Sarah J caught up with Bill Johnson & Trevor Baker

Bill & Beni Johnson

Sarah: What would you say to teams that have been praying for sick people and they've not actually started to see major results? What encouragement would you give them?

Trevor: Keep praying, just keep doing it. I'm sure Bill would agree with this. I can remember 5 or 6 years ago, we had a healing outpouring then with Bill Pranka. Twelve weeks of healing night after night, five nights a week. We stopped that but the Church continued to pray for the sick. We just kept going for it. I think it's what you said, risk. Every time you get up and you say, 'is there somebody here with this particular sickness or disease' it's a risk. I don't know with you Bill but it is still. Will anybody respond.

Bill: Sure, yeah. There's at least 4 other giants killed in the Bible besides Goliath; but they were all killed by men who worked with David. So I tell people, 'if you want to kill giants, hang around with a giant killer. And if you're not getting a breakthrough in miracles, partner with somebody who is. Another thing, I encourage people to do is to go to another country where the breakthrough is easier. In the Western rational mind, thankfully it's really breaking loose right now, yeah! But it's been very difficult to get breakthroughs because the human intellect wars against the realm of miracles.

Even in Nazareth in scripture because the people of the city were intellectually offended at Jesus they shutdown even His anointing. So you have to understand the place, the role the mind plays, and it can war against it. So we have to be careful. So I tell people partner with somebody that has a greater measure of breakthrough than you do. It's learning from them; it's observing, it's all about that. But it's more than that. There's an invisible realm of the power of the Holy Spirit on them, and when we partner with them it gets on us. I don't know how else to explain it, but it just does. And then I tell people, 'go with Randy Clarke' for example, on one of his mission trips to Brazil or to Mozambique or something. When you partner in a ministry like that in another country you see thousands of people healed. When you come home it happens for you. So that's a real good way for people to get breakthrough that aren't.

Sarah: Bethel has been contending for a cancer free zone. That's one of the things that you've been doing in Redding California. What kind of results are you seeing in contending for that ground?

Bill: Well! We have more people getting healed. But not everybody's been healed yet. We've had some tragic losses this year. Dear friends of ours that died to cancer, and just in the last few months. We've not arrived by any means, but we believe that God's given us a direction. So, the way we live is, in private, in our personal life with the Lord, we cry out to God, 'God increase the anointing for breakthrough against that disease. Because cancer's the kind of Goliath of the Church. It taunts the armies of the living God. People of God are afraid and they treat cancer with respect. It's a spirit; it's a defeated foe. It's a name that's inferior to the name of Jesus. So I try to stir up the people of God, let's go after that thing. Let's not sit here and wait for some tragedy to strike. So we look for cases of cancer. We pray. In almost every meeting I look for any case of cancer. We contend for that breakthrough. As a result we have many many many cases of cancer healed. We've had some great stories of late. More reports, stories, testimonies, breakthroughs of people who have come. We've had a fair amount who fly into Redding from all over the world needing a miracle. Like every week. We've had some very good reports of late, again more cancer cases healed, among other things. But cancer seems to represent the disease factor that just grips people with fear. So we target it for that reason.

Sarah: Fantastic! What encouragement would you give to people that are out there praying for the health of their cities?

Bill: Well don't stop. Yes pray. What I forgot to mention is, cry out to God in secret. In the private place we pray, but in the public place we take risks. And so it's in private we pray for the breakthrough in public whether it's in a store or in a Church service, we look for opportunities to pray for people. I don't know any other way to do it than that. You pray, you cry out to God; in public you look for breakthrough and you try to see what you have. Find people that are sick. Pray the best way you can. Pay attention to the Holy Spirit, how He leads you because sometimes He'll change how He wants you to minister to somebody. And if you just pay attention you'll learn His heart, His mind and you'll start to get a breakthrough.

Sarah: One of the things I've noticed about both of your ministries from things that I've listened to is, there's quite an emphasis around (a) the nature and character of God and how good He is; and also (b) our sonship and who we are in Him and our inheritance. How key do you think that is to the foundation of the Church?

Trevor: They are the fundamentals. Once we know that God is good, and He's called us into that place of sonship and He says that we are joint heirs with Christ, then the very things that were given to Christ become ours and that is our inheritance. It is to heal the sick, to raise the dead, to cast out demons and to cleanse the lepers. That's all part of what Jesus came to release. And so I see the whole thing, even the outpouring of the Spirit so that as we come into the full inheritance, and in coming into that we can minister that into the lives of others so that they can get to taste and see that God is good. And certainly that's where it starts, that's where it finishes.

Bill: Absolutely, if we keep blaming God for the tragedies of the world, insurance companies - are hurtling, they'll call an act of God. Well where did they get their theology. They got it from us, because the Church has believed that God is the one who gives sickness; He is the one who causes this stuff. It's just simply not true. Jesus Christ is perfect theology. How many storms did He bless? How many times were they faced with life threatening storms and He directed them to destroy some city? Can't find it? How many times did He give sickness rather than heal? Never! He is the perfect representation of the Father. And that's our message.

We have to contend for that realisation to hit humanity because people want to believe that God is good, but they've just got in the back of their mind that He's the punisher, He's the destroyer, He does this and He does that, and there is so much confusion in the hearts and minds of people because of that. So we have a chance right now in this generation to clean up our mess and to really help the world to see the goodness of God. But not just in words, but now in actions. Actions of compassion, mercy to the poor, the broken but also power to heal the impossible cases. This is our opportunity.