Sid Roth welcomes Mark Virkler

Sid Roth:  We want everyone everywhere to hear God’s voice, be obedient and one day very soon have Him say to you, “Well done good and faithful servant.”  And my guest has got a tool that I believe that you have been praying and crying to God and his tool is a interactive book called “How to Hear God’s Voice.”  And Mark has been teaching this a number of years and my guest is Mark Virkler and he said to me and it’s almost hard for me to believe that 100% of the people that have sat through his seminars have heard God’s voice.  You’ve had no failures Mark?

Mark:  Well, if you want to go with 99% I’ll work with that too because there’s always a couple of hard nuts, but if they’ll sit down with me I’ll work them through their problems and I’ll let them breakthrough; because if I can breakthrough everyone can breakthrough.

Sid:  Why, what was wrong with you?

Mark:  Well, for eleven years I couldn’t hear God’s voice, my problem was I was caught up in the left side of my brain which is a rational analytical side of my brain.  And I worshipped that side because my culture told me to and by nature I’m a left brain thinker and theologian.  And to hear God’s voice you have to shift chemistry and get to the right side where you can see vision and tune to spontaneity and I had no idea how to shift until the Lord taught me the steps.  And once you learn the steps you can take another person along the road if you’re a teacher and I am a teacher so I can take someone else through the battle I went through and bring them to victory.

Sid Roth:  Okay, one night God wakes you up and the only time in your life that you’ve heard His audible voice, although you hear His voice from an inner bases every day, but his audible voice said to you, “Get up I want to teach you to hear My voice.”  And He explained four keys for you to hear His voice.  I wonder if you would give us an overview of these four keys.

Mark:  Okay, I would be glad to, there found in Habakkuk 2:1 & 2.  Habakkuk said, “I’m going to do four things to hear God’s voice and then it worked for him, he’s a prophet he heard and saw.  He said, “I’m going to go to my guard post.  So key number one is I am going to have a payer closet, it’s called a guard post, soaking room, or whatever you want to call it where you go and quiet yourself down to hear the voice of God and we all know that we are suppose to quiet ourselves down.  But I was taught to be afraid of stillness because I was taught that if I was to still my mind Satan would move upon it.  And so I had an ungodly believe that if I became still in God’s presence I would pick up Satan not God.  So I repented of that ungodly belief and I said “No, I believe that if I ask for the Spirit I’ll get the Spirit I will not get a serpent and I renounce my fear because according to your faith, be it unto you and I’m not going to believe for Satan to get me, I’m going to believe for God to get me.  So key number 1 was to get over my fear and to learn to still my self and the easiest way to still my mind was to do key number 2.  Which was I’m going to keep watch to see what He will speak to me.  I said, “Habakkuk, why did you say that?  Why didn’t you say I’m going to listen to hear what God is going to speak.  How come you said, “I’m going to keep watch to see because when I try to hear a word,” I don’t try to see, I try to listen and what the Lord showed me is that vision is a very important part of prayer and I should be looking for vision.  And of course I grew up being afraid to look for anything because I was afraid a demon would get me.  Well, if you don’t ask you don’t get…

Its Supernatural: Isn’t it amazing the church doesn’t teach what you’re teaching right now and so people are left to the New Age which isn’t of God and they understand some of these concepts that we believers should be understanding.

Mark:  Well, exactly and whenever we start to teach they say, “Don’t you think that that’s kind of New Agey?”  I say, “No it’s in the Bible, Daniel kept watch to see, kept watch to see, kept watch to see.”  Jesus said, “Watch and pray.”  So the New Age is a counterfeit movement trying to counterfeit us and the only counterfeit things that are real and have value.  So if I’m doing something real and valuable I should expect the New Agers to look like me.  And if no occult group looks like you then you need to ask yourself “Why aren’t you doing anything real enough or valuable enough for Satan to want to counterfeit?”; and get yourself out of the road of life and begin to doing something real and valuable.

Sid Roth:  By the way, I find the New Agers are so hungry for the real thing, but they haven’t seen the power in the church and so therefore they don’t even consider the church.  But once they see the power of God, who would want a cheap counterfeit?

Mark:  Well, exactly if we were offering this in the church, the hungry people would not need to go to the New Age movement.  So the first day I used vision I was in my prayer time I was reading John Chapter four, the Samaritan woman at the well with Jesus and I pictured the scene in my mind.  It was a comfortable scene because I grew up in a dairy farm we had big round wells and I pictured a round well, a beautiful country setting.  And most people when they read Bible stories picture the scenes.  Do you picture scenes Sid, when you read Bible stories; do you tend to do that or no?

Sid:  No, I don’t.

Mark:  Okay, well…

Sid:  I just read it out loud and I absorb it.

Mark:   Well, how about if we save that conversation for the next session, but let me just let you know that you’re not where most people are at; because when I poll the groups that I talk to 80% or so will picture Bible stories.  Which if you read the Bible as a child, which we’re suppose to…

Its Supernatural:  Well see I didn’t do that, because I read the prayer book, I was raised in Orthodox Judaism, but that’s another story.

Mark:  There’s a lot of beautiful stories in the Old Testament you know, beautiful stories which can all be pictured you know.

Sid:  Well, that’s true.

Mark:   And so you know if you read the Bible like a child you will be picturing the stories so I pictured the scene and that’s not a New Age technique, that’s reading the Bible like a child;  you picture the scene and there’s a well and I put myself in the scene.  And if you talk to right brainers they go ahead and put themselves in the scene and they become one of the characters in the scenes come alive and Jesus does stuff.  Now left brainers don’t read the Bible that way, they just do it for lineal theology so your audience our audience today you read the Bible from two different ways perspectives, and if you polled ten of your friends you’ll find different stuff when they read the model.  So I learned to do Bible meditation which Bible meditation includes imagining, that’s one of the words in the Strong’s Concordance for to mediate on the Word.  So I picture the scene, put myself in so I think that it’s okay to put your name in the Bible, “By His stripes I Mark Virkler am healed.”  For I put my whole body in and I was sitting near the well next to Jesus and picturing this scene in my mind.  And I took my hands off the scene and I invited the Holy Spirit to take it over.  Which is the prayer of Ephesians 1:17 & 18, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.  So I said, Holy Spirit would you enlighten my eyes.  As I prayed that He did, the scene came alive and it was no longer an imagination, a godly imagination that I had painted from thinking a Bible story, it transited at that point of time into a vision.  And as it came alive Jesus gestured in this picture in my mind’s eye, as He gestured this spontaneous thought lit upon my mind which was a good thought.  And it was a simple thought it was love unconditionally and I was asking the Lord about this teenage foster girl who was in my home breaking all the rules and I was going to love her with condition, saying “Hey keep my rules and stay in my house.”  And when I asked the Lord about her He said, “Love her unconditionally.”  And so I opened my eyes, wrote down unconditionally, looked back at the vision and said, “Lord is there more?”  And the scene did not come alive a second time, but a second thought came which is “She’s very insecure.”  And I thought “Huh, that’s different than what I thought, I thought she was rebellious.”  But she was our runaway girl that we’d taken into our home and so when I pondered, I said “Yeah, she probably is insecure her heart’s probably scared spitless and she’s probably covering up with a facade of rebellion.”  And so I said, “Maybe what I should do is approach her with arms of love rather than a bunch of rules.”  And so I did and she ended up staying in my home for the next year coming to church every Sunday which I said “That’s good fruit.”  So the very first words Jesus spoke to me healed my ability; deepened my ability to have powerful relationships with other people and will not offend people.  And anyone who begins to hear God’s voice daily will find that all of their interpersonal relationships are improved tremendously as a result of hearing His voice.  So that was my first use of vision and as I say the scene in my mind came alive, Jesus gestured, things happened and then His voice.  And so key number two is learn to use vision as you pray.  Key number three is…

Sid:  What was key number one?

Mark:  Number 1 is to become still.

Sid:  Okay.

Mark:  So quiet yourself down, key number 2 is look for vision, particularly look for Jesus because the New Testament says, “Fixing your eyes on Jesus, so that’s the primary vision we’re looking for.

Sid Roth:  That is amazing though to me, you’re saying look for vision, that’s not what I look for, even though on every radio show, I say “This is Sid Roth and I have a vision.”

Mark:  Ha, we say words, you know I’ve memorized a verse fixing my eyes on Jesus for years before I ever did it and as I read through the verses that we do that make a difference, not the verses that we memorize.  And I want to come back and spend a whole session if we can wresting about this vision thing because it’s a big issue.  But let’s just touch the other two briefly today if we can, would that be okay.

Sid:  Please.

Mark:  Alright so the third key then is “What does God’s voice sound like?”  Well, we’re going to say key number 3, God’s voice sounds like spontaneous thoughts that lit up upon your mind.   And that’s a very simple definition because everybody has spontaneous thoughts all day long, we just don’t accrue those to Jesus.  And what I’d like to say is that if your eyes are fixed on Jesus or your heart is fixed on Jesus and your asking Him for something and a spontaneous thought comes to you, 99% of the time that spontaneous thought will be coming from Jesus.

Sid:  So have more faith that you are hearing from God than it’s your own imagination.

Mark:  Well, exactly and here’s a verse that can help build your faith, “Out of your inner most being shall flow rivers of living water, this He spoke concerning the Spirit.”  So when you and I want to touch the Holy Spirit, what does He feel like inside of us according to that verse?  He feels like flow, and I said, “Awe flow, flowing thoughts, spontaneous thoughts.”  So maybe when I’m tuning in to flowing thoughts according to the Bible I’m tuning to the Holy Spirit.  Now I memorized that verse a long time before I understood what was in it.  And I said, “Fine, analytical thoughts come from Mark Virkler, spontaneous flowing thoughts come from the Holy Spirit, the Bible specifically says that.”  And of course the spontaneous thought if it is negative can come from a demon which is why we take every thought captive.  The spontaneous negative ones are demonic; spontaneous positive ones are Holy Ghost and the analytical ones are Mark Virkler.  So I divide in my mind those three categories of thoughts and say, “I choose to tune to spontaneous good thoughts to lit up my mind when my eyes are fixed on Jesus.”

Sid:  And what is fourth key?

Mark:  Key number four is to journal; God said, to Habakkuk to record the vision.  So get a piece of paper out and begin when that spontaneous flow kicks in, begin to write the spontaneous flow.

Sid:  Is the purpose of writing it so you don’t forget it or is there another purpose?

Mark:  That is one purpose, but the more powerful purpose for me is I can write in faith for ten fifteen twenty minutes not having to doubt and because I’m not doubting, because I stay in faith I can get a twenty minute dialog with God with Him talking for twenty minutes.  Where if I’m not writing I’ll probably start doubting and analyzing within ten seconds and doubt cuts off the flow.  So journaling lets me stay in faith for an extended period of time knowing that I can test it later and thus I can get a ten, twenty, thirty minute conversation with God.

Sid:  You know Mark, what is amazing to me so many church leaders are recommending your book so highly, but not so much for their congregation as saying this is what it did to me, this is how it changed my life!