Sid: Hello. Sid Roth here with John Waller. And John, when you were going through this you were really in the darkest pit of your life. The record deal didn’t work out. This was what was going to make you happy. This was what was going to get rid of your depression. And a couple comes into your life. What happened?

John: Well at my lowest point, I was at the bottom. I really was. And I was angry with God. I was disillusioned over losing this dream. But my sister, one of my youngest sisters, asked if she could bring a couple over to my home to minister to me, and I said sure. I was open to anything. They come over to my house and started just prophesying over my life. You know, I was at my lowest point. I just lost a dream, you know, and they’re looking at me and saying, “The Lord is about to promote you.” And I’m thinking, the Lord is going promote me? What are you talking about? He started just speaking into my life about what the Lord was about to do in my life, and that He was going to use me to set the captive free. But here I was a man who was not free. How could the Lord use me and set the captive free if I’m in such bondage? And so they offered to pray for me and they prayed for me in a way that I’d never been prayed for before. They pulled out some oil and they anointed my head with oil, and they prayed for me, and I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit come upon me in a way that was so tangible, and I felt the heat in my body. I felt the presence of God come over me. And I knew when they said amen, when it was done, something supernatural had occurred. I didn’t know what. I just knew something had broken in the spirit realm off of me.

Sid: And then you moved to Colorado and you didn’t tell your wife that you had cut down on your medication for depression. Why didn’t you tell your wife?

John: Well we moved to Colorado. My wife had been a teacher all these years and we had great benefits. We moved to Colorado. I became a worship pastor. She didn’t have a job. We didn’t have insurance. So I was taking four different kinds of medications, and medication is expensive. If I were to pay for it out of pocket, it would hundreds of dollars a month. So I knew God had done something in my life and I knew something had changed. So I took less and less medication. And then all of a sudden, the medication was gone, but I didn’t tell her it was gone, because I knew that might upset her or scare her.

Sid: She knew what you were like without medication.

John: She knew, I mean, I could go without medication in the bad days for two or three days. If I missed two or three days, I could really spin out of control. And so I had gone for like two to three months before I told her that I was not taking medication any more.

Sid: And let’s go to a clip and find out what she thought about that.

Josie: I remember he came to me in the kitchen and told me that it had been a while since he had taken any medication. And I was like, I had no clue. And I was just floored, you know. I started to think back over the last few months and just, you know, the changes that I had seen in him, I was like, I thought maybe it just the medication and the change because we had just moved to Colorado. You know, new environment. And then I began to see him really just dive into God’s Word and learn to study his true identity in Christ and study blessing. And he became a student of the Word, and began to speak and declare it over my children and I. And our family changed. There was so much more peace in our home and I know that began writing songs from a new found place of peace and freedom in Christ Jesus.

Sid: John you became a free man. It’s so wonderful to be free. And what I love is that when you sing other people get free. Tell me about, because you then started writing songs after, but you took about a year’s sabbatical where you just studied the Word and started saying God’s Word wherever you went. Did that make a difference to you?

John: Absolutely. I would take the Word of God. I would put it on a note card and I would memorize it, and I would just speak it out loud. I would pray it out loud constantly because, you know, the Bible says that, “Life and death are in the power of the tongue, and those it eat its fruit.” If simple words like “He’s got it” and a doctor saying, “Yes, he’s got depression” and diagnosing me, if those words can bring so much pain and death into my life, then how much more the Word of God can bring life to those who declare it and believe it, and speak it. And so I write songs that just declare the Word of God and speak it over people.

Sid: You know, when I heard the song, “Our God Reigns”, that’s what got me so excited about having you on this show. But tell me a little bit about the history of that song.

John: Well I was on a mission trip to Wales and we visited a town called Aberfan. And back in the ’60s, there was a tragedy. It was a coalmining town. And so they had a huge landslide that they didn’t see coming, but it wiped out this elementary school. Killed all these children and it just broke my heart to hear the story. But someone made the comment about the town that there’s a darkness that hovers over this town and that to this day, the spirit of death reigns over this town, and that there’s multiple suicides every year. And so that didn’t sit right with me. And so I began to write a song that would come against spirits like the spirit of death, the spirit of fear, the spirit of oppression.

Sid: You know what? If you go to the music set right now, I prophesy to you that as he sings this song you are going to be healed. Depression is going to go. This is, there is such a strong anointing. John Waller, “Our God Reigns”.

John: Spirit of death you have no place here. I command you to leave in Yeshua’s name. Spirit of fear you have no place here. I command you to leave in Jesus’ name. You’re not welcome here. So go. Spirit of doubt you have no place here. I command to leave in Yeshua’s name. Envy and jealousy you have no place here. I command you to leave in Jesus’ name and go back from whence you came. Our God reigns here. Our God reigns here. We claim this ground in Yeshua’s name ’cause our God reigns. Our God reigns here. Our God reigns here. The battle is won. Have no fear ’cause God reigns here. Hunger and rage, guilt and shame, I command you to leave in Yeshua’s name. Depression, anxiety, addiction, infirmity, I command you to leave in Jesus’ name and go back from whence you came. Our God reigns here. Our God reigns here. We claim this ground in Jesus’ name ’cause our God reigns.