SID: I have just met my guest, William McDowell. William
WILLIAM: Yes, Sid.
SID: … do you carry that presence of God wherever you go all the time?
WILLIAM: I try to live in a way that honors him that way.
SID: I mean, when I’ve been with you all day, the presence of God is all over you. One of my intercessors said they saw a healing angel right behind you. Let’s take it back to… well, you were raised in church, but at age 10, your mom went on a business trip. Went to a church very different than the type of church that she had gone to. Tell me what happened to her?
WILLIAM: She had an encounter with the Holy Spirit. She was filled with the spirit out there in California, and she said, “We have to go back.” And so she actually during our spring break, now, I was a young man, I was only 10 years old, during spring break, took me out to California. And one of the things that we experienced was a healing service. It was the first time I’d ever seen one of those. It was the first time I’d ever seen anyone fall out under the power of God and as a 10 year old, I was a little scared of what I was witnessing at the time. I was a chronic asthmatic and dealt with asthma and had been hospitalized for a number of things. She kept saying, “I believe you’re going to be healed. I believe you’re going to be healed. Please go up, please go up.” And, of course me, watching people fall out on the floor, I’m scared to death, but I went up.
SID: You’re an obedient kid, I would have never gone.
WILLIAM: Scared out of my mind with obedience. I was raised well. But I went up and was prayed for and the Lord healed me of asthma. I was also filled with the spirit in that same trip.
SID: And then this hunger was there now, as a 10 year old. But then a little later you get a hold of… Several years later you get a hold of a book that I read by Tommy Tenney called God Chasers.
WILLIAM: Yeah.
SID: What happened with the hunger level?
WILLIAM: It increased exponentially. A pastor friend gave it to me and said, “You need to read this book.” And I remember reading the first couple of chapters. I remember it at the time, I read the first couple of chapters about, obviously the encounter that led to the writing of the book itself. And as I read that, I closed that book and I said to God, “I’m not going to leave this room-
Audience: Hallelujah.
WILLIAM: … until I encounter you this way.” I know. For me, it’s a little overwhelming. I sense his presence. For me, I stayed in that room for three days without eating because I wanted to encounter God.
SID: You were desperate.
WILLIAM: Yeah.
SID: But then in 2001, you’re so desperate for God’s glory–
WILLIAM: Yeah.
SID: … and he gives you a sign. What was that?
WILLIAM: So I was at a church and at this point talking about the move of God is my chief passion. I want to see it. I want to see it in my life. I want to see it in my generation. So I’m talking with–
SID: It’s not old because I see fresh tears coming down your face.
WILLIAM: Oh, it’s fresh. It’s fresh. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Yes, Lord. Thank you, God.
WILLIAM: So I’m talking about the move of God, really what I want to see in our generation, and as I’m talking about it, I felt the strangest sensation I’ve never felt in my life. I’m a man, clearly, even though I’m crying and–
SID: It takes a man to cry.
WILLIAM: Yeah. I felt something like a baby leap inside of me. I literally felt something move inside of my belly. It was the weirdest thing ever because I’d never felt anything like that. The person I was talking to said, these are his exact words, “Dude, did you feel that?” And so me being a little weirded out I said, “Feel what?” He said, “Did your baby just leap?” Yeah.
SID: But 15 years later you felt the same, exact birthing.
WILLIAM: So now we’ve planted our church, Deeper Fellowship Church in Orlando, Florida, and God, he moves there. We experienced his presence. But there was a particular Sunday where there was just this, the best way I can describe it is an unease. I just knew that God wanted to do more. Right before I was getting ready to get up to speak, again, for the first time 15 years later, I feel that thing leap inside of me again, that baby. And so I try to get up and explain to our people what just happened to me. And of course I know I sound weird, but just like now, I started weeping and I could barely talk beyond my tears. And my best friend Caleb who happens to be our associate preaching pastor, he shouted out because he knew the story before. He said “It’s happening.”
And at that moment, I mean, I just began to weep. And at that moment, what happened in our church, this was on May 22nd, 2016, has totally changed everything about the way we live, about the way that we talk, about the way that we walk. But this was really the beginning of an outpouring of—people begin to literally run to the front of our church, fall on their face and weep. And we stayed there for hours weeping before the Lord. And I remember my thought as a person who is hungry for God, I was thinking, this is awesome. This is amazing. My thought as a pastor at the time was none of the visitors are ever going to come back. Sid, this is what I was thinking really, I was really thinking this and this was a true thought, I said, “Okay, try to explain, how does a visitor explain what happened?” So I went and they did worship, and then the pastor, who was a man, got up and said he felt a baby and then he started crying and…
But you know what happened? I’m almost embarrassed, glad that it was happening, but almost embarrassed thinking about the unbeliever in the room. After hours people are still laying on the floor, but I did a soft dismissal, just you can go home if you feel so led. And the Holy Spirit convicted me in that moment because I remember it would have been hard to explain the outpouring in Acts 2 except for the fact that Peter got up and began to get prophetic context to it and immediately 3000 people moved from confusion to conversion because they basically said, “I want in on that. Whatever that is that’s going on, I want in on that.” And so I literally, I stood up and I gave prophetic context of what was happening. And I said, “If you’re still here after all of these hours and you don’t know the Lord, it’s because you want what’s happening.” And people literally begin to run to give their life to the Lord. Yeah.
What we’ve seen as a result of this has been absolutely phenomenal. Hundreds and hundreds of people being healed without there ever being a healing service in our church because of his presence. When the healer is present, healing is available.
SID: I want you to posture yourself for his presence. Are you ready to hear one of the most incredible and medically documented miracles I’ve ever investigated? Be right back.
Tags: It's Supernatural, Sid Roth