Our Guest Craig Hill
Sid: I’ll tell you something it difficult to export something you don’t have yourself. And the Messiah came to set the captives free. He came to open up the prison doors, He came… I was reading this morning in Romans the 14th chapter the 17th verse “For the Kingdom of God is not food and drink but it’s righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” And very few born again Christians have broken through to freedom, they’ve broken through to maintenance and self-help programs, but there is a difference between maintenance and total freedom. I’m not talking about Christians that perhaps had a drinking problem, or a drug problem, or a smoking problem, I’m saying there are so many little foxes that God says “I want to get rid of because the new wine is being poured out.” He saved the best for last and He wants you free not to walk but to run in the next, in the greatest, and I believe the last move of God’s Spirit in history. “The Kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” You know whether you have the righteousness or not it’s based on the word of God, you know whether you have the peace or not. The Hebrew word, this is Greek of course in the New Testament; the Hebrew word for peace is Shalom and it means completeness in your spirit, soul and body. You know whether you have true Shalom, and you know whether you have joy and if there’s some sort of… I have Craig Hill on the telephone he’s founder of Family Foundations International. And we’re making available this week his book “Freedom from Compulsive Habits Bondage Broken” and his 3 audio cassette teaching series is all connected “Identifying Shame.” And Craig you were talking on yesterday’s broadcast about a man that was set free and then the symptoms came back and he didn’t know what to do about it would you continue that story.
Craig: Sure you know what I’ve found Sid so many times what I’d liken going on in so many peoples lives it’s like smoke, fire and fuel. People have external things going on in their lives such as anger or a temptation to this or that. You know 2 of the most common ones probably are anger and impure thoughts. Really those are just like smoke, this man had an intense temptation back to drugs that is just like smoke and that as we were talking yesterday self-help programs even Christian intense effort programs are really just dealing with the smoke, the obvious point is that where there’s smoke there’s a fire. So we really don’t want to just have a smoke management program trying to manage the smoke so that it doesn’t harm us or harm other people in such an intense way. What we really want to do is we want to find out the source of that smoke which is a fire. So what I found in people’s lives is that when we see smoke there’s always fire. The fire is some kind of wounding experience that happened in people’s lives in the past and in most cases it’s actually in childhood.
Sid: And it’s buried that’s the problem it’s not that someone says “I don’t want to deal with it they don’t even know it so if they don’t recognize that there are symptoms of something deeper they’ll never know about the deeper.
Craig: Right, exactly. And so when you see smoke that smoke isn’t just emanating from no where there’s always a fire. And so there’s a fire that’s there. The fire is some kind of a wounding experience that happened in the past and then they’re fuel to that fire. And the fuel is a deep seated emotional lie that the enemy sows in the hearts of people. And it comes through those wounding experiences that often times that happens in people’s families. And just you just said “People don’t even remember the experience many times but the emotional pain is still there.”
Sid: Well, a lot of people say “But wait a second under the New Covenant if you know who you are you don’t have to dig up all of these things you’re just free.” I’ve heard that preached as long as I’ve been a believer!
Craig: You know the real simple answer to that is “Then there shouldn’t be any smoke!” (Laughing) If there… if that’s true then there shouldn’t be any smoke and what we know is that Yeshua died for those things His blood was shed but we know just like in physical healing that blood has to be applied to the specific area of our life when we do apply that blood. And when we really do allow the Lord to remove that lie then indeed we are free; if the lie is still there it continues to torment deep on the inside.
Sid: Tell me a few of the smoke that you talk about you mentioned anger.
Craig: Anger…
Sid: Everyone knows about drugs and homosexuality and that’s a problem but what are some of the acceptable smokes that people don’t deal with?
Craig: Well you know anger would be one; another one that’s real common especially for men are “Impure thoughts.” Thought lust that they simply don’t want to be there the just don’t tell anybody. Those kind of thoughts torment them but they’re there. Other types of externals that are maybe more acceptable are things like overeating and gossiping, watching television for 6 hours at a time. Jumping on a telephone and just talking and talking and talking those are all mechanisms that our own flesh uses to comfort something deep on the inside.
Sid: Why would it be comfort to talk a lot?
Craig: For some people, and that afflicts women more than men, but it’s not exclusive to women there’s a need on the inside to just talk and talk and talk. And a feeling that “If I can talk about this enough somehow or another I’ll find a solution and it’ll make the pain go away.” So people will just talk and talk and there’s really no goal to it there’s no purpose it’s just a comfort mechanism that’s being used really by the flesh. And the bottom line what we find Sid is that people’s flesh rises up and does something or another to bring a false comfort whenever the soul is out of peace. You know it’s an interesting thing that Hebrews chapter 4 verse 10 it talks about the fact let me just read this scripture. Hebrews 4:10 says “For the one that entered into his rest (This is speaking of God’s rest) has himself also rested from his works as God did from His.” What it’s saying is that a person who’s soul, soul being mind, will and emotions not spirit but their soul. When their soul is not at rest, when you’re soul is not at peace it says that what’s going to happen is that you’re going to busy doing your own works. In other words another way to put that is, whenever something is tormented on the inside, whenever there’s pain on the inside, discouragement, disappointment and emotional lie has been stimulated deep on the inside then your flesh is going to be busy going to work bringing something to bring a comfort to that.
Sid: Now could it be that someone would be busy in religious things would bring them comfort rather than… I mean their motivation is to medicate themselves by doing religious things rather than motivation in doing the kingdom of God.
Craig: We hate to think so but unfortunately that is the case. I ran into numerous missionaries on the field that as the truth were known when you got down to the bottom line the reason they’re doing what they’re doing is because something on the inside feels worthless and their own flesh has risen up with using exactly that mechanism if I can just do enough for God, if I could just do enough in the Kingdom then I could be a valuable person.
Sid: What happened to that fellow that was in drugs and got miraculously set free and then was working in the church helping other drug addicts and then everything came back.
Craig: Yeah 12 years later intense temptation to drugs came back and what we discovered when we just asked the Lord “Where is that coming from, what’s that root again” again God showed him a horrific experience that he had in his own family as a 6 year old being homosexually raped by his brother with his other brother just standing by watching not helping him. The result of that was an intense deep emotional lie imparted on the inside “You’re worthless, you have no value you’re only here to be used and abused by other people.” The result of that his own flesh rose up and used drugs in teenage years to comfort pain of that. Every time he’d be disappointed, hurt, wounded, shamed, made to feel worthless by other people it would stimulate the intense pain on the inside and that deep deep emotional pain “Your worthless.” Well, as we prayed the Lord exposed that to him and when he remembered the experience there was an intense hatred that came up in his heart toward his brother. And we said “Lord what do you want to do with that?” And he had the most amazing experience where the Lord Jesus Himself lifted that hatred off of him and said “I died for that, that’s why I died you’re not to wear that, you’re not to carry that anymore.” And the Lord Himself ministered to that, removed that and then he asked the Lord a key question “Lord on that day when my brother did that to me the devil was able to impart to me the answer to a deep question ‘Who am I?’ And the devil’s answer was ‘You’re nobody, you’re nothing, your worthless.’” And he said “Lord today I want You to answer that question.” And you know Sid the Lord just ministered to him the most beautiful thing about who he was. He said “Son, whose who I see you to be, you’re a royal prince; I love you you’re my son, you weren’t created to be abused by other people you were created to be loved, to be valued and to bring life to other people.” And here’s the most amazing thing, after the Lord ministered that to him the temptation to drugs was instantly gone and it was maintenance free, it wasn’t something he had to struggle to try to not think about anymore it just literally was not there. And again the temptation to drugs was the smoke just an external, the fire was the intense experience that happened to him. The fuel was the deep seated lie “You’re worthless.” And I know that we’ll probably be out of time shortly but tomorrow I would like to talk more about what that fuel is in people’s hearts, how it gets there and what we actually practically do so that the Lord can remove that fuel deep in our hearts.
Sid: Well, that’s the key, what about someone that’s fearful of speaking in public could that be something, smoke as you call it?
Craig: Many times that’s smoke because we know that fear is not coming from God. “God did not give us a spirit of fear” the Bible said. So many times people struggle with all kinds of fears that are….
Sid: Ah, we’re out of time…
