Sid: You know what’s going on Mishpochah? I have Kevin Dedmon on the phone and I said, “Let’s talk about the keys of supernatural joy and my engineer is laughing so much that I can’t figure out what’s going on.
Kevin: Ha-ha.
Sid: But anyway I’m not going to give my standard introduction, this is Sid Roth and I’m speaking to Kevin Dedmon and Kevin, you teach on joy in a way that I’ve never seen before. I’ve seen supernatural joy, but you teach way beyond supernatural joy. You show people how to get into joy even if everything in their life is exploding the wrong way!
Kevin: Ha-ha, that’s right.
Sid: Teach us a little bit about joy.
Kevin: Well, for me joy starts in God’s presence, in His presence is fullness of joy and so for me whenever the Holy Spirit is present joy is just the outcome of that. When the angel came to announce Jesus’ birth he said, “Hey I’ve got good news of great joy!” Isaiah 61 verses 3 & 7 “The promise that the Messiah would come with was joy, the oil of gladness, everlasting joy.” When Jesus came in contact with John the Baptist while Jesus was in Mary’s womb and John the Baptist was in Elizabeth’s womb and as soon as they came in contact with each other “John leapt for joy in Elizabeth’s womb and actually in the Greek that word is skirtao which actually means John threw a party in Elizabeth’s womb. Everywhere Jesus went he brought joy, he had Joy continual joy, in fact in Luke in Chapter 6:21 Jesus promised this He said, “Happy are those that weep now before the Kingdom comes for they will laugh.” And of course in Psalm 2:4 we’re taught that He who is in the Heavens laughs, He who is enthroned in the Heavens laughs and that’s God laughing, it wasn’t like He laughed one time and said, “Okay that is good enough for eternity.” No, He continually laughs and the context there is that He looks at the strategies and the plots and the ploys of the devil of the enemy and His response is ha-ha-ha-ha and He laughs. And so for me I’ve just seen how that laughter not only brings the Kingdom, but it brings breakthrough in peoples’ lives and I see supernatural miracles happening as people laugh. It’s the prescription of Heaven; it’s the medicine of Heaven.
Sid: Well what, do you recommend that people just laugh because of the goodness of God in their life? The fact that their born again, the fact that they’re going to be in Heaven, the fact that they can experience God’s presence and His healing miracles. That they can just laugh as a matter of their will?
Kevin: Well, you know that everything we do in the Kingdom is a matter of choice, right? We have the fruit of self control like David in Psalm 103, He said, “Saul, you will bless the Lord,” I know you don’t feel like it, you know and that’s my interpretation. You don’t feel like it, but you are going to do it because I’m controlling you. And that’s the self control fruit that we have in our lives, we can choose to take advantage of any of the resources of Heaven. Like for example, forgiveness is a choice that we make and we must choose as Christians to forgive when we’ve been offended; it doesn’t feel right to forgive at first, because you really believe that they deserve death or justice from Heaven. But even if you don’t feel like forgiving its right to forgive so we make a choice by faith to do what’s right according to the Kingdom. And so you know we learn to serve, we learn to love even when we don’t feel like it. And so a lot of people when I say, “Listen you know you need to make a choice to laugh in your in your life.” And their response is, “Well, I don’t feel like laughing.” Well, do what you tell everybody else to do, we don’t live by feelings we live by faith. Everything in the Kingdom we do is a matter of faith; we love by faith, we forgive by faith, we serve by faith, we give by faith. And when you begin to give it get’s measured back to you that which you have given away. And we do that through choice, through our self control.
Sid: Give me an example of where laughter releases the healing of God; for instance how about the woman that was in kidney failure.
Kevin: Oh yes, this was a woman who was brought to me at the end of a healing conference that I was doing. Actually it was the first night I was there, was at the end of the meeting they brought her up to me and I asked her what she wanted and she said, “Well, I really would like to be healed, but I don’t think I can be.” I asked, “Why not?” And she said, “Well, I’ve had kidney failure for the last few years and for the last three months I haven’t been able to take care of my two teenage daughters and my husband because I’ve been bed ridden because of this kidney failure.” And she looked like she was sixty years old, she was only like thirty-eight years old I found out later and she said, “I finally succumbed and went down and I put my name on the list for a kidney transplant and my relatives who are elders at another church they told me I have now lost all possibility of ever being healed because of my lack of faith by putting my name on the kidney transplant list.” And I looked at her and I said, “No way! Your faith is standing right here right now, and in fact I see God smile all over you. More than that, He’s actually dancing around you and He’s singing and He’s rejoicing over you; more than that He’s laughing over you!” And just at that moment I put my hand on her head and she began to laugh and I began to laugh just like gut splitting laughter and after about three minutes she says “I’m on fire, I’m on fire; fan me off, fan me off.” And her husband’s behind her fanning her off and with this going on and we’re laughing and she’s saying fan me off, for about another five minutes or so. And finally she said, “It’s in my feet, it’s in my feet, fan me off,” and her husband’s on the floor fanning off her feet. And then she, now she had come up with the help of two other ushers and her husband, she couldn’t hardly even stand up, she couldn’t sit down into her chair on her own without help, let alone get up out of a chair. She was just totally debilitated from this kidney failure that she had. She jumps up and does this like Michael Jordan meets Bruce Lee kick up in the air and starts running around me saying, “I’m healed, I’m healed, I’m healed. And sure enough she goes back to the Kidney Transplant Center the next Monday, the doctors come in and they can’t figure out why she’s already got a kidney, a brand new kidney and they didn’t do a transplant. God gave her a brand new kidney as we just laughed and that was an amazing…
Sid: I love the stories you have about creative miracles, tell me about that person that had just a nub for a thumb.
Kevin: Oh yeah, that was amazing! This guy comes up to me after a meeting and he asks, “Well, hey can you go after a creative miracle?” And I just responded, “Well sure, why not?” And so he holds up his left hand and his left thumb is missing he had cut it off with a skill saw so that you know all that was left was a little nub over his knuckle. He was missing the other knuckle and his thumb nail obviously, he had no thumb. And so I just grabbed on to this nub and just started laughing and because it was impossible, it’s like when Abraham was told, “Hey you are are going to be a father of a nation,” and he’s way beyond his years to have children. His response is “Ha-ha-ha, yeah” and Sarah, the same thing and God even says, “Hey Sarah, you were laughing, weren’t you,” and she says, “No, I wasn’t,” and He says “Yeah, you were.” And you know I believe they were actually in the hall of faith in Hebrews 11 because they laughed. In fact they even named their son, Laughter. And I think laughter is just one of those conduits of the Kingdom; it’s the lubricant of the Kingdom. The Kingdom comes through laughter and in His presence is fullness of joy.
Sid: The name Isaac means laughter.
Kevin: Yes, Isaac means laughter. And so I grabbed on to this man’s nub and I just started laughing and I laughed for about three minutes, let go of it and we’re both looking at his hand like, “Was that the right hand? Like the left hand, is that the right hand?” And we’re stunned because the thumb had fully grown out; the guy’s looking at it and he’s looking both at his left and his right thumb and he realizes that he’s got a brand new thumb. He’s like jumping up and down and you know holding his thumb out. “I’ve got a brand new thumb, I’ve got a brand new thumb,” but he was missing his thumb nail. So I called three of our team over and these are students at the School of Supernatural Ministry here at the Bethel Church in Redding, California. And we teach our students that they can do anything and so anything that Jesus asked ask to do and so I said, “Okay now give him a new thumb nail.” So they did what any good revivalist would do and they grabbed on to his thumb that had now fully grown out and they just started laughing. And they laughed over him for three minutes and then the white part of the thumb nail started, it had grown out as though the rest of it now would grow naturally and sure enough it has. I heard from the pastor recently that this guy is now going all through his county showing everybody his brand new thumb and his brand new grown out thumb nail that he has to trim regularly.
Sid: I think it’s so amazing some of the keys that God has shown you for healing.