SID: So how would you like to be in a situation where God Himself says to you, you’re a pastor of a successful church, your candle is going to go out because you’re doing it your way. You’re not doing it my way. You have a choice. You can continue doing it your way and say, but I’m accomplishing so much, and then guess what? Not only will your candle go out, everything you’ve accomplished that you think is so wonderful will be burned with fire and not count for eternity. So what changes occurred as a result of this vision?
GARY: Soon after that vision we had, God had spoken to me to buy a building in West Philadelphia, and He gave me the exact number to pay, $365,000 for it. I sent two of the ministers that we have in our church up to find the building. I knew exactly where it was. I watched it in my spirit. They got there. I said, “You’re there. Just turn around. Where’s the building?” And they said, “There’s a building there but it’s sold.” I said, “That’s it. Go find the owner. That’s what we’re getting.” Anyway, long story, it was sold for over millions of dollars. The whole thing fell through. Finally the owner calls back to our office and he says, “I’ll sell it, but I’m not going to sell it for that price.” I said, “But that’s the price I heard from God, so that’s what you’re paying.” Long story short, we buy the property, $365,000. It’s a factory. We bought a factory in Philadelphia. Look at the picture. Look at how large that it is, how large it is. So the next thing I know, what I was doing was planting churches because, of course—
SID: That’s your thing.
GARY: That’s what you do.
SID: Right.
GARY: So we have Bible colleges. We opened up schools. We have schools around the world. We produced pastors and leaders. We put a church in there. So I’m hearing now, what is God saying now? So I began to say, God—
SID: And by the way, what he just described was before he had this vision. Now he’s got this church. He’s in Philly. Supernaturally he got it. But where was your mistake?
GARY: My mistake was putting a church in there, because God never called—
SID: But that’s what you do. You put churches in there.
GARY: That’s the problem. See, people do things because they believe that’s what they do rather than hear from God to do what He’s saying to do. And as a result, we do things out of a systemic like sense of obligation or responsibility, or activity in what other people. Because we have such a large broad amount of people coming in to our location in Delaware, it would only make sense to put a church in Baltimore, one in Philadelphia, and reach out to the people that are coming.
SID: Okay. But now you don’t want your candle to go out. You don’t want it to burn with fire. What do you do? You’re already stuck. You got a church going.
GARY: I get the pastor that’s at the church in his position. I said, “Look, is God talking today about this church?” I said, “Forget what I had you doing. Forget what you’ve been doing for a couple of years. Today is God speaking to you about this church.” He said, no. I said, “We’re closing it. We’re selling the building.”
SID: How could you do that? You got people going there. How could you stop it?
GARY: You know, Sid, if every pastor only did exactly what God said we’d have far less out there and much more effectiveness in the Kingdom of God. Far more out there. Effectiveness.
SID: Okay. So what happened to this building?
GARY: We got a $1,850,000 for it. We walked out with a $1,500,000 in profit, paid off all the debts. We have no debt whatsoever in the ministry, all the burden lifted off everything, and now we do everything without any debt or encumbrance whatsoever.
SID: Well you know what’s even more exciting? He supernaturally teaches people how to hear God’s voice, did it in his own church. The people in his congregation hear God about their marriage. What happened with marriages?
GARY: Talking of marriages, here’s a guy coming up with a fiancé. This is a story about hearing God’s voice. He says, “I want to marry her.” So I said, “Wait a minute.” And I’m listening and God says, “She’s not to be his wife. He has a wife.” I said, “Well where is your wife?” He goes, “I don’t have a wife.” I said, “No, where is your wife?” He says, “Twenty years ago I got a divorce.” I said, “Where is she?” He said, “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her.” I said, “Before I even talk to you about getting married to this woman,” I said, “I want you to go back and ask God who your wife is and find out what is God going to do with your life.” He comes back. He says, “You know, Gary, I can’t believe this.” He said, “I couldn’t even remember her name when you asked me where she was. It was like she was gone, gone.” He said, “But all of a sudden I got this love for her.” And I’m thinking, okay, what happened to the girl you brought up here? How’s this going to go? What did she hear from God?
SID: I’m glad you’re the pastor and not me.
GARY: He finally got the one he was looking for, you know what I’m saying. Here’s this guy hearing God. And what does he do? He finds her in California, flies out and says, “I had the most strange experience. I went to this pastor. He said, what is God saying.” And he meets her. They get remarried again together. They are now together walking in God, fulfilling. What happens in people’s minds, Sid, is they don’t say, stop. God is present in me. There is the Living God I live with. He speaks to me. We are the Body of Christ. We hear Him. We are so wired to hear God, it is easier for us to obey God than disobey Him.
SID: Now out of curiosity, now that you’ve made a number of changes, the changes were easy. What’s not of you, God? Out. So he’s made these changes. How many people would you say since you’ve made these changes have been saved? How many miracles? How many marriages restored? What would you say?
GARY: We see it constantly. We just had 750 people saved last month at our altars.
SID: You know, it’s much better to do it God’s way than your way.
GARY: Yeah, oh yeah.
SID: Okay. I want to find out what you taught your congregation so they can all hear God’s voice. Do you want to hear that? I do. Be right back.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth