Sid: I have on the telephone someone whose doing what he’s supposed to do he’s provoking this Jewish man to jealousy because I’m speaking to SJ Hill who is in a city in Hawaii it’s called Princeville. SJ you’re provoking me to jealousy just like the Bible says you’re supposed to.
SJ: (Laughing) Well thank you Sid it’s great being with you; I love the beauty of Hawaii it reminds me of the beauty of God.
Sid: But you know you just got back from a country that I didn’t tell you this it’s one of my favorite countries because they have just restocked their Jewish population, Russian Jews are actually it’s the country of choice even over Israel if they can’t get into the United States is Germany. And you were telling me you find out that someone had a major healing miracle while you were there; tell me about it.
SJ: Yes, I was actually doing a woman’s conference along with some individual meetings in different churches in the northern part of Germany. I found out afterwards that we had prayed for a young woman who had scoliosis and severe spinal condition. And since praying for her she had actually grown at least two inches. And I met her a couple of days after the conference and looking at her from the back it was amazing how much straighter her spine was. And you know I was just blown away; if I wouldn’t had known better I would have never thought that she had scoliosis because one of my nieces has had that and had to have a serious operation to try and straighten her back. So…
Sid: Do you know that there is a healing anointing on you speaking right now and it’s going through the airwaves? There is literally a Spirit of healing and renewal that is just coming over the airwaves right now. And I wouldn’t be surprised SJ that as we’re speaking people without us even praying people are going to be… In fact I just heard it people’s backs, that’s what you were talking about spines and backs are being healed. In fact there is someone if you would start walking you’d fine that your hip has been totally restored in Jesus Name. SJ I was very excited to meet you by telephone because of your book which is really almost new, it’s less than a year old it’s called “Burning Desire” subtitled “The Story of God’s Jealous Love For You.” Because my wife is doing a very intense reading of the Bible, Old and New Covenant, and she said to me the other day, “You know I just never realized it but it appears as though that God acts so differently in the Old Covenant and the New Covenant; in the Old Covenant He’s going around killing 1000’s of people for disobedience in the Old Covenant He’s doing that. In the New Covenant He’s a God of forgiveness and love. And He seems so different, what would you have said to her if she said that to you?
SJ: I think first of all we have to look at the Older Covenant from a bridal perspective, this is one of the biggest burdens that I have. One of the passions of my heart is to teach on the Father heart of God, but I run into people all over the world who say “Well, you’re telling me that God is a Father and He not only loves me, but He likes me. But what do I do with the God of the Old Testament; I know that they’re one of the same but it looks like He’s ticked off all the time and angry.” And yet the bridal paradigm of the Kingdom especially as revealed through the older covenant to me is the key to understanding what we’re reading in the scriptures. God is a jealous lover, and I say that in the purest of senses; He reveled Himself to Israel as her husband and without understanding that we will never have a clear understanding of His judgments, His anger which is really nothing more than His righteous indignation. I think that we have to come back to the fact that God’s primary emotion is love, it’s not anger; that’s why the prophets throughout the older covenant talked about temporary judgment, temporary anger in comparing it to His loving kindness that endures forever. So in a nutshell we’ve got to see the scriptures as a divine eternal romance between God and human beings; in particular between God and a nation that He chose for Himself. And throughout the older covenant Israel is often referred to as His wife and without understanding that, without understanding her unfaithfulness and what God perceived to be spiritual adultery you’ll never understand His burning passion and jealousy for His wife.
Sid: For those that are not familiar with this SJ Hill. He’s taught on being connected with the best Bible Schools in America. He was on the faculty of the Brownsville Revival School of Ministry, professor Emeritus at the Fire School of Ministry, he’s been on staff at Mike Bickle’s Forerunner School of Prayer. What you’re talking about SJ is something that so few Bible believers understand and yet you can’t put the older as you put it, the older covenant and the new covenant together as God really wanted it put together. What you’re talking about is like a missing ingredient to most Christians, why is this?
SJ: Well, I believe that we’re trying to understand an eastern book through a western world view you know without getting too heavy. Within 150 years of the death of the disciples the early church fathers knowingly or unknowingly started introducing Greek Philosophy into the early church. And I think that has done as much damage as anything to the body of Christ over the centuries because we’re trying to understand the scriptures through Greek Philosophy and a western world view. And you know to the Greeks God was a distant and aloof, He was not emotional; for Him to be touched with human emotion would make Him less than God, it would bring Him down to our level. And so when you start taking the emotion out of the equation the passion of God’s heart for human beings, His burning jealousy and love for those who are His, then the scriptures especially the older covenant become boring, it becomes dull; it become archaic and outdated and then we have a hard time putting His love together with His judgments. And one of the things that burns in my heart Sid is for a generation to really get this. You know before Jesus comes back I believe that He wants a bride who’s passionately loving Him. You know not doing stuff out of religious duty and obligation. And without the bridal understanding of the scriptures and not realizing the human history as we know it began with a wedding and human history as we know it is going to conclude with a wedding. That’s spoken of in Revelation Chapter 19. Without understanding that the Bible the scripture were meant to be seen as a sacred romance this stuff becomes dull, it becomes unattractive, we end up doing the right things for the wrong reasons. We’re trying to give our hearts to rules, regulations; it becomes more about discipline and duty than a response of love and so you know this stuff burns in me. I just get totally stoked, excited whatever word you want to use because I want to see the Jewish people, I want to see the Gentiles come alive in the passion of God. I really believe that God has been totally misunderstood especially from what is revealed in the older covenant. And so I’m really glad that we’re having a chance to talk today on the phone.
Sid: Tell me a bit about your background where did this love for the Jew in Israel this understanding, and then piggybacking of how this understanding developed of the Whole wedding which is Greek, it’s foreign for most of our listeners.
SJ: Yes, well I was raised in a very conservative denomination my dad was a Pastor and grew up in a church so that’s all I’ve known. I was baptized in the Holy Spirit in 1970 during the Jesus people movement. My parents raised me always to have a love for Israel; we felt that Israel was the Apple of God’s eye; I knew very early on in my Christian experience that we as Gentiles had been grafted into the tree Israel. I’ve never just taken Old Testament promises or older covenant promises and tried to just try to apply them to my own life without understanding that these promises were primarily made to Israel.
Sid: Boy you are unique, but you’re also speaking truth.
SJ: Yeah, yeah. But you know it’s just something that over time the Holy Spirit has developed in me. I’ve been to Israel now three times, I would go back tomorrow if I had a chance to.
Sid: What affect does it have on someone, I know it’s new it’s less than a year old but you’ve been teaching on this subject of the story of God’s jealous love for people. What affect does it have on when someone captures this message?
SJ: Well, it changes their whole view of the scriptures, I mean what I hear continually from people that when they put my book enjoying God together with burning desire what I hear continually Sid is that it’s like reading a new Bible. The judgments of God, the Old Testament prophets are totally misunderstood you know to a lot of people the prophets are these hardcore individuals who love to get into people’s faces with a turn or burn message. They had these long pointed bony fingers and I tell young people especially that the prophets literally felt the broken heart of God; to what degree we don’t know. But they literally felt the burning jealousy of God’s heart for an adulterous wife called Israel. And yet God raised them up to whew this adulterous wife back to Himself and He would judge her in her sin. But I like to put it this way, God judged everything that hindered love. I think what’s coming on the earth in the days to come is really going to be an expression of that. He’s going to judge everything that…
Sid: Listen the whole paradigm, your whole paradigm is going to change when you read this book “Burning Desire.” And your hunger for an intimacy with a God that is madly in love with you; your whole paradigm will change.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth