Sid: My guest is red hot for the Messiah. If you went to heaven you’d be red hot for the Messiah too. He says he just spent 6 hours in the natural time in heave, but when he came back it felt like he was there for weeks, and being taught things. See because there is no time in heaven. He had so much downloaded into him. Tell me about when you were brought back to heaven; you literally thought you were dying, and you went to heaven you begged God to let you come back and live and get things right. It wasn’t that you wanted to leave heaven, it just that you knew that you had to get things right. He granted that to you, then for 6 hours you were in heaven. Tell me what you remember.
Rich: You know the number one thing that happened to me is I became aware how much God entrusted us, how much is there to do for God and His kingdom; how little do we actually accomplish, the much that we think we have done is really little compared to how much God has for us. That’s one of reasons I said “God let me go back and make it right.” Number 2 I remember was the Lord restored me the power of His restoration by His word, by His voice. Because when looked at me, suddenly He said to me “Why have you allowed what people say?” He was asking me this “Why did you allow what people said to you, and what people did to you to get you away? Don’t you know I was the one with you since you were a child?” As He begins to describe events, I’m having a visual of the events that He was with me through my life, but I had no idea He was with me. Car accidents, sports accidents, little decisions that I made that I thought it was me and if was life significant, and so on, and so on. As He was speaking this to me, suddenly His words, His voice, the words coming out of His mouth, it was like a waterfall that was cleaning my insides. By the time He says “Now from this time on you follow Me, and you obey Me. I will take you to places where no one else will take you away from Me.” When He finished saying this I was completely delivered from bitterness, from anger, from resentment, and I was filled with the love of Jesus in such a way that every person that did me wrong I wanted to run to them and kiss them, and hug them, and embrace them, and carry them. Because God replaced that bitterness with the love of God.
Sid: You know what, I have observed that just by talking to you several times on the telephone. We’ll talk about someone perhaps is on television, has an international ministry that is saying one thing, but living a different type of life, and you’re able to see this. I was wondering how can you act so loving towards them; this is the way we should normally operate as opposed to… I was pondering that. Here you know all the secrets of these men’s hearts, you know their sins and you’re still loving them. How do you do that?
Rich: You see it’s the love of Jesus. The scriptures says that “The love of God is shed on our hearts by the Holy Spirit.” We cannot love people, we cannot love God if God does not cause us to love. The scriptures says “We love Him because He first loved us.” When we try to love people with our natural love there will always be an opportunity for us to be offended and to doubt it. When the love of God is put on the inside of us the words of sinners, and the words of people there is such a flow; absolutely the worst the person is the more the love of God wants to be manifested. I experience that because I didn’t have that on my own, I never been the loving type of emotional person; that wasn’t me I was a teenager; I was a kid who got saved and had an attitude in the world, and loved to fight, and suddenly here God is putting love in his heart and bringing me to people that have incredible flaws, because God can trust me that I would love them. Many times by showing the love of God I’ve seen restoration of their lives, their ministries. Suddenly things… all they needed for was the love of God to be manifested. That’s one of the greatest thing the Lord can do is through His love; He sets us free.
Sid: Now you met a number of people I’ve only read about in the Bible, most people have only read about in the Bible. You’ve met Jeremiah, Moses, Elijah, Peter… What did you learn from Peter I’m curious?
Rich: I learned from Peter one thing, first of all I ask him “How was it like that your shadow healed the sick. I mean tell me about it.” He says “It was not my shadow like you think your shadow is, it was the cloud of the glory of God that hovered over Peter.” When people saw that they thought it was Peter’s shadow, but actually Peter was full of the glory of God, and it was the shadow of the glory of God that when he went through people, did incredible miracles. Peter was a man after denying the Lord, what we know of him. Suddenly he came to a place of death to self, it was no longer Peter doing what he wanted, but it was Jesus ruling his life. Literally he became a controlled individual by the Spirit of God.
Sid: You know here in the west Rich, we do not know a phrase that you just rattled off your lips, and that is “Die to self.” What does that really mean?
Rich: You know I have experienced that, and you grow in levels of this. Die to self in the scriptures means you yield your will, you yield yourself, you yield your desires, you yield who you are completely to Jesus and come to a place of total surrender “Lord it’s not what I want to do, it’s not who I want to be, it’s not how I want to do it.” I say “It’s how you want it and what you want.” This is a process that the Holy Spirit takes you, nobody can die by saying “I’m gonna die to self.” It begins with surrendering to the Spirit of God, and it takes you to that place where He cancels your presence, and presence of God becomes your presence. That’s the greatest achievement any believer can have.
Sid: As you’re sharing this I feel such a presence of God, but it’s not the normal presence I feel, it’s a power that’s the only way I can… it’s a tangible power I’m feeling in my whole body as you’re speaking right now. Now I know you know things, what am I feeling?
Rich: You know when I speak about this because it was such a real experience. Almost every time I speak about it I can be almost transported back to that experience without leaving my body…
Sid: Now that’s what I was thinking. Now tell me a bit about Isaiah because he wrote a chapter that you told me is significant because he taught you from it. To me in the entire Old Testament the most graphic presentation of Jesus is the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. I mean to me that could be one of the Gospels it’s so wonderful and so filled with revelation. The truth is it was written 8-900 years before Jesus even came to earth. Tell me what he told you about Isaiah the 53rd chapter, that’s what I want to know.
Rich: Yes my first introduction I had with Isaiah… when I was walking with the Lord I had a million questions because I could still use my mind and think like I thought down here, and I wanted to ask a million questions about the gifts of the Spirit, the working of miracles, prophecy works; this is the gifts God has given to me so I wanted to know; the Lord wouldn’t answer my questions, all He kept telling me is about… talking about His glory. I go “I know Lord, but I want to know this” then suddenly this individual comes from behind, but when I saw him he didn’t tell me who he was, instantly I knew who he was and he knew me. So when you go to heaven you will be known, and you will know everybody… nobody has to say “Hi my name is Sid, my name is Rich” you just know people like as you know them all your lives. When he came and I saw him, his introduction line was Isaiah chapter 6, and he came from behind and uttered these words “I saw the Lord, He was high and lifted up, and sitting on His throne. The train of His robe filled the temple.” It was like that was his introduction line. When he’s saying this to me, I instantly went into a vision. Now this is what I learned about the voice of God Sid, when God talks you don’t only hear something, you see something. The voice of God is an audio and a video at the same time. That’s why prophetic people where they say “Well I see this” well you’re not seeing, you’re hearing something, but you’re seeing. So when He spoke I could hear His words and I could see it. Suddenly I see this mountain, and way on this mountain on high there was a palace. On the palace it was covered half by a very dark cloud it looked like a rain cloud it was about to pour. When he said “I saw the Lord high and lifted up” and this palace was semi-floating on the mountain. Suddenly me, I said “Well I’m going to run up real fast up the mountain and try to touch it, and come down.” So I begin to run, and the more I run up the mountain the higher it got. I stopped and suddenly will stop. I run up and it will go up, and I understood when Isaiah said “I saw the Lord high and lifted up.” It was like the same word, but it was high, but it keeps being exalted it keeps going up. The worship of His people; the praise the love of His people it keeps exalting it put it in a position of greatness. Suddenly when I saw this, and I realized I couldn’t get to it, I saw a door open from the front and this river came down. Suddenly when this river came down, I looked at it and it looked like the water was alive, the water was thick as liquid chocolate, but the river was gold. When it started rolling I saw this scrolls and this waves that they almost look like a cartoon, it didn’t look like a normal water. Suddenly the voice of the Lord comes from behind and says “The river of life whose streams are flowing bring healing, and everything that He touches it heals…
Sid: Woops! I’m sorry we’re out of time…
