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Introducing first, from Lithuania, he weighs 123 kilos, the Russian nightmare, the Kita Kolob. Now, the Devil's Nightmare. Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up.
Welcome back, another episode, yours truly, Nikita Kolob, your host here with the Man Up show. And when you think of, when I say the word flood, what immediately comes to mind? Like, think about that for a moment, like flood, like, you know, there's been a lot of drastic floods over the years, right? I mean, there was actually, hmm, actually a flood, a guy named Noah who built an ark, a boat for a flood, but I'm not referring to that kind of flood today.
So I'm just kind of baiting you there a little bit. I'm talking about more of a sonic flood. In fact, are you familiar with these top worship hits, songs like I Could Sing of Your Love Forever? How about Resonate, Cry Holy, or Here I Am to Worship? With me today, it's an honor, it's a privilege to have a dear friend of mine, Rick Heil, lead singer with Sonic Flood. Rick, welcome to the Man Up show. Nikita, it's great to be here. How you doing, brother?
I am doing well, and it was so good. We just ran into each other recently at the NRB in Nashville, the broadcasting convention there in Nashville, and you were over by the Truth booth, and it was great to see you. I mean, we have connected over the years, your lovely bride, Cece, and we've stayed in touch, and what was interesting, Rick, was that Truth Radio at the convention was celebrating its 25th anniversary, and Sonic Flood was celebrating its 25th anniversary as well, correct? That is correct.
The first album released in 98 or 99. I can't tell. I don't do math.
My son does math really well. He loves it. Anyway, it's about 25 years since that first release, and we are gearing up to go out and celebrate that with brothers and sisters in Christ around the world. Love always running into you. We love you so much. We got to know each other on cruise with a cause where we'd all fill up a boat, and we would go someplace, and we would share the gospel. One time they packed us in a van and said, you're going to maximum security prison, and we're like, great.
I love it. And they wanted us to perform, and we're like, well, can we bring our instruments? No, you can't bring your instruments, but they have instruments there. We're like, what kind of instruments do prisoners get to have? So they put us like, okay, you're going to have to be near the instruments where the prisoners are, so we're like sitting with the prisoners in the midst of them, and they're like in shackles, and they're all wearing orange, and we're trying to play these beat-up, sad instruments. I think we had two rusty strings and an oatmeal can, and then they parade you guys. You're like behind the guards on the other side of the wall or something.
Yeah, the wrestlers are protected, but the music artists are mixing. The heck with those guys. They're dispensable. They're a dime a dozen.
Just put them at the frickin' prisoners. We're having a good time, you know, helping them plan on ways to escape and that sort of thing. You're jogging my memory here, because we did a couple of those to the Bahamas, we did one to Jamaica. You may not remember, it's a long time ago now, right, but it was either or anyway, but I do remember. Yeah, and that famous actor was with us, what's his name, he was... It wasn't Michael Francis, was it?
No, he's great. We took him out on tour with us, and he'd get to share about how he was in the Costa Nostra, or whatever, how he would say it. Yeah, the mobster, Michael Francis, the mobster. Yeah, turned Christian, so that's great, but this guy was like in... Was he in movies? I'm trying to remember. Some movies, yeah, some famous movies, but we were driving with him out to the prison, and he's like, we're in the Bahamas?
I didn't know we were in the Bahamas, and so I know the guy that owns this huge hotel or whatever, and so I don't know. He's like, he really wasn't with us, but he was with us. I got you, yeah. Well, he shall remain nameless at this point.
Yeah, nameless. Okay, so let's back up just for a second, because I mentioned your lovely bride, you mentioned your son. For our listeners out there, just give a little more backdrop on Rick.
And Rick, I want to dive into this too. I mean, you're not even, in one sense, you're not even supposed to be here, and or if you are, you were never supposed to be able to sing. I'm just going to kind of bait our listeners with that for a moment, like, wait, what do you mean?
Lead singer, 25 years, Sonic Flood, wasn't supposed to be able to sing? Wait, what? So, but before we get there, just tell our listeners about your family.
Take a moment and talk about your family. My lovely wife, who did run for Congress back in 2010, and you and your friends helped her and endorsed her. Her name is Cece. She is actually now working with the American Center for Law and Justice as Senior Counsel. And what she does is she oversees all the international working cases, as well as the pro-life advocacy.
That's hard to say, isn't it? She does international human rights, focusing on religious liberty, mainly Christian persecution. And she is also involved in the defense of Israel, and of course, you know that Hamas brutally attacked Gaza and the people in Israel. And there were some people who were abducted by Hamas as prisoners, and she is working with the families of those prisoners, trying to get them released.
And so it's just a horrific situation there. But she does it. She is a legal eagle. She loves justice, and actually her mom was a judge, and so she comes from a lineage of those who desire to see justice. And the only way justice happens is by the hand of God in this world. Right, right. So she is fierce, and my son and my daughter are doing her master's in vocal performance, and my son is rocking it, doing electrical engineering as a major here in town.
Or in Nashville. So they're fired up. You know, they're real smart. And they look at me and go, Dad, you're a doofus. I'm like, you're right, I'm a doofus.
Well, you are gifted and talented in other ways. I actually have a son-in-law. It works in Nashville, Tennessee, who is an electrical engineer as well. Don't ask me the name of the firm, but in fact, they just recently had a merger, he said, that has worked out well. And then I've got another son that lives in, I tell people, suffered for Jesus out in Maui, Hawaii, who's a civil engineer.
Him and my daughter and their two children. And so, yeah, and Cece is amazing. I knew she was passionate about law and lady justice and blind justice and all of that.
I knew that about her, and it's great to hear that she's doing some very strategic work there still in that realm. I mean, you have to know that evil, there's mountains of influence in our world. And if we don't try and overtake those mountains, then evil just rushes right in.
Right. And, I mean, we're all made for a special purpose, and when you become a child of God, you realize that life is more about just fulfilling your physical graphications or what have you and, you know, watching Netflix or whatnot constantly. But it's about being a part of a war, and the war is over people's souls.
You know, that's where the battle is. It's not against flesh and blood, but it's against the powers and the evils that are in control over this world, the spiritual battle, as I might say. And, you know, spirit is more real than this table in front of me, than this world, but in anything that I can see with my eyes, the spirit world is more true and more real, and people are just losing touch of the fact that we are spirit with an earth suit. A human existence. We're a spiritual being with a human existence, right?
Absolutely. And it's quite interesting you talk about that, Rick, because one of the more recent, so, you know, I do, of course, Lex Luger and I, who you made a reference to earlier, not by name, but one of the ones that helped support your lovely bride, Lex. And, you know, he and I do these camps now called Man Camp, and it's helping men be healthy spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically, just every aspect of it, right? And then I do these conferences called the Man Up Conference and Man Up Stake Dinners, and, Rick, what I talk about, what I help these guys understand, hopefully, is exactly what you're talking about, that there's two realms. There's a physical realm that we're more comfortable with, and there's a spiritual realm that we're less familiar with, and in some cases even uncomfortable with. But I tell them, Rick, it's every bit, if not more real than the physical realm, it's every bit as real, right, as the physical realm. And then there's two kingdoms, right?
There's the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. And I challenge men, Rick, to be warriors. Let me just say this, too, it's funny because, you know, you kind of, you said your son, you're kind of joking about your son, how he teases you, right? You know, he's got all the brains and this and that and the other. But a devotional, just over the last couple days, one of my devotionals was that you and I, and everyone listening out there, we were made for a mission. And that a mission gives life meaning. You were made for, you weren't just made to work, pay bills, and then die, right, Rick? Praise the Lord. Right? I mean.
Yeah, yeah, totally. And in your case, God gifted you with the ability to sing. Now, let's talk about that. Let's transition to that for a moment because you went through some, speaking of a physical world, you went through some real physical challenges early on. And forget, correct me if I'm wrong, were you not told by a doctor or somebody that, one, you'd never sing and even questioned if you could even talk or enlighten our listeners to some of that story?
Sure. When I was 11 years old, I was diagnosed with an incurable disease called Crohn's disease, which a lot of people back then hadn't heard of. Nowadays, as soon as you turn on the TV, you've got all these drug companies advertising IBS, IBD, Crohn's disease, colitis, et cetera. You know, they wrap it all up. But a lot was not known about it, and I became a guinea pig for Vanderbilt University students, and I spent a lot of time in the hospital being fed intravenously or through a nose tube, pre-digested food. I don't know who digests food for other people, but God bless you if you do. Wow.
Right. But it was just like some kind of mixture that they just put in a nose tube and put down in my stomach, and it was supposed to help my gut heal or whatever. But we're starting to realize that it's not really what goes in it, but what's already going on with the DNA and with what pathogens that we're up against these days with all the toxins in the world. But I digress. I was carved on a lot. They thought, well, we just need to take this out, but you don't regrow intestines, so they took out about 20 feet of my intestines. You're born with 23 feet of intestines.
Wow. So I have three feet of intestines in my colon, and God sustains me through everything, through COVID, through whatever, you name it, God sustains me and gives me health, and I do what I can to be healthy as we all should, be good stewards with what we've got and with the knowledge that we're given. But all the doctors that look at me, there's like no way this man is surviving with three feet of intestines, and then they do a colonoscopy and they're like, well, that was quick.
Yeah, he only has three feet of intestines. And so God has brought me through a lot of trial, and in fact, when I was 14, I was given a guitar for Christmas. The next day, I went in for about three months to the hospital to sit there and heal and be worked on, and some hippie girl came in and said, oh, you've got a guitar.
You want to learn how to play it? And I was like, yeah. So what Satan means for you, well, God always uses for good.
Just look around your blessings, and a lot of times the blessings that we have are because Satan has tried to come in and destroy something in our lives, and God has turned around for our good. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Nikita Kolov here, and I am excited. Did you hear the huge announcement, the big announcement?
Well, maybe it's a minor announcement. Anyway, Facebook, go look up my new fan page, Nikita Kolov Fans, and like it and follow today. If you're with me in supporting Kolov for Christ Ministries, The Man Up Show, and Man Up Minutes, go to kolov.net and click the donate button.
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Go to www.kolov.net and donate today. I was just like, okay, I love music and I love to sing and I love worship, but I also love instruments. And a band was reforming called Big Tent Revival and a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to be involved in it. So I was like, yeah, I'd love to. And so I was a bass player in that and toured the world and actually got to see all different kinds of faiths and denominations and saw that, you know, there's so much more to being a child of God than just keeping a list of rules, a list of dos and don'ts.
God is not a legalistic God, but he desires relationship. And so I and then on my travels with Big Tent, I met Cece and we started seeing each other. And I was on my way to see her at her family house in Missouri as when I got off the bus with Big Tent. Somebody had given me the pre-release CD of Sonic Flood, that first album, saying they needed a couple of band members to go out and tour this record. And so I was listening to it and I flipped my car going 60 miles an hour.
And when I crawled out of the wreckage, the first thing I saw was that CD with glass on it. And I was like, okay, God's kind of trying to get my attention. And so I got in touch with the people that put the album together and I left Big Tent and got in Sonic Flood and just fell in love with the worship and saw people being changed by worship. And the worship movement was in full swing at that point. And I think there's like milestones, I suppose, in the faith of the church and how God works through it. And at that time, people were really seeing the value of the worship music as a way to come into God's presence and to see things happen.
And so we toured and, you know, various things happened in Sonic Flood. It fell apart, it came back together several times, but the Lord has allowed me to be a part of it. And what I do is every night I get to share my testimony, just like I shared with you how God has used what Satan meant for evil and used it for his glory. And God is able to do the same for everyone and that he is here to heal what has been broken by the evil one.
He's here to restore what has been stolen by the evil one. And we see thousands of people come forward for prayer and we get to lay hands on them and pray for them and expect God to do his wonders because that's what it's all about is God changing hearts. You know, we do our part, we bang on stuff and we sing and we try and focus on the Lord and give him the glory. And then we open up our hearts to the people that we're with and people come forward and they're healed. So that's what I love being a part of this worship thing. And how we defeat the evil one is with the word of our testimony and that's what we do.
And the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. Well, let me unpack a couple things here for our listeners because I'm making notes. I mean this is incredible.
You have such a powerful testimony. At age 11 you're diagnosed with the Crohn's and you walk through. I didn't realize we had 23 feet of intestines and you had 20 feet removed. So you only have three feet of intestines left remaining all these years later. I'm not trying to age you there, Rick, but people can do some math there because they're going to say, okay, 25 years, sonic flood, big tent revival. Okay, okay, let me do some math. And I love this story.
At age 14, you know, you give it a guitar and the hippie chick says, hey, want to learn to play that thing? And so you do. And then you were quoting Romans 828, for those who don't know, God works everything out for good for those who love Him. And that's what your life really represents is the enemy trying to take you out physically, but you're an overcomer, man.
You have overcome so much, Rick, when it comes to physical challenges. And then I made a note of something else too because I interviewed a friend of mine, David Hoffman, who recently wrote a book called Relationships Over Rules. Relationships Over Rules. And he was raised a Jew and came to Christ. He's now a messianic Jew, so he was raised under lots of rules, right?
I mean, I think 613 rules that the Jews had in addition to the Ten Commandments, something like that. Don't quote me on that. Impossible.
Impossible would fit right there. But here, I want to get to this too, because you've got a little quote here. The fathers of the modern worship movement. So you go from big tent revival over to sonic flood, 25 years anniversary now. And I want to make sure you mention before we run out of time, you mentioned going on a 25-year anniversary tour.
