SID: Hello. Welcome to my world where it’s naturally supernatural. My guest, I have traced this, and it’s amazing, my guest is responsible for praying for someone that brought the move of the Holy Spirit for the three greatest revivals in modern day history, and then the fire spread to another church in England, and brought the fire to England. That’s his job. That’s his job description. He is a fire starter and I believe that we are about ready to have a fire jump from him right on you. And it’s nice that he’s a fire starter. But he wants you to be a fire starter. Now my guest Rodney Howard-Browne. Rodney, I think it’s such a wonderful heritage you have. I mean, at five, you’re born again, at eight you’re filled with the Holy Spirit. Tell me when you were a young boy you came home one day and you saw your mother laughing in the Spirit. Tell me what you observed.
RODNEY: Well I walked in the living room and Mom was sitting there and just beside herself laughing uncontrollably. And I said to my father, I said to my dad, I said, “What’s happening to Mom?” He said, “Jesus is touching her.” Now what people don’t know was that Mom had fallen and broken her arm in three different places, very bad break, and God had miraculously healed her, and it was actually that afternoon that she had been healed. Well she ended up taking the cast off of her arm after four days. But she was being touched by the power of God in her home, and I saw that as a young boy.
SID: What a heritage to have. I mean, I wasn’t even sure there was a God when I was young boy. You are so blessed, Rodney. But then tragedy hit your home. In 1978, your older brother who you respected, you looked up to, he developed leukemia. What happened?
RODNEY: Well he died suddenly. It was chemically induced. He was, the place he was working at. God had called him to ministry. He was 14 years older than I was and so suddenly he dies from this leukemia, which really affected the whole family. You can understand. I mean, we never expected him to die. But I remember standing at his deathbed. I was only 17 at the time and I was really angry, you know. I was not mad at God. I was mad at the devil and I remember saying this at that moment, I said, “Devil, you’ll rue the day that you touched my family.” And I didn’t know what I was saying. I said, “People are gonna laugh at you around the world.”
SID: Now let me explain something to those that have never seen Rodney minister. He is known for an anointing that causes people to laugh. And I have to tell you the funniest story I know about Rodney. I had an uncle that was a professional comedian, Jewish like myself. He was a non-believer, and I decided what would a professional comedian think of seeing Rodney speak and people laughing uncontrollably? Would that be an interesting experiment? So I sent it to Uncle Jay. He watches it. He calls me on the phone. Angry. Cursing. He said, “Sid, that man is not funny. He’s getting more laughs than I’m getting.” You know, it’s so funny, it sounds like I’m making it up, but I’m not. I mean, he couldn’t understand it. So Rodney, when your brother died, you got angry at the devil and you got more serious at pursuing God than you’ve ever been in your life. What happened the next year?
RODNEY: From August of ’78 until July of ’79 was a time of great hunger pressing into to God. You know, I knew God had called me to the ministry and I knew that if I was going to into ministry I had to have the fire of God. And in Luke, chapter 3, verse 16, John even said, “I baptize with water but there’s one coming after me who will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire.” So I knew about the Holy Ghost, but I wanted this fire. And so that’s what I was crying out for. Even though I was already baptized, I already spoke with other tongues and already had several gifts of the spirit, I wanted the end fire, because I had a lot of people that were in the ministry, they spoke in tongues. But I didn’t see the end fire part. It’s like the prophet of [unintelligible], it’s like a fire shot up in my bones. So for me, it came to a crossroads in July of 1979, in a prayer meeting with about 18 people present, young people, most of them, all Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Dutch Reform, Pentecostal. And I was crying out and I said, “Lord, I want your fire.” And I was shouting at the top of my voice, and I did this for about 20 minutes, and I actually, my voice starting going. I mean, when you shout, somebody said, we don’t have to shout, God’s not deaf. He’s not deaf, but he’s not nervous either. I was desperate. When you are desperate, you cry out. And I was crying out, I said, “Lord, either you come down and touch me or I’m coming up there to touch you.” And I meant it. I’ve got to have your touch. And it was like suddenly somebody poured like it was warm oil or honey, or however you want to describe it. I sometimes say like gasoline and then took a match, I mean just set me on fire. From the top of my head to my feet. It was like electricity was running through me. But it wasn’t, if you’ve had pins and needles, it’s like that, but not pins and needles. Pins and needles is very uncomfortable. This was glorious.
SID: You described it like honey.
RODNEY: Yeah. But it was like a river was flowing out of me. I was laughing, I was crying, and I was speaking in tongues all at the same time. I was beside myself.
SID: Now wait until you find out what happened to these evangelicals that think he’s a little meshuggah. That’s Hebrew for a little crazy. Guess what happens to these young kids. We’ll be right back.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth