Sid: How would you like your city red hot for the Messiah? I don’t mean just your local church I mean your entire city. I mean how about well stretch your faith, how about your entire state? Well, stretch your faith how about the entire United States of America. Sound impossible? God says “All things are possible to those who believe.” I have on the telephone George Otis, Jr. the Head of the Centennial Group. I’m speaking to him at their offices in Lynnwood, Washington. They’re the producers of Transformation. George does investigative reporting of entire cities, or nations, that are being transformed. Not just a little revival here, a little outpouring and blessing there but entire cities that are transformed and changed. Well my question is, if entire cities and nations are being transformed by the fastest growing religion in the world called Islam, whose god is not even the same… of the same magnitude as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob why can’t we believers that are true followers of the Living God have the faith to team up with God to pray this into being in our country? I mean do we have to just have a fatalistic type of view saying “Well, the United States isn’t mentioned in end time Bible prophesy it’s just going to be a third world country.” Or do we want to fight for our country, do we want to fight for our God, do we want to fight for our people? Well, George Otis says yes we can there are other countries that are doing this why can’t we. On yesterday’s broadcast we were talking about the nation of Uganda. George what happened there I mean most people know that you know the horrible situation the nation of Uganda was in with Idi Amin and it’s just the opposite today. Just real brief for those that are tuning in for the first time what’s it like today?
George: Well, Uganda’s not a perfect place and it’s important that we stress the fact that transformation is not a synonym of perfection but if you were to look at what Uganda was 20 years ago, 15 years ago and what it today you would be wondering if it was the same country. Uganda’s economy which had been broken and shattered to pieces during the conflicts under Idi Amin and his successor Milton Obote is now the third fastest growing economy in Africa. The HIV and AIDS epidemic which has been marching through the continent of Africa is being wrestled to the ground successful in Uganda today. We’re seeing church growth in this country that is absolutely off the charts. Just 1000’s and 1000’s of people coming into the kingdom of God. We’re seeing corruption political corruption being salted with great vigor. There’s even a new ministry there in the government called “The Ministry of Ethics and Integrity” headed by a woman named Miriam Matembe and I could go on and on and on about the things that have changed in that city. I know that the root of this is prayer; you will not find a country with more fervent prayer than Uganda. I went to back to back to back all night prayer meetings.
Sid: Now I know going to the former Soviet Union and Ukraine I see people that are willing to really pray all night.
George: Yeah.
Sid: I see people from which you’re telling from the nation of Uganda and in other countries that are willing to do it. I don’t see that much in the United States.
George: No as I said many times we’re not opposed to revival here we just want to pray for it in time slots that have already been set aside for religious observance. We are not willing to abandon ourselves to the process; we put up barrier around certain compartments of our life and we say “God you can speak to me on this side of the fence but not on that side, I will sit You on this room of my life but not in that one.” And in Uganda and up in the Canadian Arctic and in the city of Cali, Columbia, now in the nation of Fiji and Kiambu, Kenya in hundreds of other places where transformed revival is happening today people have place no limits on God. They’ve become so hungry, so desperate for the presence of God that they’ve abandoned themselves to the process. And as one Ugandan said “I’m going to seek the face of God and even if God doesn’t come I’d rather die seeking Him.” We are absolutely caught up in all kinds of lesser things with all kinds of shiny distracting toys in our western society. We’ve become as said a couple of days ago like the church at Laodicea and the church of Sardis that no longer realizes how far we’ve fallen off the mark.
Sid: But what’s going on now with the in the area of homosexuality, what is going on in the area of pornography, what is going on in the area of abortion, what is going on in the area of New Age, what is going on in the area of Islam invading our country. Isn’t that enough to cause people to say “Let’s lay down our differences and pray on a regular basis until God moves in this nation?”
George: Evidently, the unfortunate answer to that question is “No it isn’t.”
Sid: So what’s it going to take?
George: Well, there’s two ways that we can get desperate, one is by asking God to trouble us and to stir us into increase our appetite that are proven to attract his presence. The other way is that God in His mercy will trouble us from the outside through economic collapse, through removal of our peace or our prosperity so that we no longer have the same level of distractions that we had before. Now it doesn’t have to be that way, but if that comes we should understand that even if God isn’t causing these things He will allow them and He will allow them out of mercy to get us to the place where we will really call upon the one deliverer that’s capable of remedying our mess.
Sid: What happens with the dividing lines between denominations, dividing lines between charismatic and fundamental? In these other countries do these people come together and pray together?
George: You know I’m glad you asked that because one of the things that we have seen invariably in these transformation stories is a wonderful almost too good to be true unity amongst believers.
Sid: It’s got to be supernatural.
George: And it’s a… in the city of Cali, Columbia today we have one of the most marvelous examples of Biblical unity that you can imagine to the extent that a couple of years ago they had a large gathering of the people of God. The secular media came in to try to find, as Paul Harvey would say “The Rest of the Story” not believing that it was really this good. And when they couldn’t poke holes in the story they ended up with 4 full pages including the headline page in the cities newspaper El Pais talking about how the Christians in that city really loved one another. And I long for the day when I can pick up the Seattle times newspaper and read about the wonderful genuine extent of the unity of the Body of Christ there. We’re seeing the same thing in Fiji today where all of the denominations have come together under a kingdom umbrella called “The Association of Christian Churches in Fiji. And it’s Methodist, it’s Assembly of God, it’s Baptist, it’s Independent Charismatic all working in genuine affection and common cause realizing that they are one body and many members being jointly fitted together under the Head Jesus Christ to affect change. What happened in Fiji was interesting; the President and the great counsel of chiefs in that nation came to the Body of Christ and said “You know all of the problems that we’re seeing in our society the Ku De Ta and all of the economic problems, the violence; we believe that a lot of it stems from your disunity. And so the Church stung and chastened by this began to do a lot of soul searching “Why are these problems happening in our generation?” They pressed into God and realized that this was a prophetic word to them and they’ve gotten things taken care of and are now walking in genuine affection with one another. Most of us don’t know what real unity of Spirit is like we know only unity of faith or function which is more convenient than something that is rooted in a heart change. But God is capable of authoring this kind of supernatural unity it’s our inheritance and we need to walk in it and realize that pride is the main thing that keeps us a part.
Sid: What type of results are you getting from people that see the video “Transformation?”
George: Well probably within the first 6 months of the release of the first “Transformation Video” we had been contacted by about 1000 different towns and cities in the United States alone saying “We want to see this happen where we are.” Now we’re seeing this hunger spread all over the world, the videos have gone into 190 nations now; been viewed conservatively now by about 200 million people. And our ministry is modest in size and we are under, buried under many, many feet of snow. We have not been able as hard as we’ve been able to work to respond to the level of appetite, and hunger and interest…
Sid: George we’re out of time.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth