0:00 He said, why don't we take your books out to behind Berman Hall into the forest and have a bonfire. I burned my Ellen White books. And I looked at, in the mirror, I looked at myself and I felt powerful. I looked powerful. And they were saying, no, don't do that. Don't, whatever you do, don't pray for the Holy Spirit. And I just said out loud, I said, Satan, you're not going to have me. I'm not going where you're going. I am a Holy Spirit made man. Wow, what was that? Was that the Lord? Did God just talk to my conscience way down inside me, telling me to pray for the Holy Spirit? Pastor Steve, you mentioned some dark days in your testimony. I'd really like to dig in further into that and understanding what happened in your testimony and what happened with not only your past, but also spiritualism inside that.
0:58 Can you tell us a little bit more? Can you tell us a little bit more about what happened there? Sure, yeah. It's a very personal story. As I mentioned in the last segment we did, I grew up in a Jewish home in the Hollywood Hills, got sucked into the Hollywood, North Hollywood life as a teenager. And then when I was 20 years old, I started reading the Bible. And eventually I read Desire of Ages. And I was just, my heart was captured by the Garden of Gethsemane. And I started seeing the justice of God and the mercy of God in Christ's sufferings. And that just drew me to Jesus. And then I got on my knees and I prayed and I accepted him as my savior. I don't remember exactly what I prayed, but it was something like, Lord, get me out of the life that I'm in and forgive me and help me.
1:50 And so he did. And that was the beginning of my Christian journey when I was 20 years old in 1979. Everything changed. My friends changed. My school changed. My reading, my books, everything. But unknown to me, there were, what should I say, there were depths of Satan's influence in my mind and in my heart that I was completely oblivious to. So even though I gave up the rock and roll, I gave up the nightclubs, I gave up the discos, the dancing. The cocaine, the marijuana, the LSD, the angel dust, the drinking, all that, you know, it's all, it's amazing I'm still alive. I gave all that up and I landed at La Sierra, which is an Adventist school in Southern California. And I started taking classes for the ministry. So the first two or three years of my Christian life was just like a wonderland.
2:54 My eyes were opened. God was real. I was reading the Bible. I was sharing my faith. I was now in a Christian school. I got good grades. After three years at La Sierra, I was hired by the Central California Conference and they sent me as a young pastor, a young intern to Bakersfield, California, where I worked for a year. And then at the end of that year, my conference president walked up to me one day and he said, Steve, are you ready to go to the seminary? I said, sure. So they sent me to Andrews. It was for two years where I got my, I guess what's called the MDiv, which literally means Master of Divinity. And I've subsequently thought about that title. You know, who can be a Master of Divinity? This doesn't sound like the right title. But anyway, when I got to, so three years at La Sierra and my year in Bakersfield as a pastor.
3:54 Little by little by little my Christian experience started suffering. It was a gradual thing. And I felt like I wasn't as close to God as I was when I first accepted Jesus. I didn't sense his presence in my life like I did at the beginning. And also, reading the Bible, little by little it became more difficult for me to read the Bible. Or at least to understand it. I got to Andrews, I had two years. I was living in a dorm, Berman Hall in Berrien Springs, Michigan. And the first year was a real struggle for me. And I remember reading Desire of Ages again and going through the chapter on Gethsemane. And it just seemed like it was distant from me. I didn't understand that, and it bothered me. Because I'm by nature kind of a sensitive person, intuitive, and I don't want to just go through the motions of my Christian life. I want to sense a relationship with God. And I was having a hard time with that. And so at one point when I was at Andrews, the first year, I remember the tension in my conscience just was, growing, and it just was wearing on me. And I got sick. Two weeks, I was on my back. And the doctors, whoever it was, a doctor diagnosed me with mononucleosis, which is kind of, they say it's a college disease. I heard that somewhere. And so I was out for two weeks, couldn't even get out of bed. But thankfully, I recovered and was able to catch up on my classes and keep going.
5:45 The second year, that I was at the seminary, I had a roommate that I knew at La Sierra, and now he came to Andrews studying in the seminary as well. And he was having challenges in his life, too. And he was reading books on Christian psychology, you know, trying to help himself. And so the two of us were friends, and he started recommending certain books that I would read, too, to try to help figure my life. And that's how I got out. And I have gone public with this before, so I might as well do it again. I wrote a, actually gave a sermon once at Eden Valley in Colorado, and the title was, I Burned My Ellen White Books. And I shared that. Actually, I shared the message, and people were so moved by it that we had recorded it, put it, had it as a CD, and I sent it to AudioVerse. And people listened to it on AudioVerse, and they were very moved. And actually a friend of mine that I knew later on he said Steve, you need to go public with this story, you need to share this. People need to hear this. So back to Andrews, my roommate saw that I was struggling with the Spirit of Prophecy. As I'm reading, because I was reading the Sorrow of Ages, it wasn't affecting me anymore.
7:04 And I was struggling with this. So because of his psychological, his reading, he made a suggestion to me one day. He said, I think you just need to just need need to read Love, and you read this day, with every breath you take, and you read this story with your eyes shut, to take a make a break with ellen white's writings because right at this point in your life they're not helping you they're creating more tension and so he recommended a real break he said why don't we take your books out to behind berman hall into the forest and have a bonfire and uh and he wasn't doing it because he was trying to you know be rebellious he just was looking at me from a you know a perspective where he was saying you need some mental uh assistance and maybe taking a break from her writings maybe this would actually be a good thing because it would help you make a break and then go on into the next direction that god has for you so i thought about and i thought all right let's try it so i gathered all my spirit of prophecy books and actually just about it was a few months ago so way fast forward i was at the village church in barren spring giving a series of meetings and i shared this story there too because barren springs i mean andrews was right next to the village church and i actually went over there and i parked my car and i went down behind berman hall and i went into the forest and i looked for that very spot and i think i found it but so back to andrews my roommate and i took my books to that spot behind the dorm and nobody saw us so we put the books on the ground and we you know made sure it was not going to rain and we were able to go back and forth and we were able to go back and forth to start a fire we lit a fire and we prayed we prayed lord please help steve to get some mental clarity and help him to find peace of mind and and you know the flames went up you know is uh is god patient with us or what i'm still here you know many years later that was in 1985 so now it's been 85 it's been you know long time since i had that and i'm still a believer in jesus so god is very patient but anyway um obviously burning those books didn't help me spiritually because that's not the right thing to do and so at the end of that year second year at the seminary i was sent by the conference that sent me to andrews they brought me to the seminary and i was sent by the conference that sent me to andrews they brought me out to pastor two churches in the san francisco area so now this was 1986 became an adventist 1979 now it's 1986 seven years later so i landed in a little town called pacifica which was just south of san francisco and i was assigned two churches one church was in san francisco which was a russian church i needed translator small russian church and then the other church was the pacifica adventist church and i was supposed to pastor these two churches and i moved into a little apartment i wasn't married then right on the edge of a cliff overlooking the pacific ocean in pacifica california so there i am by myself and i i pastored these two churches for a number of months and the pressure inside of me just you know reached the point of critical mass that i didn't feel close to jesus uh it felt like my prayers were just you know not going beyond the ceiling and uh i i just decided lord i can't continue to to pastor these churches to prepare sermons to try to feed my flock when i don't feel like i'm close to you i'm still you know confused about you know the burning of the books and all this and so one night in the fall of 1986 i was in my apartment right on the edge of the ocean and i i turned off the lights and i prayed a prayer a desperate prayer and it was like i'm at the fork in the road and i prayed and i don't remember exactly what i said but it was something like god if you don't it was on my knees i said god if you don't do something you know i've been trying to walk with you for seven years now i've been a christian for seven years the seventh anglicism have four and we've been Adventist for seven years. And if you don't do something and help me with my life so I feel like I'm closer to you, so I can understand the Bible, I'm done. I can't keep doing this.
11:47 And so I basically said, you know, if you don't help me, I'm going to leave the ministry. I'm going to leave the church. My dad was in business. He had a carpet business in West Hollywood. And maybe I'll work for my dad. I'll do something. Before you go any further, what do you mean by feel? I've had Mormons come to my church, or church, my house, and tell me that I need to feel a burning in the bosom in order to feel that I know something is correct. Is that what you mean? Yeah. Well, it wasn't exactly the burning of the bosom, because I'm familiar with that too. It was just a sense that God is in my life, that he's guiding my life. I mean, people that are in the ministry especially, people that are pastors, at least if they're a good pastor, they know what it's like to pray and to have God work with them on the sermons that they prepare and when they're preaching. I mean, it's like, you know, when you're married, you don't always have the feelings. Feelings come and go. But if you have nothing, if you have no feeling at all, you know, at any time, for a long enough time, something needs to, you need some adjusting. Something needs to happen. So I don't believe that we should lose that feeling. I don't believe that we should lose that feeling.
12:58 live by feeling we need to live by faith but there needs to be some kind of an evidence that there is god is working and i wasn't experiencing that at all and i hadn't been experiencing that for quite a while and for me it bothered me so i just prayed and said lord you need to do something and intervene and help me to figure this out and so uh so here's what happened and i've shared this so many times with so many people and it has helped a lot of people so i was at the bottom and a lot of people can relate to being at the bottom they can relate to having a christian experience that's not working for them that just feels dry and formal people can relate to that and it it bothers people so when i prayed that prayer that desperate prayer in the dark on my knees something happened god answered that prayer he heard my prayer because he loves us and he wants to help us he doesn't always do what we think he should do or doesn't always sometimes he says yes no or not now but in my case what happened was he knew that i was on the edge i was hanging by a thread and what happened was when i prayed that prayer all of a sudden a little voice spoke to my conscience it reminds me of the still small voice that spoke to elijah in the cave and it was very small it was very tiny but i heard this little voice inside my head and the voice was very distinct and it said it was a short phrase it said pray for the spirit of truth to guide you into all truth and that's a quote from john chapter 16 verse 13 and i didn't know it at the time but subsequently this verse has become my favorite bible verse and i've shared this somebody made me a plaque with this verse engraved on it and when i moved from idaho to tennessee i took that plaque with me and it's sitting right on my desk so i can look at at the verse john 16 13 jesus said however when he the spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth so the thought was pray for the spirit of truth to guide you into all truth and when i heard that little voice i remember i sort of you know was jolted and i i took a mental step back and i thought wow what was that was that the lord did god just talk to my conscience way down inside me telling me to pray for the holy spirit now uh prior to this you know as as a as a theology student at la sierra as a young pastor in bakersfield as a mdiv student at andrews i certainly believe in the holy spirit but i had never made it a a point to pray to have a focused prayer for the holy spirit to guide my life i've never done that so i thought about that i thought that was the lord telling me to pray for the holy spirit i tried everything else you know i i burned the books i've read psychology books which never worked i never was able to figure out why i'm going through all this uh it didn't help and so then i thought maybe i should try this so i waited out and i thought why not it's you know it's not hard i don't have he's not telling me to go you know jog five miles on the beach i used to run on the beach quite a bit to keep my sanity when i walked down from pacifica down the stairs going on the beach and run running helped me to keep my mind and so i thought i'm going to try this and so here's what happened next when i when i made a decision i'm going to start praying for the holy spirit uh i will i'll do that uh it was a definite decision right after i did that right after and so i'm still on my knees in the dark when i made that decision i had this mental picture in my head it was like i was in the dark and it wasn't a vision but it was just like this image inside of my mind and this image was all these faces looking at me so i wasn't having that vision all the time so i was like at me these little faces and they were staring at me and they were all gritting their teeth and they were saying no don't do that don't whatever you do don't pray for the holy spirit and i looked at those faces and i still remember this this is 1986. i had another thought and i thought to myself these faces do not look like angels you know they look like demons like little
17:54 demons that just do not want me praying for the holy spirit so i looked back at them and i gritted my teeth and i said yes i'm going to do that that's what i'm going to do i'm going to pray for the holy spirit whether you like it or whether you don't and so i started doing that and a lot of things happened when i started doing that so i was still pastoring and i started praying god give me the spirit of truth give me the holy spirit guide me into all truth help me and as i did that sometime not long after that i was looking at the book of psalms and i read psalm 119 i believe it's verse 65. i looked down and i read this verse 67 psalm 119 verse 67 and i read this where david said before i was afflicted i went astray but now i keep your word and i read that text and it jumped out at me and was like you know praise god i i'm understanding the bible and i thought about that and i thought i am afflicted you know for the last two or three years i've been afflicted with doubts fears conflict stress pressure anxiety you know no peace and and then david said before i was afflicted i went astray so here's the affliction period and then david said before i was afflicted i went astray but now i keep your word and i remember thinking about that and i thought is it possible that before my affliction prior to that i had gone astray from the lord and now i need to get back to his word and and that sort of pointed me in the right direction and then i kept reading the bible and I'm praying for the Holy Spirit, Lord, help me to know what I did before I was afflicted that brought this affliction.
20:01 And somewhere in this research, I started, I became aware of the issue of pride. And I started studying about Lucifer and how he exalted himself. And I read about Israel, that Israel exalted itself and became proud. The Assyrians, the pride of Assyria, the Babylonians, the pride of King Nebuchadnezzar and the New Testament, the pride of the Pharisee who said, Lord, I thank you that I'm not like other men, especially like this poor tax collector. And then I went to Revelation, the pride of Laodicea, I'm rich and increased with goods and in need of nothing. And the pride of Babylon, where she said, I sit as a queen, I'm no widow and I will see no sorrow. And the Holy Spirit started teaching me that pride is a huge issue for humanity. And then I started reading about Jesus, that he made himself of no reputation.
20:59 He took the form of a man. He became like a servant. He became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. And I started, it was like my eyes were opened that we are dealing with an issue of pride and humility. And so the more I prayed, it was like little by little, God began to show me times, the more I was able to see the truth and the more I was able And then I went back when I was at La Sierra, I would share my testimony, you know, about being in the film business, being an extra when I got to La Sierra. And I told people how I, my fellow students that I used to be on the Waltons and the Bad News Bears. I used to work at studios like Universal Studios and Paramount and Burbank Studios. And I'd give my testimony, how I became a Christian, how I read Desire of Ages, and how I read about Gethsemane. I did that when I was at La Sierra with my new friends, but I didn't realize that pride was coming even into my testimony. And I began to look at some of my fellow students at La Sierra, who I just felt like, you know, you've known these things all your life, you know, you're just lukewarm.
22:11 Where's your Christianity? And then that was also during the Ford crisis, if you remember that Ford crisis. And I started reading literature about the conference, and how the conference was compromising. And so I started kind of looking down on the conference, looking down on my fellow students at La Sierra. And I didn't realize that all of that was the outworking of pride in my own mind, which goes back to the devil. Can you comment on something I think that's very important right now? I think we see a lot of that happening in the same thing today. It's like a cycle. Do you see that happening today at all? I do. Where people are frustrated with the conference? I do. And I believe that the wheat and the tares grow together till the harvest. I have no illusion that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is a perfect church.
23:03 There are weeds, and there is wheat. But I also don't look at what the weeds are doing and apply that to all the wheat. I don't think that's the right thing to do. And I also don't believe it's right for us to exalt ourselves and put down people on a regular basis and judge people when we really don't know their hearts. God knows their hearts. God knows everyone. And the scriptures about judging also really spoke to me where Jesus said, why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye? Why are you doing that? Why do you keep focusing on the sins of the brethren? And then he said, but you don't see the beam that's in your own eye. First, take out the beam that's in your own eye. And then you can see clearly to cast out the mote that's in your brother's eye. And one time I was talking to a lady years later. She called me in Idaho, and she was complaining all about the sins of the brethren.
24:00 And as I'm listening to her, I didn't even know her. On and on, I'm thinking to myself, I need to share some things with her. So somehow I wove in, you know, that we need to. Jesus said, why are you looking? Don't judge lest you be judged. The same way you judge others, you'll be judged. And why are you looking at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye? And as I shared that with her, shortly thereafter, she said, I'm done with this conversation. She hung up. Oh. And I thought, you know, the pride of man, the pride of the human heart, it's hard to see. And I don't even really want, you know, I don't want to judge her either, because God knows what brought her into that circumstance. But the point is, I began to become very self-reflective and very aware. Of my own tendencies. To pride. To self. To judging.
24:51 To being, having a hard heart. And the Holy Spirit took me back to La Sierra. And he showed me those times. And he took me back to Bakersfield. He took me back to the seminary. He took me back to the time when I thought the answer was burning Ellen White's books. He took me right back to that place in the forest. And the Holy Spirit of truth showed me that's the wrong solution. The problem is not Ellen White. The problem is you. And I began to realize that. And the repentance began to deepen. So then instead of blaming anybody else, I would blame myself. And I realized, Lord, I'm a sinner. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I'm just like the tax collector. Be merciful to me, a sinner. And so here's something else.
25:38 The more I was doing that, and as the Holy Spirit's convicting me, my conscience is getting sensitive. I'm reading the Bible. It's becoming alive again. And I'm sensing God working in my heart to convict me of my sin. Then, and this is a very strange thing, and I don't want to get melodramatic, but there were many, many times, Bradley, I can't tell you how many times, that I would pray, God, give me more of the Holy Spirit. And I would feel inside of me this pressure like building up. And it was coming toward the surface. And I would feel like, you know, the Holy Spirit's house cleaning. He's bringing another one up, another stronghold of Satan. And it's coming up. And I would feel it. And I would have to grab something while I'm praying. And I'd go, and I would like cough, you know. It was just like a, and then I would relax. And I'd go, wow, another level, another devil.
26:43 You know, the Lord's cleaning these demonic spirits. So I've shared that. And people have said to me, do you think you were possessed? Are you harassed? You know, what's going on? Now you're Seventh-day Adventist. You're seven or eight years into being an Adventist. You're reading the Bible. You're reading the Spirit of Prophecy. And this is happening. So my answer is I don't really know. But I do know that Jesus talked about, you know, the evil spirit goes out of a man. He goes into dry places. He's looking for rest. He doesn't find it. So he goes back. And he brings seven more. He brings more spirits, more wicked than himself. And they come in there. And something I forgot to share was when I was at Andrews, after reading these books, I read this one book called Make Friends With Your Shadow, which basically the theory of the book was, psychologically, you need to recognize that everybody has a dark side. And you need to embrace the dark side in order to become whole in your awareness.
27:34 So I read that book. And I thought, all right. So then one night when I was in the second year with my roommate, he was in one bed and I was in the other bed. And I felt this presence come into the room, this dark presence come into the room. And I thought about the book. And I thought, maybe I need to welcome, you know, my shadow. So I let it in. And then within a very short time, I just felt very powerful. And I remember getting out of bed, going through the dorm, through my roommate or through my dorm room door, going around the corridor, going into the bathroom. And I looked at, in the mirror, I looked at myself. And I felt powerful. I looked powerful. And I thought, man, whatever that spirit was, it's making me strong. And then I thought to myself, this cannot be good. This is not good.
28:24 This does not feel like this is right. And so maybe, you know, when that spirit came into me, maybe that's what was coming out of me. You know, later on when I was praying in the room and I kept doing it. And it happened for years, for years. And now, and then at some point, I said, I'm going to go back to reading the Spirit of Prophecy, which I hadn't been reading since I burned the books. And I thought, I need something solid. So I went back to the testimonies. I got myself a new set of testimonies, started reading the testimonies. They were straight as an arrow. But they were very balanced. And they were hitting me in the heart. And because I was praying for the Holy Spirit, now I'm understanding the testimonies. Now I'm understanding the Bible. Now I'm involved in a deep, like Jesus said. In Revelation, be earnest and repent.
29:13 Be zealous and repent. Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline. Be zealous and repent. And I began to experience that God is leading me again. He's teaching me the Bible. He's teaching me the Spirit of Prophecy. He's leading me to repent. And the more I would repent and these, you know, I was coughing and the spirits were coming out of me. I got more clarity. My mind became clearer. I saw that the problem was me. It wasn't God. It wasn't the church. It wasn't the brethren. It wasn't the conference. It wasn't my seminary teachers. It was me. And I needed more of the Holy Spirit. It's been 40 years since I had that experience. And I tell you, Bradley, every day, almost every day, many times twice a day or three times a day or five times a day or ten times a day, when I was driving here this morning, coming from Appeson to your home for this recording, I'm driving and I'm praying for the Holy Spirit.
30:13 Lord, give me more of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth to guide me into all truth. And I've been doing this for 40 years. And it's changed my life. It has changed my life. God rescued me when I was in that condition. And he taught me that the problem was me. I need more humility. I need to be more like Jesus. Less of, like John the Baptist said, he must increase, I must decrease. And the only way that I've been able to survive in my Christian life is through the Holy Spirit. The only way that I can survive being the speaker director of White Horse Media, writing books, doing podcasts, being on shows, speaking in front of audiences, is because I know that this is the gift of God. It's his grace. And it's the Holy Spirit that has rescued me. So we talk about spiritualism. You talk about, you know, Mary, UFO, demons impersonating the dead. All these manifestations. All these manifestations of spirits. I've experienced those spirits.
31:13 Even though I may not have been involved in spiritualism, I've experienced the power of the two sides. It's like Jesus said to Paul in Acts 26. He said, I'm sending you to open their eyes. To turn them from darkness to light. From the power of Satan to God. That they may experience the forgiveness of sins. And the sanctification. And the faith that is in me. And so I've learned this. And, you know, that's why I'm still here. After 40 years. Now it's been, you know, since 79. So it's been like 48 years. I'm still a Seventh-day Adventist Christian. I'm thankful that God has not let me go. He heard my prayer. He didn't turn away from me when I burned down those books. He brought me back to those books.
32:01 And he taught me the problem was not those books. The problem was me. And now I'm back. And I'm not going anywhere. And, you know, I know the devil. One time after I went through this. I was out in the field praying. And I just said out loud. I said, Satan, you're not going to have me. I'm not going where you're going. You're going to the Lake of Fire. And I'm going to the New Jerusalem. And that's the way it is. And I know, you know, I'm not there yet. I'm not out of the woods yet. But I am determined to be a man of God. It's... The way for me to say it is this. I am a Holy Spirit made man. And I know that it's because of God's grace that I have anything that I have. I've been married now for 26 years. My wife Kristen. We have two beautiful children.
32:50 Seth, who just graduated from Walla Walla. Film, TV, media major. My daughter actually yesterday just began her first class at Southern. She's 18 with David Hartman. She's a good friend of mine. She's teaching her Christian beliefs with one of her friends that's her roommate. And I pray for my daughter. I pray for my wife. I pray for my son. I'll pray for you if you want to. And I'm just, you know, praise the Lord. So, since I've been through this... And now it doesn't happen hardly ever where I feel that pressure, you know, coming up. But I did. I felt that for many years. And then it got fewer and fewer and fewer. And then it stopped happening. It stopped happening. So, I believe that sharing this helps people. There was a lady that heard my testimony sharing this when I was at Andrews at the Village Church.
33:45 She saw it on the YouTube channel and she reached out to me and she said, I heard your message about what happened in Berman Hall and you burning the books. And she said, I need help. You know, can I talk to you? And so we did. We talked about a week and a half ago. And then I prayed with her. And there's a lot of people that hear this story and then they reach out to me and they say, I need help. I need prayer. And then sometimes people hear me talk about this in a church. And then afterwards they say, this is exactly what I needed. Because I'm stuck. I feel stuck. I don't know what to do. And now I know what to do. What I need to do is pray for the spirit of truth to guide my mind into order. So it gives people hope.
34:34 It gives them something that they can do. You know, you don't have to climb a mountain. You don't have to, you know, go across an ocean. All you just need to do is get on your knees and pray for the Holy Spirit. And Jesus said in Luke 11, 13, I think it is. He said, if you then being evil, which is what we are, by nature we're evil. We don't realize it, but he knows it. If you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them who ask him? So I read that verse in front of audiences at the end of this story. And I tell them, you know, God is longing to give you the Holy Spirit, but you've got to do your part. You have to open your mouth and you have to ask him. And I really believe that if we will all do that, God will hear us and he will help us.
35:30 Yes. He'll give us clarity about things that confuse us. He'll help us to understand the Bible better. And he'll reveal Jesus to us more and more so we can appreciate the cross and his sufferings and his death and his resurrection. And that he's our king. We're going to be his subjects forever and ever. And that's what's ahead of us. And there's power in numbers, too. We can get a bunch of people praying. That's right. That's right. The more people that pray, Satan trembles. Ellen White says he trembles. His whole host trembles at the sound of fervent prayer. And if you think that people think, why should I pray? I've prayed so many times. Nothing's ever happened. So people just kind of get into a rut where they think it's no use. Maybe he'll hear other people's prayers, but he doesn't hear my prayer because I've been praying for so long and nothing's happened.
36:27 And my response would be, try a different prayer. Pray for the Holy Spirit. Pray for the spirit of truth to guide you into the truth and do this regularly and then be open to God speaking to your conscience and directing you in a new way. You know, God has a lot to teach us. Things that we don't know. Sometimes I think it's happiness. We think we know everything. I've been to all these Daniel and Revelation seminars. I've read all this. What more is there for me to know? That is a huge mistake. And first of all, we need to think. We need to be willing to think differently and get out of our rut and the mental rut thinking it's not going to work. I can't change. There's no more for me to know.
37:22 God doesn't hear my prayer. That's a mental rut. There's no more dialogue we have with ourselves. And we need to change that. You know, there's the verse, I read John 16, 13. But the verse prior to that is an important verse too. This is in verse 12. So Jesus said, he said to the disciples in verse 12, 16, 12. I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. Jesus. I've got a lot to teach you. And we seem to think that we don't need to learn much because we already know it. That's Laodicean pride, which says, I'm rich and increased with good to the need of nothing. I had a neighbor. Sorry. Go on. I had a neighbor that told me the exact same thing.
38:11 I was showing her some magazines that we were handing out from Amazing Facts when I worked there in California. And she says, oh, God is not showing me anything new right now. I have nothing new to learn. I think we're learning for the rest of our lives. Yeah. And when we say, I have nothing new to learn, we have a lot to learn. Yeah. And the first thing we need to learn is that our attitude is wrong. Our attitude is wrong. We have a lot to learn. And Jesus said, I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot understand them now. However, when he, the spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth. So we need to overcome the mindset that we know it all. And since I've been praying for the Holy Spirit, there's just, you know, I realize I have still so much to learn.
38:59 So much to learn. I'm definitely, it's like, instead of the Christian life being like this, where you start out and then it gets narrower and narrower and narrower, and finally you're kind of stuck, it's really like this. You start out and then you learn more and more and more and more. And the Bible says in Isaiah, his understanding no one can fathom. We can't even begin. We can't even begin to understand the richness of the knowledge of God. And whether it's, you know, my relationship with my kids, my wife, with you, with your parents that are here, with my staff, people that I work with at Whitehorse, when I travel and hold meetings, I realize I have a lot to learn. Yeah. Yeah. But we always need to, you know, it doesn't mean we open ourselves up to anything the devil has to say to us. Yeah. It doesn't mean you say, I have a lot to learn, so, oh, this looks like my dad who died, and now I'll learn from him.
39:59 That's idolatry. You know, that's right. That's right. And the more we, another thing that's really, is the Ten Commandments. I have been, what's the word, the right word? I've been gripped by the law of God. And so, years ago, after I went through this dark period, I was, I had another mental picture of Ten Commandments in front of me, and I was going down through them. You shall have no other gods before me. Just like when I was a kid, I used to play pinball machines, go to the arcades, and you pull the lever back, and the ball goes around, and it hits the, and it lights up. So, I was looking at the Ten Commandments, you shall have no other gods before me, and it lit up. Because I thought, there were, you know, I thought about the times when I have not put God first, but I've made myself my own God. And then I went down, you know, don't make any graven image, no idols. And I thought about that, and the Holy Spirit goes deep, and that one lit up. Yeah. And one by one, don't take God's name in vain, because God's name is his character, and we need to reveal his character of justice and mercy.
41:00 And that one lit up. And one by one, I went through all the Ten Commandments, and they all lit up. And I realized, I'm a sinner. I've broken the law of God. And my understanding of Scripture, and of the Day of Atonement, and of Christ's ministry in the Most Holy Place, is that we need to be looking at the law of God, going through it, having the Holy Spirit show us our sins, where we haven't loved God. With our whole heart and our neighbor as ourselves. And as we see those sins, we acknowledge them, we confess them, and the blood cleanses us deeper and deeper and deeper from all sin. Until finally, he can blot them out of the Most Holy Place. And we're sealed. And we're ready for the final crisis, for the loud cry, the time of trouble, and to be translated. And a little while ago, you mentioned, you know, end time events. Yeah. And all the things that are happening in this world. And my conviction is that if we don't have the Holy Spirit working in us, how in the world are we going to be ready for the end time events?
42:00 Right. We've got to get that right. And how do you get more Holy Spirit? How do you get more oil? Pray. You pray for the Spirit of Truth. And then you follow His convictions in your conscience. And we need to learn how to do that ourselves. Like you mentioned, you know, how do you get more oil? So, Matthew 25, you've got the wise and the foolish. The difference is the wise have extra oil and the foolish don't. And when the crisis comes, the foolish go to the wise. And they say, give me your oil. My lamp's going out. And then the wise look at the foolish and they say, not so. We can't. We can't give you our experience. So then they say, go rather to those who sell and buy for yourself. Yes. And that tells me the difference between the wise and the foolish is the wise know how to go and get the oil they want.
42:50 And the foolish know how to do it themselves. Whereas the foolish don't know how to do that. So that's where when you say, how do you do it? You know, you've got to do it. Nobody's going to do it for you. You've got to do it yourself. And if you go to Jesus and plead with Him for more of the Holy Spirit, He promises in Luke 11, 13, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? So He wants to do it. And that's the only thing I know how to do it, is just pray more and then follow the convictions. Yes. And expect that the Lord's going to be convicting you. Yeah. And be open to that conviction. And realize that God has a lot more to show us than we know. Amen. And it works. Absolutely. I'm here to testify it works. You know, after 40 years of doing this, I'm not going through that crisis I used to go through. I don't feel those demons coming out of me. I sense this.
43:48 And then you don't always feel, not every day. It's not always a warm feeling. You know, that's where the feelings come and go. But you can have a core sense that God is leading your life. It's that peace that passes all understanding. That's right. The peace that passes all understanding. The outward man is perishing. I went to a chiropractor yesterday. I've been having some back issues. And I'm doing my stretches in the morning, you know, stretch the back. But then I think, you know, even if the body's, you know, wearing out, inwardly, the inward man, Paul says, is being renewed day by day. Absolutely. Wow, what an incredible testimony. And so, all through that whole experience, God has worked with you, just as he worked with everyone else, to bring them closer and closer to him. Because it's all about that relationship, right? All about that communication relationship.
44:42 You can't be married. You can't have a relationship with someone without communication. So prayer is that communication with God that allows us to have that saving relationship. That's right. And again, the importance of humility. You know, the two hardest words in the human language to say are, I'm sorry. And there's so many times when, in my relationship with Kristen, my wife, you know, I think, you know, she shouldn't have done this or that. And then I think, no, Steve, don't look at her. Look at you. How can you change? How can you be a better man? Don't judge your wife. Don't judge your son. Don't judge your daughter. Judge yourself. Paul says, if we judge ourselves, we will not be condemned with the world. And so I've learned, and I'll say to her, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said this. Or I'll say to Seth. Or I'll say to Abby. You know, and people appreciate that.
45:34 And it breaks down barriers. And you know, this whole thing with what's happening, you know, in our church, you know, the wheat and the weeds, I think we all need to repent. I think people at the top have to repent. People at the bottom, people in the conference, people in the pew, there's not a one of us that doesn't have a whole lot of repenting that we need to do. And the Laodicean message is not your brother says he's rich and increased with goods and in need of nothing. The Laodicean message is you say you are rich and increased with goods in need of nothing. And you do not realize, you don't know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. Yeah. And so there's, and it's a mental thing. He says you don't know. So the problem is our minds. We don't know. We think one thing and we don't know the truth. And I think we're people, I've got a whole study on the Laodicean message.
46:31 I'm giving a, I give talks on the Holy Spirit Friday night and then Sabbath morning, two talks, Light and Love for Laodiceans part one, Light and Love for Laodiceans part two. And I go through them. I go through every verse of the Laodicean message. And I tell audiences, you know, sometimes I think we're afraid to admit that we're wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked because we think that if we do, we're lost. Because we're supposed to be sanctified and prepared for heaven. But the reality is, and then I ask the crowd, I say, are you closer to Jesus when you agree with him or when you don't? Are you getting ready for heaven when you agree with him or when you don't? So the obvious answer is if we agree with him, that's established. That's a step forward, not a step backwards. So he wants us to know our true condition. And the reality is, if you look at wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked, look at the gospels. Look at Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Who were the people that Jesus was able to help? It was those who knew they were wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.
47:32 It was the Pharisees who couldn't help. But the tax collector said, I'm a sinner. Be merciful to me. He's the one that went down justified, not the other one. Yeah. So what I teach in my seminars is that knowing your true condition is a good thing, not a bad thing. And then once we realize it, then we realize the amazing love of Jesus, that he loves us just as we are, and he can change us. And then he offers us gold, tried in the fire, that we can then be rich. Instead of being poor, we'll be rich. And the gold is faith and love, and it's his love. And then the white garments. Once we realize that we're naked, he gives us the white garments of his righteousness. And when we realize that we're blind, then he can anoint our eyes with eyesalve so we can see. So it's experiencing Revelation 3, verse 17, our true condition, which leads us to verse 18, where he's got the answers. And it's a whole deep process, similar to what I went through, that will prepare us for the latter rain.
48:35 Yeah. And it's in Revelation 3. It's the Laodicean message. It's deep. And when we think we're rich and increased with goods in need of nothing, that attitude that I know it all, that's the problem that the Laodicean message addresses. That's right there. How can people reach more out to you if they wanted to? What are some websites or ways to contact you if they want a seminar or if they want your books? How do people get that? Yeah. Our main hub is whitehorsemedia.com. So we picked the name White Horse because Jesus comes on the white horse in Revelation 19, and we want to help people to get ready for that. And media because we use media. So whitehorsemedia.com is our main site. If people go onto our YouTube channel, if they go to YouTube and type in White Horse Media, they'll find us. We have a Bible school, free Bible school, whitehorsemediabibleschool.com. On our website, we have a store that's full of information.
49:32 We… Our goal is to be a trusted source of end time information. We're mostly an outreach organization, but we do have books also that deal with deep internal needs for the Lord. And on our YouTube channel, if people type in Light and Love for Laodiceans, part one or part two, they'll find those sermons. And those are the most practical messages that we have to help Adventists and to help anybody with their spiritual life. So light, love, and vibration are the key terms in the New Age. Why did you pick light and love? Just curious. Well, because it's… I mean, I'm not thinking New Age. Yeah, of course. I'm thinking Scripture. So Jesus says, I'm the light of the world. Very good. And if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, you know, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. And Ellen White said, let none of us say that God has no more light for us as a people.
50:27 So when I think of light, I'm thinking Bible light. Yeah. And love, I mean, Jesus said, as many as I love, I rebuke and I discipline, be zealous and repent. God so loved the world. So again, I think, you know, the devil, he's a master at taking the things of God and using them as bait to get people to bite his hook. That's what he does. Very good. But it doesn't change the fact that there's biblical light and biblical love and biblical truth that we all need. Absolutely. Absolutely. Just ending this talk on spiritualism, I talk about this quite a bit. Chris Lang, who made a couple of great documentaries, he's a film producer in Adventist Church. What he said was, he has a testimony he talks about where he said he was working with a coworker on this film project. And the woman came in. She wasn't of the same church that he was, that we are.
51:22 But he said, she came in and she said, I just saw my dead son. And he said, really? Tell me more about that. She said, yeah. He came in. He said, did he come through the wall? How did he come? As an apparition? She says, no. He physically came into the wall, opened my bedroom door, sat down next to me. I could feel his breath, his warmth, his heartbeat as he hugged me. And then he said on the way out, he didn't say much, but he said on the way out, don't worry, Mom. Everything is light, love on the other side. And this is a reoccurring theme I hear all over the place. I'm not trying to trick you or anything. But I think it's fascinating. I knew my audience would pick up on that. Oh, yeah. Definitely. Well, we need to be aware. Satan transforms himself into an angel of light. Yeah. I mean, you read the great controversy of the chapter called Snares of Satan. There's a whole long list of them.
52:12 And we're dealing with an enemy that is much smarter than we are. He's stronger. He's smarter. He's been doing, he's been at this game for a long time. And we're no match for him. So the only way that we can deal with the devil is through the power of the Holy Spirit and the word of God. It says they overcame him by the word of God and the word of their testimony. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. So Jesus resisted the devil with Scripture. And that's what we need to do. And the only way to understand the Scripture is through the Holy Spirit. Amen. That's what we need. So I know Satan has a counterfeit for everything. And I've been doing this for a long time. And I know that people often try to, you know, pick apart what I'm going to say. They're looking very carefully. They've got their, you know, Sherlock Holmes glasses on. And they want to see one thing that I'm going to say that they're going to nail me.
53:06 I've been on the front lines for a long time. And I've learned that if I stick with the word, stick with the truth, God will defend me. Absolutely. Absolutely. Praise God. And thank you for being such a hard worker for Christ. Not that you're doing anything, but that Christ is working in you. Amen. And letting the Holy Spirit work in your life. So. Would you pray us out? Sure. Yeah. Heavenly Father, thank you for this opportunity to share with the group that is watching Strange Normal. And I just pray for them. I pray for everybody that's going to watch this. That the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, will speak to their hearts. And show them their need of a deeper walk with Christ. And hopefully they'll see hope. They'll see a path to find that experience through praying for the Spirit of Truth.
54:01 And we also pray that you will prepare all of us for the onslaughts of the enemy in the days ahead. That we can stand above all to stand against him. And to honor you and to be a channel for Jesus Christ in these last days. Lord, bless us and help us all. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen.