerall to Norval Hayes J. Edwin Orr some of these great great Generals of the Faith who were some apart from you mentioned Orr Roberts who in the book you tell a story about he spoke into your life and told you never to diminish the gift that's on your life never never to question the gift that's on your life so many personal stories in there who were some of the other Generals of the Faith that really made a mark on your life. I'm impressed that you must have read the book to know that little anecdote.

51:19 Yes. You know John Osteen who is Joel's father and he died probably around 2000 I actually knew Joel when he was in college really John has several kids and I had no idea that Joel would you know become a best-selling author as he did and I'm under the impression that he never preached until his dad was on his deathbed that's what I heard too because he worked like they television they groomed him he was in charge of the TV ministry yeah and I'm trying to think how I got John was a Southern Baptist he received the baptism in the Holy Spirit probably in the 60s that was a little bit before my time and he used to talk about how the Southern Baptist gave him the left foot of fellowship you know the Bible talks about the right hand of fellowship it was kind of like a joke meaning that he got kicked out he actually had a church called Lakewood Baptist Church and they just dropped the word Baptist and I visited several times they they had a lot going on and they used to advertise in Charisma magazine back in the early days I can remember going there and visiting then they built a great church kind of I don't know a part of north north parted Houston I guess and it was thousands of people I was even invited to preach there one time and

52:51 I'm not a preacher so I guess I kind of gave my testimony and John became a mentor to me he really did I would say for about a five-year period and in that setting I got to know him much much better and as far as I was concerned he was strong and vibrant you know he was up in years I don't know how old he was but he would have been probably in his early 70s and and then something happened and he passed away and he turned it over to Joel and Joel has done great but in some ways Joel has just done what his dad did because they used to call Lakewood the oasis of love yes and we did a story in Charisma magazine you can read and it talked about how was about a third Hispanic or third black and a third white well if you go to Lakewood now it's a third Hispanic a third black and third white they still call it the oasis of love John Osteen put billboards all over the city proclaiming the love of the Lord and inviting people to Lakewood last time I was in Houston I saw some Lakewood billboards and I thought well Joel has just taken a page out of his daddy's playbook and the services are pretty much the same now I hope what I'm saying is not critical I don't mean to take away from Joel Joel Joel has been but isn't is that ideal that a father would have a successful ministry and it was a huge ministry we would call it

54:22 even today we would have called it a mega church I happened they bought the compact center which is where their NBA team played and I actually flew out there to be there on the first Sunday they were in the compact center wow and it's just amazing you know that but quite as a Houston I can't even think of the Houston yeah game their name right now but I thought you know they filled this up to watch people play basketball now they fill it up for the Lord and it's just a beautiful facility I have so much love and respect for Joel I just was with his sister in Dallas and she and I were reminiscing about some of the stuff which is actually and I was telling her how much her dad meant to me I've gotten to know her and some of the other siblings as I mentioned but it was his sister named April and he's an example Lester Somerall I don't remember how the very first time I was ever on TV in my whole life was at Lester Somerall station in South Bend Indiana on a cold January day I remember it and he talked to this young guy about a magazine he was starting called Charisma that was starting to get some national attention and I was actually on his program several times I went to the Philippines he participated in a great crusade

55:58 with Kenneth Copeland in 1981 I would have just been in my late 20s at that time and there were two different groups going and I was in one group and Lester Somerall was with the other we changed planes in Tokyo and I sort of didn't understand that we were in two different groups in two different airlines I just went with the flow they came looking for me and said oh they're you know you're in the wrong place and they took it was remember that story about Jesus who was in Jerusalem he stayed with the ones that were teaching that was me and Lester Somerall he could tell more stories I am a rank amateur in terms of telling stories and he had seen so many things in his career he traveled with Smith Wigglesworth you know who has now become kind of iconic he was teaching on deliverance he built a big ministry in Manila which he helped open the doors for Kenneth Copeland to go they met with Ferdinand Marcos you know who was you know I hate to say he was a dictator we call him a strong man but I mean had an audience with him I didn't get to go to that it was a great experience and I used to love to sit and hear him tell stories by the hours and he was a great man of God he had this successful career as a missionary and when he came back to America he was he would have come back to America oh when would have been the late 60s I guess and he was so concerned about the state of America that he actually

57:32 went into Christian broadcasting which was new new for him certainly and believes that he would lead a million people to Christ through Christian television and I believe that he did he ended up with several stations he was a great man of God and the late 60s you know this kind of gets back to what we were talking about before but they had riots at the Democratic National Convention 1968 we had three high profile profile assassinations in five years that was wow the two Kennedy brothers and Dr. Martin Luther King jr. we haven't had any assassination since and we had attempts against Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan both but that was a very difficult time the summer of love whole generation taking LSD and all that kind of stuff it was a very very difficult time economically it was difficult we had interest rates were 22 percent inflation was like 16 or 17 percent we had gas lines and you know unfortunately a lot of the time we're in kind of feels like that but you know what out of that era came the Jesus movement and if you haven't seen the Jesus revolution movie I encourage you to watch it because it's it's it's wonderful and a great witness to what was happening very very well done from a cinematic point of view but God brought the Jesus movement and also the Catholic cares listen when I was a kid growing up in a Pentecostal denomination

59:07 the adults didn't even think Catholics were saved you know because their doctrine is so different from ours I believe that many many many Catholics are saved they just talk about a different but then there's an awful lot of Catholics that were born Catholic and and they go to the church and get married and they have their funeral there and that's about the extent of their Catholicism but you know what there are Protestants that are about in the same place exactly my point was that here the Holy Spirit was outpoured on the Roman Catholic and they would have they would have 50,000 people in a football stadium worshiping Jesus it was just wonderful we used to do stories about it all the time in charisma you'd get these pictures of these nuns you know dancing and the and the priests and the different ones and of course mostly it was laypeople and it started with the young people and I think that there is something happening and yes I'm just glad to be alive and glad to be in the media you know there's a lot of media that won't cover this and if they do it's from a jaundiced point of view but charisma media were we're wanting to cover the move of God we're wanting we're not wanting to exaggerate and we're not wanting to glorify man of course not and we're not but we want to tell just the facts that you know that's because of my background I when I came up through journalism there was still an emphasis

1:00:39 on the truth and on facts and things like that and and I do think that a healthy honest press provides a real value in society it seems like the press is very very jaundiced and I know this firsthand because without me asking for it in any way I've had stories in the on me in the New York Times and with Rolling Stone and they weren't exactly complimentary the New York Times was probably about as nice as it could be considering who the New York Times is and who I am and they basically the theme of it was how could someone who calls himself a journalist be stupid enough to support a New York businessman who ran for president they just treated me like I was an idiot for that reason and oh by the way he you know does all this other religious stuff he was just stupid it wasn't good journalism at all even though I got to be friends later with the author but I'm just using that that I've seen up close and personal I was in the business and we don't have time to go there but I could see the seeds of it back when I was being trained as a journalist in early in my career and I didn't want to be a part of what I saw developing is much much worse at least back then the journalists pretended to be objective now there's not even a pretense of being that's why Charisma News Charisma Magazine is so important and we're going to provide the links in the description of this video as well for people to connect to get faith

1:02:12 filled news and news that matters to you and by the way I'm so glad you brought up John Osteen one of my favorite preachers to this day if you want to lift yourself up just YouTube John Osteen John and Jody Dodi just a tremendous tremendous blessing they're preaching to this day still blesses me you know Dodi beat cancer and I'm not sure when it was but it had to be the 70s and you know some people say they beat cancer and then the next thing you know they say it comes back but she really really was healed and her little book on cancer yeah anybody who's fighting cancer is a real faith builder let's put the link for that book in the description too I've had that book in my library and you're exactly right it's almost like a booklet it's not very big I've read it several times and this conversation will remind me to go back and get it and yes I'm going to YouTube John Osteen tonight I need I need a good old it just lifts your spirit when you watch because you see that fire and that passion he was such a no compromise minister but he didn't bring any any angst or cynicism or bitterness it was just joy and faith and it was contagious when he would minister so so thrilling and it's good to hear that that's that's being continued and that's what you're kind of advocating in this book you're you're teaching people to be able to live a spirit led life like he lived like many of these generals of the faith who you cite who you quote in the book who would you say this book is for who should get this book I think every Christian should read it and I know that sounds pretty presumptuous I read you know it's just

1:03:47 the basics I just explain what the Word of God says I talk about I have all chapter on deliverance you know people are talking about that now this is a good way to either remind yourself of things you know or maybe learn some things or even to see how things fit together you know as a journalist sometimes we just try to help people get a perspective and see how this fits with that I do a lot about the end times you know I have never really been into eschatology myself because it's it's all over the board and I never really wanted to get in debates with people about it and also I have a theory about eschatology that when Jesus comes back it's going to fulfill all the scriptures but it's going to be different than what people think because that's what happened when he came the first time his birth fulfilled all the scriptures but was very very different than what the Jews thought it would be so because of that I don't put I don't put myself out as having a theory I do think that it's important that we study it I think it's important that people begin to understand and to realize that something's going to happen I also come from a background where they taught the rapture which meant that all these bad things were going to happen but hey don't worry about it we're going to be out of here and you know that may happen

1:05:19 I I'm not so certain that we can live our lives based on that assurance because there's only one scripture that even talks about the rapture you know in first you'd know better than I do because you're an expert first Thessalonians chapter 4 well I'm not an expert but as a pre-tribber myself I wholeheartedly agree with you this whole idea that has been used as an escapist mentality that just you know bury our heads in the sand and hope that we just get taken out of here before it gets bad listen ladies and gentlemen it's going to get bad and you need to be prepared you need to be ready to be shining lights in the midst of gross darkness and this book your insights are very enlightening even in eschatology and everybody needs to take a look at it for sure well if you read the book of revelation which I recently reread I admit I don't understand most of it but the Bible says that you'll be blessed if you read it and I thought you know what I've read it several times I want to be blessed I'm gonna read it one more time but it says it like half the world's gonna die that's gonna include a whole lot of Christians and I'm saying that we have to have the power of the Holy Spirit just to not recant your face when they come knocking on your door or whatever they do and try to make us recount you know recant we know that when they're trying now by the way is Islamic terrorists you know take hostages and stuff they often

1:06:51 try to make force them to convert to Islam well this is only a few you know only affects a few people we don't know what's gonna happen we have to have the power of the Holy Spirit even to stand strong and so what they kill us you know what we're all gonna die anyway our lives are like a vapor the Bible says that now we we'd like to live a few more months or years of course I mean that's you know God put it the will to live within us but they kill you so what you're suddenly in Jesus presence you win either way you know but I really believe that we have to have the power of the Holy Spirit yes stronger than ever and so that's what I hope people get out of the book and I'm doing everything I can to try to get the word out was on Daystar last week and now with you and I just met with a one of the major denominations last week that have agreed to use it as Bible studies each while as you see it's kind of standalone with study questions at the end I taught it in my own home we've had it in a few other churches and and there are a lot of churches that talk about the Holy Spirit they say we believe in the Holy Spirit but they don't teach on it much my book is a way to do it and I've prepared some little videos they're about eight minutes long and it introduces each chapter I did this actually in my own

1:08:24 home because I found it was not easy to summarize all chapter with the goal of getting discussion started so we everyone agreed to kind of read the chapter ahead of time and if people will email me I didn't check with you ahead of time but if they email me at info at charismamedia.com and ask we will send them a little playlist you just email it back you can watch you know they're all there there are 13 of them this could be a 13 week study in a church a small group a Wednesday night this denomination said some some pastors will likely teach this like on a Wednesday night and that's my goal yes I'm in the business of publishing that's how I make my living but I didn't write this book you know just to sell a book I'm trying to get it out far and wide and I really appreciate you being allowing me to articulate this because and listen mine is not the only book there's all kinds of books many many many books written on the Holy Spirit and we need many many more this was this is what I could do I felt led of the Holy Spirit to do it I had done several books on Donald Trump and I just felt that I needed to write one that's really kind of my life story there's I tell some of my own stories in there I tell about how receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit when I was 11 years old which really helped me through those difficult teenage years and how getting

1:09:55 turned on radically to Jesus in my late teens early 20s actually going through deliverance in the chapter I talk about how I for me I just sort of had to know I just had to know but you know what some things I battled went away so even though I didn't have a lot of manifestations myself and I think that and I say this in the book when I talk about deliverance there are some Christians who say that a Christian can't have a demon and literally probably cannot be demon possessed but I'll tell you what the the devil oppress you and tie you up every which way and a lot of problems that won't go away have a spiritual warfare basis yeah and if the you know if you remember the story in the Old Testament where Naaman had leprosy remember and the prophet told him to dip in the muddy Jordan and he didn't want to do it and and his servant said you know what if he'd asked you to do something really difficult you would have done it he asked you to do something that is to kind of like beneath you some people it's like beneath them they're they're too proud to admit that they need prayer but they need a it can be a friend or a pastor just someone who has spiritual authority can pray with you to overcome you can pray for yourself Greg Locke my friend calls this self deliverance and there's a lot of deliverance that you can just take

1:11:26 authority over the enemy be quiet your spirit be able to focus pray in tongues get into a spiritual atmosphere just rebuke the devil the Bible says rebuke the devil and he will flee from you that's God's word and if self deliverance does not work you know it's good help a little bit like getting sick if if your own little remedies don't work you know maybe you need to go see a doctor and to me some of this is just common applying common sense and common sense in in taking what's available to us through through God's word through the teaching we we get from our pastors and and other spiritual leaders you know for twenty five years as a pastor I get a lot of questions about a lot of things and the most common answer that I give people to their question doesn't matter what it is is be led by the spirit that's the answer to a thousand questions be led by the spirit but then the question arises how well you're gonna learn how by reading this book the link is in the description it will change your life Stephen Strang I can't thank you enough for coming on the program how can people connect with you other than the links we have in the description well they're probably the best ways I do have a website called Steve Strang books.com and I've published over two thousand books but I've only written a couple in the last couple

1:12:57 of years if they're interested in any of the books I wrote on Donald Trump they'd be there and of course you can get my book and if they buy it from my website which is called which is either there or my charisma shop.com they get an autograph copy the easiest way of course is probably go to Amazon and encourage people to do it I hope it ministers to them I'd love to hear from any of your viewers and listeners you the easiest way is to go to info at charisma media.com charisma media is the name of our company we write it as if it's one word and they pass along the emails I get quite a few and I answer each one of them and I would love to hear from people especially if something that was said because you and I just had a conversation we didn't rehearse this at all and hopefully something that was said ministered to you maybe it was even a word that the Holy Spirit used in due season for something that you're going through. Yes well ladies and gentlemen you have access to this general of the faith email let's write him share with him how this has blessed you and encouraged you get a copy of the book let him know you saw it through encounter today and be sure to click all the links we have in the description to connect with this ministry charisma magazine charisma news once again Stephen Strang it's truly been an honor. Well thank you it's an honor to be with you and let's do this again sometime. Absolutely ladies and gentlemen click the links in the description get a hold of this book today and learn how to live a spirit

1:14:28 led life. We'll see you soon. I think Christians are tired of supporting woke companies with their dollars when they take those dollars and support agendas that are antithetical to what we believe as Christians. That's why it's important for the body of Christ to raise up a parallel economy. That's one of the reasons why we started our own coffee company right here at encounter ministries where you can get some exciting blends like our brand new one I'm really excited about this one Azusa Street mornings where you can get your morning out pouring where we give honor to William Seymour on the back of the coffee bag there's some facts and information about Azusa Street about William Seymour because we want to build your faith and speaking of faith we also have the Wigglesworth blend where it's awakening faith and these are amazing actually they taste amazing they're going to be your favorite coffee and they make great gifts with every brew you become a part of a movement that transcends a morning routine together we're brewing revival awakening hope and delivering love one cup at a time you can select from whole bean or ground as many bags as you can for yourself and for your family and support the preaching of the gospel.

1:15:43 Well thank you for still staying tuned I hope you enjoyed that I know it was long I watched it myself and was very impressed as I had said earlier with the production value I also was interested that the sales in spirit led living upside down world really spiked after it showed so that meant that a lot of people want the book and it's not because it's my book listen I've written books I've published a lot of books is it does it help you and I really believe it does there are things in here that are very practical I cover everything from the end times to goal setting and temptations and deliverance and all that kind of stuff I really believe that you'll like it and some people like signed copies so if you go to my website which is my charisma shop.com and buy spirit led living upside down world it will be signed I personally signed all the copies or sometimes it's easier to go to amazon.com and it's still in a lot of stores so thank you for watching thank you for being a subscriber share this with other people they'll enjoy it we wanted to go viral and it's because people like you watch us again and again every Tuesday and Thursday 4 p.m. Eastern time live on rumble and YouTube and then of course it's on the internet 24 7 so again thank you for watching God bless you.