So take a minute here, before we run out of time, take a minute, talk about the fathers of the modern worship movement. Where are you going to be touring and who with and how can people find out when you're coming to their community, Rick? Yeah, just for people who want to stay in the know is just go to our website, sonicflood.com. And just sign up for the newsletter.
It's that easy. Just give us your email. We want to stay in touch with you. We want to be in touch. And also, we want to share with you our music. And a lot of times these days in the music business, you can't make a dime off music. So we basically just write the music, we reduce it, and then we give it away. Because we want to see people use this music to grow in their relationship with the Lord. And then once the dates start firming up, we'll be putting out a calendar and we'll be inviting people to come out. And I'd say we're the grandfathers.
We need an update Wikipedia. Not the fathers, but the grandfathers of the modern worship movement. Let me say this, too. I want to say this. You mentioned about people, you testifying at your concerts on stage, which is amazing.
I think people are going to find out from this conversation and if they attend one of your concerts, I would phrase it this way, Rick. You're the real deal. And I don't say that lightly. I don't throw that term around loosely.
But you are. You and CC are the real deal. You absolutely love the Lord. She's out there in the profession of law, loving the Lord and being salt and light. You're on the stage performing, really honoring the Lord with your gifts and talents and testifying. And I want to say, and you probably already know this, but for our listeners out there, the reason you see, I believe, Rick, so many healings in your concerts is because of how God has healed you. And typically I've found that there's an anointing on an individual's life, a person's life, when they've experienced something like that. You've been healed. And so God's anointed you, even if it's not the laying on of hands, just the speaking of his words. What did the centurion say?
Hey, Jesus, you don't need to come to my home, just speak the words and my son, my servant will be healed, right? So pretty amazing. Rick Heil, Sonic Flood. We got maybe just a minute or so left. Last words, Rick. What do you want our listeners to know about Sonic Flood? Oh, we're just people who want to give God the glory.
And for me, I can speak for myself. I am a sinner and I need Jesus every moment of the day. And if you're not getting into his word and letting him transform your mind and your heart with his word, I would ask you to please do that because we can't survive with the inundation of the evil one and the way that he is pervasive in many ways. He is the father of lies and Satan wants to come in. He wants to kill, rob and destroy.
He wants to wreck your life. He wants to make you think that you can't become a Christian and you can't, you know, be used up by God. But those are all lies from the evil one. And you have the power within you. Greater is he that is within you than the evil in this world. Get into the word every day and ask God to use you up for his glory.
That's good. And speaking of the word, that's a good word and good encouragement to all of our listeners out there. And speaking of the word, I'll mention this about Sonic Flood. The group took the name Sonic Flood as a reference to a line in the book of Revelation, chapter 19, verse 6. I'm not going to give you the verse. You're going to have to go look it up.
You're going to have to go get in the word and you're going to have to go look it up. Rick Hiles, Sonic Flood, man. Listen, go sign up for his newsletter, SonicFlood.com.
Right, Rick? That's it. Sonic Flood, all one word. It's that easy.
That easy, SonicFlood.com. I'm going to go. As soon as I finish this interview, I've got to sign up. So anyway, I don't think I've signed up for your newsletter. But listen, I want all of you, one, be in prayer for Rick as they get ready to embark on this 25th anniversary tour.
So I'm going to petition your prayers for Rick and his lovely bride, Cece, and all the work she's doing out in the marketplace. You cover them in your prayers and then sign up for the newsletter. And see if he's coming to a neighborhood near you.
If he's coming to your community and go check out Sonic Flood. I'm guessing they can find your music on YouTube and everywhere else. I know you said you'd give it away. It is flying around your head as we speak.
All right. There it is. So hey, if you haven't picked up on it, when I said Rick is the real deal, certainly, hopefully you know that by now, that he really is. I mean, the man willing to give his music away just so he can bless people and see people come into the kingdom and see the kingdom grow. So Rick Heil, Sonic Flood, thank you and thank each and every one of you every single week to be so faithful to tune in to the Man Up show. Go out and live a God-filled, God-blessed day today. This podcast is made possible by the grace of God and your faithful prayers, support and generous gifts.
May God bless you for your continual contributions. Go to Kolob.net and donate today. If you are enjoying the Man Up show, would you help us spread the word? Tell your family, tell your friends, tell your neighbors to download, subscribe and leave a comment. Hi, Nikita Kolob. Be sure to check out the Man Up show now available on television, broadcast and podcast. Go to MorningStarTV.com or the Truth Radio Network. Check out your local listings or better yet, download the Truth Network app today. Nikita Kolob here.
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