Sid: My guest is red hot for the Messiah. I have on the telephone Heidi Baker from Mozambique, Africa. Yesterday you got a chance to meet her husband Rolland. And they have a ministry that has started some 5000 churches. They feed over 2000 orphans daily. Their ministry has seen some 17 people raised from the dead, every miracle that you can imagine that you can read about in the Bible that some say “I wonder if it was true?” You ought to go to Mozambique and you’ll see that every miracle in the Bible not only is true but it’s happening there today. Now Heidi, it doesn’t sound like you would be living the life you’re living being raised in southern California in a privileged community. It seems to me that we here in the west we’re with the creature comforts that we have if all of a sudden the United States of America would become a third world country even believers couldn’t take it. How do you take living the type of life you live in Africa compared to the way you started.
Heidi: Oh, I just… I love it, I love being where people are hungry for Jesus! I love being where people want Him. So for me my greatest challenge is coming to the western world.
Sid: Why?
Heidi: (Laughing) Because their less hungry, their less hungry for Him so often because they have so much stuff. The emphasis on stuff that it’s hard for them to be desperate and dying and running into the arms of God.
Sid: I mean we have more Bibles per square Christian than anyone in history, we have Christian television, Christian radio, Christian books, Christian cassettes, Christian music. We have almost everything is done for us, churches where it’s mostly entertainment sport and whoever’s got the best show in town that’s where we go. But most people spend their whole life just being fed, just getting fat.
Heidi: Well “Blessed are the poor in spirit for there’s is the Kingdom of heaven.” This is actual reality, those who are desperate and dying and hungry. They can be rich we’re not… just because we’re rich doesn’t mean we cannot get poor in spirit. We can if God does a supernatural work in our heart even amongst all of this stuff we can be desperate for Him. But what we see among the poor is this need, they know that they’re in need. They’re opposite of well fed, their opposite of proud, they’re humbled, they’re broken, they’re poured out. They’re desperate saying “God unless You do something I will die. Unless You do something I will die.” No hospital, no ambulance, nowhere to run to but Jesus and unless He comes and heals them they’re dead. And the Kingdom breaks forth for these people. So I just think that God has blessed us and given us poor and the children to teach us about His Kingdom.
Sid: Now, I’m sure you’re familiar with the scriptures that talk about the poor. In Isaiah I was reading this just this morning and I know that it’s probably a very important scripture in your life. But in Isaiah 50…
Heidi: Eight.
Sid: Yes, I’m turning to it right now, let me read this and it talks about fasting and a lot of Christians want to fast because they feel that they can get closer to God. But more importantly God will answer their prayer. But God says “This is the fast that I want.” And He says and picking up in the last part of the 7th verse. “Share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out, who are wandering, when you see the naked that you cover him; and not hide yourself from your own flesh. Then your light shall break forth like the morning. Then your healing shall speed forth speedily.” You know everyone is looking for keys to healing. I mean here in the west you go into the church there’s as many people sick as outside of the church. I really believe if you really wanted to state the missing key Heidi this is it. What would you say?
Heidi: Yeah absolutely it’s so clear it’s amazing because we were reading this talking on this very verse this morning so this is exciting to me. What kind of fasting are we to do? It’s to care, it’s to see. It’s to have eyes that are open and to stop for the dying and the hurting and the broken. And people wonder they talk about renewal dying and revival dying and it doesn’t die if we care. You know we say that there’s always enough but enough for what? Enough for the dying, enough for the broken and enough for the poor and if it’s just you and your family of four then you’ll be satisfied with a tiny bit with a little or you’ll just become fat. But God is saying “No, care, see, have a heart that is open and broken. Don’t turn the channel when you see dying and brokenness, but love like Jesus loves and care like He cares.” It’s true Christianity.
Sid: You know I promised the Mishpochah about how you and Rowland met but it goes back even before then. It goes back when you were in the 6th grade you had a teacher that had a major impact on your life. Tell me about her.
Heidi: Yes, I was just sitting there I loved God but didn’t know how to be born again and she suddenly, she had just come back from China and she put up these pictures of these dying old ladies in Hong Kong that lived in cages the poorest of the poor. And I said “God I want to help those ladies, I want to do something.” And I learned how to count in Chinese I said “Someday I’m going to go and I’m going to help those poor people, those hurting people.” And she talked about what God did and about miracles and about the poor. It was so amazing because years later I was working in the slums in Mexico City during a university break taking teams there. I was arrested, thrown in jail for preaching. And I’m there and I’m praying in church one day and the Lord spoke to me and said “One day you’re going to marry Rowland Baker.” And I was like “What?” I had never been on a date with Rowland Baker. So I got back from Mexico City, I didn’t tell Rowland but he came to my office in the university and we began to talk and pray together. Went out to lunch once, I was worshiping Jesus my hands were lifted up, I was worshiping and worshiping the Lord and the Lord said “Tonight he’s going to ask you to marry him.” And it was time for curfew I had to be back in my dorm and just then he asked me to marry him and we got married after 1 date. We got married and he said to me one day just before we were married that his parents were ready to go back to China. So we were going to meet them and showed up at this little church and said “This is my mother Mrs. Baker.” And I said “Mrs. Baker” and she said “Heidi.” And it turned out that his mother was my six grade school teacher.
Sid: (Laughing) Now tell me God didn’t have His hand on the two of you getting together. That is such a wonderful story. But you did a teaching that I saw on the Sermon on the Mount that I have… I’ll tell you what you used a phrased “You got ruined.” God ruined you.
Heidi: Yes.
Sid: You ruined me Heidi. I saw real Christianity. I heard real Christianity, I don’t care for the religious stuff anymore, it doesn’t have any interest to me. If you would teach the balance of this week what God has shown you on the Sermon of the Mount. I really want our Mishpochah to understand this.
Heidi: Bless your heart. Well it’s from the beatitudes Matthew 5 and really the children and the poor have taught me how to understand this. And they have taught me more about God and more about His presence and more about His love than any well-known speaker I have ever met. And so if it’s okay with you I’d like to just share their stories because their stories have taught me about the beatitudes and what it means to really love.
Sid: Hey, guess what? We are right in the center of God’s will right now. His Spirit is starting to pour out and you can start I don’t know how far we’ll get today but please start and tell their stories.
Heidi: Well I began with “Blessed are the poor in spirit because there’s is the kingdom of heaven.” We were ministering doing dance, dramas around the world and seeing 1000’s of people coming to the Lord every night. And one day the Lord really spoke to both Rowland and me and just spoke to us and said “Stop, stop what you’re doing.” And your first reaction is to say “Get behind me Satan.” I mean why would God tell you to stop doing these crusades, these huge meetings. And He did He said “Stop, I want you to sit with the poor, I want you to sit with the broken.” And he sat us in Hong Kong, we moved into the slums and we sat with the poor and they taught us about the kingdom of heaven. They taught us about what it means to really love and what it means to really be desperate and hungry and really need God. And for 20 years we’d been sitting with the poor just learning about the kingdom of heaven breaking forth for the poor, breaking forth for the desperate, breaking for the humble. And it says “Blessed are those who mourn because they shall be comforted.” There’s this little girl when I look at this I always think of her. Her names Constancia, she was the saddest little girl I’ve ever seen in my life. She broken and dying, she’d been raped, she’d been beaten, she was abandoned on the bakery stairs in Shahongo in Mozambique where we…
Sid: Heidi, we’re out of time. We’ll pick up right here on tomorrow Mishpochah.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth