SID: Hello. Sid Roth here. Welcome to my world where it’s naturally supernatural. When my guest plays the keyboard, supernatural things happen. The atmosphere is changed supernaturally. I know this will be hard for you to believe, but amazing signs happen, miracles happen. Are you ready for your breakthrough? Now I have to tell you. When I find out about Steve Swanson’s background, it really, there’s something in me that I just, it’s so wonderful. You see, the music came naturally to him. His mother was a worship leader, his father was a pastor and he came to know the Lord at age six, filled with the Holy Spirit at age six. Age eight, he starts as a little kid leading worship. But that’s not the thing that excites me. The thing that excites me, Steve, is you had such a heart for God at such a young age. You would lock yourself in the church to just worship God. Tell me about that.
STEVE: Absolutely. Well the church was actually attached to our house, so you go two steps and you’re in the church. And so I would lock myself in there and just play the piano. I started playing when I was six years old and I just played and worshiped the Lord in the church, which was our house.
SID: But having that tender heart, at such a young age, it almost shocks me, to be candid with you, that the lure of fame and money, when you got into high school kind of drew you away from spiritual things. He even did some work in a studio. He was making a $1000 a minute.
STEVE: That’s right.
SID: And so you’re on a train and a total stranger, you know, you’re in the car where they serve a meal, and a total stranger sits at the table, doesn’t order any food. Very strange. But then she looks at you and what happens?
STEVE: We’re sitting in that dining car. She sits down. She had this flowing blond hair and she looks at me, and she points her finger at me, and she’s across the table, and she goes, “You’re running from God.”
Woman: Stop running from God.
STEVE: She didn’t have any food and as soon as she said that, she got up and left out the back of the train. Never saw her again.
SID: It does talk in the Bible of, “Watch and be entertained.” It may be an angel. Do you think that was angel?
STEVE: It came at the right time. That was an angel. That was an angel sent to me by God to tell me, to remind me that God had the call on my life.
SID: And there shortly thereafter, just a coincidence, he’s invited to play keyboards and worship at a church meeting, and they decide to pick on you. What happened?
STEVE: Yeah, they cornered me. It was a set up. It was a set up. They had me come in and play orchestra parts, string parts and things like that. And they had a gospel choir, and a gospel choir does something to my spirit.
SID: I agree.
STEVE: I just, I can’t contain myself. So after the meeting while I’m in tears after hearing the music, the music is touching me, and they saw that, and they go, this is our chance. And they corner me and they laid hands on me, and they prayed for a refilling of the Spirit. And I was on my knees weeping before God, and that was a transforming moment then.
SID: What were you feeling when they were doing that, after all those years of being so cold for the things of God?
STEVE: It felt warm again. It felt life again. I felt light. I could feel that light, that same light that I would go in the church there and worship as a little kid. I could feel that returning, and I was on my knees and I kept saying, “like a mighty rushing wind, like a mighty rushing wind”, and it was a mighty rushing wind.
SID: Okay. Then you go to a music conference. Kent Henry is there and then you went to another meeting where it happened to be your home church, he was there. What happened?
STEVE: I’m at that conference and I’m watching Kent sit at the piano, and I really thought I was dying because I saw my head on his body. I’m having a, you know, an out-of-body experience and I’m feeling this warmth again, this like golden thread encircling me. It was God showing me, you know, what was to be. And coincidentally he came to the church we were at after that and he started prophesying about songs and about the sounds over me just a few weeks later after that.
SID: Now you are a world class worship leader. I have to tell you, I’ve listened to your music. I love your music.
STEVE: Thank you.
SID: It literally brings me joy. But you said to me, shocking, he says, “Sid, you are called to be a psalmist. Everyone is called to be a psalmist. It’s not just the paid professional. What do you mean by that?
STEVE: We’re all called to release the power and the presence of God. We are called as worshipers. You don’t have to have a worship leader to do worship. You are a worshiper. You were created to worship God. That is part of your DNA as creator to creation. I mean, it’s, he’s so beautiful, he’s so wonderful you can’t help but worship.
SID: You had an insight that all of nature is worshiping God in harmony with Heaven. Explain that.
STEVE: I was recording a track and the Lord told me to put the sound of the cricket on this track. So I went online and found the sound of a cricket and I put it in my computer, and that allowed me to slow it down and speed it up. I put the cricket, I’m having fun, I’m playing cricket chords on my keyboard.
SID: I haven’t heard that before.
STEVE: I’m having fun with that. So he says, slow it down. I play it again and it sounds like birds. And then you can take it down, it sounds like owls, and then you take it down even further, it sounds like the sound of the whales, woo, woo. And he says, “See all of creation is singing the same song. They’re just singing in different octaves.” Hallelujah. This whole thing is going on around us all the time.
SID: I understand you even prayed for people to hear the sounds of Heaven.
STEVE: Absolutely. I told that to a gentleman and he, I prayed for him. I prayed for him, he’s sitting there and he goes, “I don’t hear it.” So I go, I don’t know. He went home and he called me back in about 30 minutes, and he calls, and he goes, “I can hear it! I can hear it!” I go, “Hear what?” “I can hear the sound of creation! Now how do you turn it off!”
SID: Now you say that when we worship it’s God inviting us to Divine encounters.
STEVE: Absolutely. Absolutely. God wants to meet with us. We always think that we’re coming to meet with God, but hey, he’s coming to meet with us. And there’s this Divine exchange that happens in worship where the more you give glory to the King of Glory, the more this exchange that happens, and there’s this invitation from God to come up to a higher place and just, he wants to show us things. He wants to show us.
SID: That’s like the dream you had. Tell me the dream.
STEVE: Yeah. I dreamed I was at a James Brown concert. And I’m sitting in the front row and he’s up there going, “Get on up! Get on up right now!” I got up on the platform and I say, “Stop!” And he goes, “What are you doing? What are you doing?” I said, “It’s not get on up, it’s come on up, you know like come on up here and I’ll show you some things.” And when I said that, this scroll rolled down and the verses for this song were unfurled right before me. And I wrote them down as soon as I woke up: “The door is standing open and seated on the throne surrounded by a rainbow” just unrolled right over the whole.
SID: Okay. I release you now to sing that song. And I’m telling you something, you’re about ready to come on up.
Steve [music, singing]: I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day. I suddenly heard a voice behind me say, come on up, come on up, come on up, I want to show you some things. Come on up, come on up, come on up, I want to show you some things. A door is standing open when seated on the throne, surrounded by a rainbow like a gleaming precious stone. His eyes were gleaming fire, his hair is white as snow. Angels, elders, preachers, call him holy, holy, holy is the Lord. I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day. I suddenly heard a voice behind me say, come on up, come on up, come on up, I want to show you some things. Come on up, come on up, come on up, I want to show you some things. I see his hair is crystal that’s mingled with fire. The sound of crashing thunder and the river of life.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth