Awaken the Wonder: Interview with Evangelist Caleb Wampler, episode 73

0:00 If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right here at When You Love a Prodigal. And also, help and hope for your own life journey. So, dear listeners, I hope you took advantage of the three-week break that we took because I was going to be gone. And that you listened to some episodes that you had missed, and so you didn't really miss me at all. Today, I have a very special guest. I've just met him, but I've seen him around on the podcast network and read some of his books, which I'll tell you about later.

0:43 Caleb Wampler is a global evangelist, and he's been doing this for quite a few years because he has a passionate desire to know Jesus himself and to advance his kingdom into the earth. He grew up in a pastor's home. He had several incredible encounters with the love of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. During all of his school years, God kept doing very special things and putting him in groups that helped him to grow and get a vision for how God might use him. And he entered youth and young adult ministry for six years before meeting his wonderful wife, Harmony.

1:31 And they just continued. They have four children, right? Yes, four children. And I love this line, Caleb, that you said. He said, You have echoed the prayer of Jesus. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And you are seeking to carry his kingdom to the nations of the world. What an incredible opportunity, privileged journey that God has you on. And I am eager to hear the things you want to share with us. So, my friends, be listening to Caleb jot down anything that you get from what he says that you can apply in your own life so that you have it at the end.

2:20 You won't remember if you don't write it down and that you will be able to go away from this time with new ways to trust God and see what he wants to do in your life. So welcome, Caleb. So glad that you could be on the When You Love a Prodigal podcast. Thank you so much, Judy. I'm so privileged to be with you and getting to know you today has been a pleasure. Thanks for the honor of being with you. Well, it is my privilege and honor as well. So I have a few of the phrases that you like to use. And so the first one is the name of your ministry, Kingdom Encounters.

3:03 And tell us about some of those encounters, how you chose that to call what you're doing. When I was a kid, I encountered the Lord at a very early age, which ended up being part of my evangelistic story as well. But at six years old, I heard God's voice for the first time. Audibly, I was at an altar and I had done the most terrible possible sin that anybody could ever commit as a six year old child. Don't even remember what it was. But I was I was on my face crying out to God and my mom was leading worship at the church and my dad was the pastor. And so I remember going down to the altar and they were probably surprised to see me there.

3:45 But I prayed and asked God to forgive me. And then I heard him speak that my son, your sins are forgiven. And I looked around me and there was nobody around. I realized he had spoken. And so I had a powerful encounter with the Holy Spirit at seven years old and eight years old. And even when I was 16, I had an incredible vision. If you've ever heard of the book Heaven is for Real, the Boy from Nebraska, I could have I could have written a book like that as well. I just didn't know that you could because when I was 16, I had a moment where God took me into heaven in a vision. And in that moment, really just my mind was blown open to what God wanted to do in my life and that he was coming again and that he wanted to come back for people.

4:33 And so just from some of those earlier moments in my life, transforming down the road to what we're doing now, we're seeing God move in the nations powerfully. People are having visions of the man in white overseas in these Muslim and Hindu countries. And oftentimes when we talk about Jesus, they say, oh, we we've seen him before we know him because they've had moments where he has appeared to them in dreams or visions. And so we can see that a lot with the Jesus film. Oh, yeah, they they see somebody who looks just like when they see the film, they went that man appeared to me.

5:14 That man talked to me. Yeah, I understand that. Yeah. So just with that overseas and in my own personal life, we just wanted to provide the name of the ministry really as a statement on what God is doing. And it's that your kingdom come. What's in his kingdom? Well, everything, everything and his presence and his glory, the angels of God and everything that comes with his kingdom. And we just pray that it comes into the earth when all of the dark places in the world and so kingdom encounters. And there are a lot of dark places in the world. And some are very close.

5:55 So you have a podcast and a blog called Awaken the Wonder. One of my favorite topics to write and speak about is awe and wonder to never get over what God has done, who he is, his work in our life. So tell me about Awaken the Wonder and why you chose that. Yeah, yeah. Same. It's the same concept with Kingdom Encounters, just that the wonder being awakened in our lives with our relationship with Christ. And everything we do flows from that place of intimacy with God first, you know, to love God first and to love people.

6:35 And so from that framework, that was where my first book was written, just that framework of intimacy with God and Awaken the Wonder is meant to challenge people that, you know, Matthew 7, 21 to 23 talks about the people that did the signs and the wonders and the miracles and the healings and delivered people from demons and all of these things. And then God says a very probably the most troubling statement in all of scripture, depart from me. I never knew you, meaning that you can do those things and have those kinds of supernatural encounters and moments and still miss heaven and miss God. And so really the whole concept is awakening that relationship with Jesus.

7:19 You know, Jesus often withdrew to go be with the Father. And then when he was with the Father, it says in scripture that he didn't do anything that the Father didn't show him and say what he didn't say. So he only spoke out and did what the Father showed him. And so we encourage people in that personal relationship to dive into that. And from that place, the kingdom of God will then begin to flow from your life as you minister to others. Boy, we could all use that didn't say or do anything except what the Father told him. And that would require us to be in touch with the Father and asking him for that information, revelation, however he wants to put it, often the still small voice that we hear, sometimes a louder voice.

8:08 So you've also expressed your passion for the lost and many people in my listeners feel like they have someone that they love very much who's lost. And some of them have met the Lord, but walked away. And others have never met the Lord and they live in great fear for them. So tell about your passion for the lost and what that looks like and any hopeful words that you have for my listeners. Yeah, definitely. What we're seeing is such a hunger all over the world for people that want something that is real.

8:50 And oftentimes when people depart, as we've found, is that they didn't maybe have something that's real or they had something that seemed more pleasurable in the moment and missed what God that God actually wanted to do something very real in their lives. And so a lot of people go searching for a long time looking for something that is real. And as we've traveled around the world, we've seen the same hunger in every heart. It doesn't matter the culture or the background or the context. It may manifest a little differently depending on where they're at. But people are hungry for something that's real. And so when we when we've done our our gospel ministry and have prayed and preached the gospel message and then prayed for the sick and and believed for God to do something, he has showed up.

9:39 And Reinhard Bonnke, the famous evangelist, would always say the gospel without power is no gospel at all. And so and so he would you know the gospel comes with the power of God comes with the gospel. And so when we pray for people and preach the message, he shows up and he comes into every human heart. And as we're seeing this in the nations and mass crusades with as many as two hundred and fifty four thousand people coming to Christ in a single night in Pakistan, we've also seen it in living room settings and one on one settings across the United States and the world. Just ministering and gas stations, restaurants, shopping centers, small groups, homes and home meetings and watching the power of God just come alive to people.

10:29 There's this the power of the Holy Spirit in Genesis one, verse two and three, it says the spirit of God was hovering over the waters of the darkness. And the very next verse, it says, let there be light. And so really a theme of the ministry is that that the spirit of God is hovering. And if you through that intimacy we talked about are just paying attention, the Holy Spirit will guide you and direct you and you can cut right through all of the cerebral, ethereal concepts that people are putting up and all those walls and they come down like Jericho in the presence of God. So it just just march right through that and and declare the gospel.

11:11 And it does work every time. And so we just love people. I've held widows and orphans in my arms. I've held people with incurable diseases in my arms. I've watched, you know, demon possessed people that are just freaking out that have no hope and families and loved ones. And, you know, and when you hold these people and see them up close and love them, whether they're in a giant crowd or whether they're one on one, your heart is just breaking with with the compassion of the Lord for that person that Jesus died for that person. He spilled the very blood in his veins for that person. And I have the greatest privilege and honor that I think anybody could ever possibly have. And it's to tell them about him and to be the one to help lead them into that into that relationship with Christ.

11:57 And so we realize we stand in many third world nations in the 1040 window. We're standing on the prayers and the intercession of missionaries and evangelists and pastors who have labored for a long time. And we're seeing him. That's true. Yeah. So how do you what happens to the people after they make that decision? Who's going to make sure that they get to grow in the Lord? Yeah. So in our in our mass crusades, we work with we always only work through the local church and we we will only go somewhere if we have 80 percent of the churches in a region involved. That way, there's a strong local church presence with pastors, leaders.

12:37 We pour into pastors and leaders during the crusades by day and then crusades by night. And then from that place, the pastors will then take the fruit of the crusade and start local churches, go into existing churches or will plant churches. So, you know, in a place like Pakistan, for instance, will sometimes have up to 800 to 1000 buses. And so each bus will have a bus captain who is secretly a pastor. And, you know, and now when they go back to their village where they came from, if there is an existing church, that pastor has now coordinated with everyone on the bus. And if they don't have a church, the pastor that's on the bus is planting a church in that village.

13:20 And so they already have a face to the name right afterwards. And it's a little different overseas. Everybody knows everybody in their village. When you throw in the healing factor and somebody that was blind can now see everyone is in the village going, well, where did you go last night? You know, because whether they're Muslim or Hindu, it doesn't matter. They experience something that was real. And so when they start the church, everybody's excited to see this God that they were that they talked about, this Jesus Christ. Who is this guy? You know, and so they're very hungry to learn about him. So do you have opportunity to thinking of, again, my audience and those who have a loved one who's walked away or made dangerous decisions for their lives?

14:06 Do you have a chance to talk individually with people like that? Yeah, no, we definitely do. We see it sometimes three and four generations of a family being redeemed, which is which is obviously very special to imagine a whole family coming to Christ and having their whole lineage redeemed in a Muslim area or Hindu area, especially. So we get to talk with talk with different individuals and hear the stories even after we leave sometimes of what God has done. And, you know, I guess one one testimony that kind of illustrates this would be in a crusade we did in Pakistan where a woman had a stomach, a terrible stomach pain.

14:51 And on the platform, I had a word of knowledge and I said, there's somebody here with a stomach pain and your stomach is enlarged and and Jesus wants to heal you right now. So when I prayed for the woman from the from the platform, she felt this burning fire in her stomach and her stomach shrunk. But, you know, in that area, they were very loose clothing. And so she goes home and when she when she's getting changed, she realizes her stomach small and the kids walk in and they say, Mama, Mama, your stomach small. What happened, Mama? And and and so then right around that time, the husband walks in and and he says, I can't believe you brought shame onto our family.

15:35 This is this is blasphemy because you went to that that Christian meeting. And she's like, all I know is that I was large before and now I'm not. If you heard that in scripture, all I know is I was blind and now I can see. And she said she's like, I can't believe you've ruined our family. She was very angry and she says, well, before you do anything, why don't you just come? Because there's a meeting tomorrow and we can see what happens. And the next night, the whole family came, not just the mama and the kids got saved. The father got saved. They ended up telling the grandfather that got saved also. And three generations were redeemed in the moment as as they got to watch God move powerfully. So love it. That's great. Beautiful, beautiful.

16:18 So you also have books that you've written and I've read two of them. I do love to read. And the first one I read was hunger. And can you talk about that a minute? And what kind of hunger are you talking about? Yeah, I'm talking about a spiritual hunger. If you if you know there's something more that you're missing and you just feel like there's something out there that you're just that you're missing from God, you know, you've heard stories, you've seen it, you've read it in scripture. And you're saying, how come I'm reading it in the Bible, but I'm not seeing it in my life? That's what I'm talking about. And and that hunger, really, the book was birthed in the secret place for me.

17:05 I would get up between sometimes three, four, five, six in the morning for a period of years. And that's where the book was written. And between predominantly five and seven in the morning, where Jesus would just speak to me and reveal himself to me. I had a season where I went through a crucifixion of sorts, where I was working in a ministry setting and just really went through a lot of hard things, wrestling with the calling that God had on my life versus what I was doing in the day to day and how to connect the two because I had a call to preach the gospel and to go to the nations. And here I was not seemingly doing that while also serving the Lord in what I was doing.

17:48 But through that season, the Lord really just got me to this place where all that I wanted was him. I had always correlated success in my Christian walk with some day preaching to crowds as far as the eye can see or fulfilling the prophetic words God had spoken over my life through the praying people of my church and that there was some type of ego attached to that. I had to do this for God, for God, rather than just being with the King, with God. And in that process, he broke all that off of me. And I learned for the first time to not just love God or read the Bible to pray or to do a checklist, but to just love him for him. He was the prize.

18:37 Matthew 13 talks about the pearl of great price where a man goes into the field and sells everything just to get the field because that pearl was there and it was worth the whole thing. And so that was really the prize. And that's where hunger was written about. It's just learning to enjoy Jesus, that he's number one, he's the prize, and that everything flows from that relationship with him. That's really beautiful and it reminds me of what I think is often happening is family members who love a prodigal, somebody who's messing their life up, they think it's all about them, the prodigal, when actually it may be just as much about the one who loves them, a work that God is doing in their life to put them at a place of almost desperation and therefore turning to God with great hunger for the deeper relationship.

19:36 And that's just that's really beautiful. And I hope my listeners are hearing that, that it's not just your prodigal. God is after your heart as well. I think so often everybody focuses on the problem, whether the prodigal, the family member, the substance abuse, the domestic situation, the financial problem. We all focus on the problem and coming to God becomes only about the problem. And when we focus on Jesus, he's the answer to every problem. And by just simply investing into him, you reap the fruit of that in every area of your life with the prodigals and across the board.

20:20 Jesus loves you and cares for you and wants to have relationship with you. So I just I love how that suddenly solved most massive issues in my life immediately because over time, he's the answer and he provides the way out of every situation if you just go to him first. So it's beautiful. That's just really beautiful. I thank you for that. And I hope for many of my listeners that that's a message they've really heard, that it's it's Jesus and and he's the one you're seeking and not the better situations. That's that's good. Your book, Weighty Words, in my opinion, not only has lots of spiritual meeting, lots of spiritual needs, but just in our world today and this country today, learning the weight of words and the power they have and how much damage we tend to do with them and how much possibility they carry as well.

21:27 So tell us a little about that. Yeah, Proverbs 1821 says that the power of life and death is in the tongue. And those who love to talk will enjoy and eat its fruits. And so we know James 3 talks about the power of the tongue can start a forest fire, just that small spark, just like a small rudder of a ship can turn the whole ship. And so in the concept of that, I had some powerful moments, which I won't go into unless you want me to, but where God basically illustrated this in my life. And when I realized when I realized the weight of the words that he was delivering and showing me, I suddenly realized that we literally are influencing the unseen realm around us.

22:15 You know, there's angels out there, there's demons out there, God with his words. I mentioned the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And then he says, let there be light, you know, with God's creative power of his voice. He spoke and it simply just was. Yeah. And Reinhard Bonnke, he I loved this quote from him. He would he had this moment where God spoke to him in this powerful moment. And he said, Reinhard, he said, my words in my mouth are just as powerful as my words in your mouth. And at first he's like, well, this must be blasphemy, because how could you know how could that and he says, Reinhard, they're my words.

22:56 They're not your words by agreeing with God's words, what he has spoken, his promises, his statements. Paul says to Timothy to use the words that you've received as weapons. And so so for the good, we speak life and we speak hope. We speak faith. We speak love into situations and watch the creative power of God come alive. The angels of God going into motion to to carry out his missions in the earth. When when oftentimes we're just saying, oh, I'm worthless. I don't have any hope. I'm broken. I'm always broke. I'm always poor.

23:36 I'm always I'm always going through hardship. I'm always sick. And we we we start to speak these things out and then we start to believe them because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word. And we speak the words out and start to believe these things. And all of a sudden we're negative, negative, negative. In the unseen realm, the demons are sitting there going, I can work with that. You know, I can work with that. I'm sure they are saying that. Oh, yeah. So so there's a weight to the words and the power of life. When we speak life with our tongue, we're releasing God's kingdom and all that's in heaven. I mean, if you were to pause for just a moment and think about what's in God's kingdom, you know, all of the angels in heaven and the four living creatures and the seraphim and the cherubim and the streets of gold and all of the cloud of witnesses, the saints who have gone before us and the golden streets and the mansions.

24:31 And you're sitting there like God's kingdom. He knows what he's doing, you know. And we're saying your kingdom come. We're speaking life in God's purpose into the season, but also on the flip side, the kingdom of darkness. When we speak death, you know, oh, well, you're not going to get out of that situation. Oh, well, you got that doctor's notice. So it's over for you. You know, oh, you got that. And we believe in and believe the report of the enemy so often. Yeah. Think of think of the promised land with Joshua and Caleb and the ten spies that said we can't take the land. Joshua and Caleb said we can because God said it and we agree with it.

25:11 And, you know, they ended up going spinning around for 40 years in the wilderness by not believing, speaking life. But they all could have entered in right away. But those ten spies, they believed the report of the enemy and the fear versus what God wanted to do and that he said it. So it's going to happen. And so that's really the concept of the book and taking a look in your personal life, your families, the words you're speaking in your relationship with God and others, your enemies. And realizing, are you releasing God's kingdom or the enemy's kingdom in your life? That that reminds me of one of my favorite things to tell people who love a prodigal is that let your words be words of blessing.

25:52 And so I take scripture and turn it into blessing words. And and I have a whole thing of them that I've written and I just bless them. You'll see a difference in their lives. Oh, yeah. It's so true. And and we don't think of our words as seeds as well. If you look at Luke, aid and Matthew 13, the parable of the seeds in the sewer and, you know, the words for sowing seeds of blessing, you're going to reap seeds of blessing. Absolutely. And especially in hard places like so so into these dark areas and watch the light of heaven light it up. You know, I love that.

26:33 That's just beautiful. So as we begin to to wrap up, if you were just sitting here with somebody who had a son or a daughter who was in a hard, hard place and they were afraid for them. One of the things people have a prodigal need to do is write down their fears so they can give them to the Lord or their tears are flowing because of all the really sad, hurtful things that are going on. What would you say to them? Yeah. First thing I would say is you got to get that relationship with the Lord right in that secret place so you can hear him.

27:14 And you might not you might say, well, I've never heard his voice or I I don't know what it sounds like or I don't I never heard it audibly or, you know, you look at the written word of God and what he says and study their weight on the Lord. Just just be quiet for a moment and for just three or four or five minutes and just say, Lord, what are you saying about the situation? And you're going to feel his peace begin to come in over a moment. And and when you start to have that relationship with God, remember, Jesus only did what what he saw the father doing. You need to know what God wants to do in that person's life and in that son, that daughter, a family member, whoever it may be. And and when you know what God wants to do, write those things down.

27:58 Those words, as Paul said to Timothy, become weapons against the enemy's plans. Right now, you just see that that person's lost in addiction and drugs and alcohol and abuse and whatever it may be in this negative cycle. But if God gives you a plan and a tailor made plan of what he sees in their life, you know, Psalm 139, 16 says that before anybody was born, that God wrote a book about their life. And and do you think he wrote anybody's book to not prosper? And he wrote him to prosper and not to harm him, to give a hope and a future. So so God wants your your your son or your daughter to succeed when you write those things down, those little declarations, it might be three, four, five, ten things.

28:43 You now have some statements of what the Lord says about that situation. And you start to release those weighty words by prayer, by declaration rather than saying, God, you know, if it's your will, that maybe my son might come to you. No, of course, it's his will that they come to him. Why? Because he wants them to prosper and not harm himself. Everyone. Exactly. So say, Lord, I speak life over my son right now. Lord, you've said you have a call on his life. Lord, you've said even though he even though his life might be trapped in addiction right now, Lord, you've set every person free with your chains. You've said that no weapon formed against him would prosper, that he's more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus.

29:25 Lord, you you've said my daughter would what is seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus, Ephesians 2, 6, you know, and declaring these things out over them until you believe him. And when you believe him, say him again. You might need to do this two, three, four or five times a day till you till you shift your thinking. And all of a sudden you start to intercede from a place of faith and expectancy versus just trying to convince yourself that you might believe it. Get rid of that unbelief and your heart will begin to change. And I have seen this in situations in my own life and family members. I just talked to somebody dealing with a marriage issue and told them to do something like this and just their mindset completely shifted immediately within within weeks just by declaring what God says about a situation versus what your eyes see in the situation.

30:17 That's really true. Really helpful. And my listeners, I trust that you picked up some of these things that that Caleb has shared with us. And and this one is especially true that you are claiming declaring making real the Word of God and what he has said instead of just hoping and wishing through your tears. The tears. Yes, there's sadness, there's loss, but there's hope and and the hope is in Jesus. And and we are the ones who can be a part of praying that of speaking that and of believing that you're going to do that.

31:01 Oh, yeah. And you in this day and age, you know, you can go go on Google and type in, you know, 30 versus to overcome anxiety or, you know, versus to pray for the prodigal. I'm sure you could find hundreds of thousands. Print them all out and and write some statements out, declarations, you know, and and say, OK, this is what God says is possible, which means it's possible for my son or daughter. And watch, watch your your mindset transform. Don't believe the report of the enemy. He's there to lie. Of course. Of course, he's going to lie to you about their situation. He's the father of a liar. I say that a lot when people are talking. I say the enemy is a liar.

31:44 If he's talking, don't believe him because it's not true. But God doesn't lie. He is he is truth. And so so thank you, Caleb. This has been delightful and encouraging. And I hope have very helpful to my listeners who love a prodigal. And I'm grateful that you could come and be a part of it. Thank you. It's been it's been an honor to be with you, Judy. Well, my pleasure, my honor. And thank you also to my listeners. And I trust that God did speak to you. And check out Caleb. We're going to give away two of his books, one, weighty words and the other one, hunger.

32:29 And if you would like to be in the drawing to get a book, just go to the show notes and it says, click here to enter the drawing. And you'll be able to be in that and we will be sure and send that out to to our two winners of the books that we're going to be giving away. And don't forget, I'd love for you to subscribe to my podcast and be reminded of it on a regular basis so that you can come away with help and hope for how you're going to walk through on this journey. The one thing God doesn't tell us is how long it might take.

33:11 But remember that some of what he's doing in our life, not just in our in our prodigal's lives, he's sometimes it's instant. We just had if you read the newsletter that I do, we just are getting back feedback from the June 2nd day of prayer for prodigals. And lots of people already are reporting wonderful things that God has done and responses. One of them was like that afternoon right after they they they called them and said, Mom, Mom, I came to Christ. And so those kinds of things are wonderful to happen and it can happen to you.

33:53 Sometimes God lets it take longer and he's doing a work not only in your prodigal, but in you as well. God bless you.