SID: Hello. Sid Roth here. Welcome to my world where it’s naturally supernatural. My guest was a pastor for ten years of a spiritual congregation and never heard the voice of God and he got desperate, and he had a visitation and he was given four keys that he says a hundred percent of the people that will do what he says can hear God as well as him, if not better. Anyone interested? I’m so excited to talk to Dr. Mark Virkler because Dr. Virkler heard from God supernatural on how every true believer can do what the Bible says could be normal, normal as defined by the Bible, hear God’s voice daily for themselves. Now there was a time, Mark, when you as a pastor in a spirit-filled church did not hear God’s voice. What did you do about it?
MARK: I struggled for ten years and I tried everything that I thought would work. I read more scripture. That didn’t work. I fasted longer. That didn’t work. I asked people who heard God’s voice, “What does it sound like?” They said, “Well you just know that you know.” And I said, “No, I don’t know, which is why I’m asking you. That doesn’t help me at all. Tell me what his voice sounds like.” And no one could explain what God’s voice sounded like, and everything I tried didn’t work. I went to Bible college, got a degree, I got ordained as a minister. All those things are supposed to work, I thought.
SID: So he got desperate and he decided, I’m going to take a year and do nothing but pray that I hear God’s voice and do as much study as I can. And he got desperate, and as he got desperate, about six months in, suddenly what happened?
MARK: The Lord woke me up about five o’clock in the morning with a booming bass voice, which is the only time in my entire life I heard a booming bass. But he said, “Mark, get up. I’m going to teach you to hear my voice.” And I bolted straight up in bed, I went over to my office and I sat down with my Bible, and he led me to Habakkuk 2:1 and 2, and he showed me four things that Habakkuk did that allowed him to hear the voice of God, to see vision and to write out page after page of what God was saying to him.
SID: Let me tell you what happened when he started hearing God’s voice. Let’s start with your marriage. What happened to your marriage?
MARK: Well my wife said that her marriage improved greatly when I began to hear God’s voice.
SID: I could understand that.
MARK: And it’s because, you know, the Lord in my journal would say, “Mark,” he would say, “love your wife.” And I’d say, “I’m going to as soon as I fix her.” And he said, “No, I didn’t say to fix her. I said love your wife.” I said, “I’m going to as soon as I fix her.” He said, “Mark, love your wife.” Fifty times he told me to love my wife just the way she was without trying to change her personality, make her more like me. He said, “She’s fine the way she is.” And I mean, this is like Christianity 101. You just honor people and love them.
SID: Okay. Your children, how did it affect your relationship there, or with them?
MARK: Well at that point, we had brought a teenage girl into our home, like a foster child. She had run away from her parents’ home and her parents went to our church, and they let us bring her into our home. She’s breaking all the household rules, acting very rebellious and I’m really upset with her. And I wanted to just kind of punch her out in Christian love and say, “Look, if you’re going to stay here, you need to keep these rules.” And so before I did, I journaled and I said, “Lord, what about this girl?” And as the Lord spoke, he said, “She’s very insecure.” I said, “Really?” And he said, “Yeah. I want you to love her unconditionally.” And I said, “Really?” Because I had a lot of conditions. Here’s my rules. Here’s my rules.
SID: You were going to do the exact opposite of what God knew was the key to her heart.
MARK: Yeah. Because I was looking at the outside façade of rebellion. God was looking at the wounded heart of insecurity and saying, “Minister to her heart, not her outer façade.” And so he had me [relate] to the true part of her. It made me a better parent and instantly improved my relationships with everybody.
SID: Okay. How did it change you in ministry?
MARK: Well in ministry, I learned that I could preach from flow, I could counsel from flow, I could teach from flow. And the Lord said, “Mark,” he said, “your teaching style will be transformed…”
SID: Excuse me. You’re using a term, “flow.” What is that?
MARK: Flow, that is one of those four keys that God taught me that morning. He says his voice sounds like flowing thoughts and his vision comes as flowing pictures. And the scripture verse backs it up. Jesus said, “Out of your inner most being shall flow rivers of living water.” This, he spoke in the Spirit. So when we want to tune to the Holy Spirit with this, we sense him as a flow. So flowing words, flowing thoughts is his voice. Flowing visions are, flowing pictures are his vision. And I didn’t know that because I had no theology from flow. So I began to speak from flow. I began to think in flow. I began to counsel from flow.
SID: So how did your messages get different as a result?
MARK: Well the more fun-loving and less rigid or less control, less law, instead of, here’s a Bible verse, see if you can keep it and if you cannot, I’ll beat you and I’ll whip, you know, I noticed Jesus wasn’t doing that with me. He would never. And I asked him. I said, “Don’t you want to hit me for sinning here?” He said, “No, it’s covered by the blood. It’s fine. It’s a learning curve mistake. Don’t worry about it. Let’s press on. It’s fine.” And because he treated me that way, I began to preach that way. And yeah, we make some mistakes. That’s okay. It’s learning curve mistakes. And I didn’t preach harsh law anymore. Here’s a law, try to keep it. I’d preach who Jesus was inside of you, learning to attune to him, and flow in and out of him.
SID: His Word says, “My sheep, hear my voice.” And you were going to hear God’s voice. We’ll be right back.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth