Sid Roth

JOHN:  Yes, he led Egypt out of the audience, that’s what we’re doing right now! (laughter) I got a, when Moses led Israel out of Egypt where was their destination. Everybody say it really loud.

AUDIENCE:                 The Promised Land!

JOHN:  The Promised Land. No. What did Moses say to Pharaoh, what did Moses say to Pharaoh over and over again. “Thus saith the Lord: Let my people go that they might worship me in the desert.” Why do you want to bring them out of Egypt into the Promised Land without first bringing them to the “Promiser? Okay, if you bring the children of Israel out of Egypt into the Promised Land without first bringing them to the Promiser, you’re going to, you’re going to get a bunch of people that are going to make the Promised Land into a place of idolatry.

AUDIENCE:                 Wow, that’s good.

JOHN:  Okay? This is what we did in the 80’s and the 90’s in the church. We preached more of what Jesus would do for us rather than who He is. So we spawned disciples that started seeking God for what He can do for me not who He is, right, and that’s like a woman who marrying a man because he’s got a lot of money. She marries him out of love but for the wrong reasons. You see I find something so amazing. I look at Israel. Israel is abused by Egypt. Correct? They live in the slums, they eat the worst, wear the worst, they’re working all their lives to build somebody else’s inheritance. Their children are put to death by the Egyptians. They come out of Egypt and they’re constantly saying: “Let’s go back to Egypt, it was better for us.” But then I look at Moses. Now think about Moses. He’s raised in the most beautiful home on the planet “cause his grandfather Pharaoh is the wealthiest man in the whole planet. So that means he’s got a Maserati, he’s probably got a Lamborghini, he’s probably got a Porsche, he’s probably got an Audi, the top of the line Audi, he’s probably got every Harley in the collections, he’s got every “I-” this and “ I-” that. He’s got assistants. He can have any woman he wants in the whole nation and can even ask for other nations because he’s a prince. But he comes out of Egypt and he never once says “I want to go back to Egypt, it’s better for me back in Egypt.” And what’s the difference? He had one encounter with God face-to-face at that bush. Israel had a chance when he came down on the mountain. You see you have to remember, the burning bush was at Mount Sinai. So what Moses wants to do is he wants to bring these people straight to the One that he met at the bush. Because getting in to the presence of God, that took away his appetite from the world forever! He never, ever said “I want to go back to Egypt.” Now remember Egypt is a “type” [symbol] of the world. His appetite for the world was gone, because he had one encounter with God. You see we’re always trying to get people to pray a formula “sinner’s prayer” at churches. And don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to make a movement of people saying “well, you know that’s not what we’re going to do.” But what one thing I’m saying is that we should add on to that is why don’t we give the Holy Spirit time to minister in the presence of God to them so that now all of a sudden they’ve tasted the heavenly gift? Okay? Moses tasted, he saw, he tasted at the burning bush. He said I’ve gotta bring these people out there. So he brings them out to that mountain. God says, all right, Moses, you tell them the whole reason I brought you out of Egypt was to bring you to myself. Go look it up in Exodus 19, it’s amazing. The whole reason I brought them out of Egypt was to bring them to myself. It’s in there. Read it. It’s amazing. So He says I’m so excited I’m going to come down there and introduce myself to ‘em on the third day. So get ‘em ready the next two days and the third day I’m going to come down, which is prophetic, and I’m not going to go into that. So Moses gets them all ready, they wash their clothes, God comes down on the mountain and what do they do? They all run away, and they say Moses, we can’t handle God. You talk to God, tell us whatever he says, we’re going to hear and do it. And that’s amazing to me, right? And so Moses is heart-broken. And so his response to the people is Exodus 20:20, where He says, “Do not fear,” now look at me, do not fear because God’s come to test you. What’s the test? To see if His fear is in you so that you may not sin. Wait a minute. Do not fear, because God’s come to test you to see if His fear is in you so that you may not sin. He’s not contradicting himself, he’s differentiating between being scared of God and the fear of the Lord. As I said earlier, the person who fears God, well the person who’s scared of God, I should say it this way, has something to hide. That’s why Adam hides from the presence of the Lord. Okay? But the person who fears God has nothing to hide. Okay? They’re scared to be away from God. So the first definition of the fear of the Lord is to be terrified of being away from Him. You know I’ll never forget, back in the 1990’s, it was 1994, Jim Bakker had read a book that I had written called “Victory in the Wilderness,” it was the first book I had ever written. He read it in prison. He had been in prison for 4 years. When he read it he contacted his assistant from prison and he said    could you please find this author and ask him to come visit me in prison. So I remember I agree to do it. And I walked into the prison and he comes out in his prison garb and grabs me and he holds me and he hugs me and he won’t let me go. Finally he grabs my shoulders and he said “Did you write it or a ghost writer?” I said, “No sir, I wrote it. I’ve gone through a wilderness but not near what you’ve gone through.” He said “We have so much to talk about. Sit down.” And I remember he looked at me and he said this prison was not God’s judgment on my life, it was his mercy on my life. He said because John, honestly, if I would have kept living the way I was living I would have ended up in hell forever. When he said that to me I thought, okay, you have my attention, complete, total attention. So after about 20 minutes I felt very, very comfortable with him and I thought I’m going to ask him some questions. My first question was “Jim, when did you fall out of love with Jesus?” At what point did you stop loving Jesus? Because You have to understand as a little boy I grew up in Whitehall Michigan which was 15 minutes away from where he pastored in Muskegon Michigan. So I said, “When did you stop loving Jesus, how’d it happen?”  And he looked at me and he said “I didn’t.” What? What do you mean you didn’t fall out of love with Jesus? I said, Jim, you committed adultery with Jessica Hahn, you did all this mail fraud, all this stuff you’re in jail for. What do you mean you didn’t fall out of love with Jesus? And I’m perplexed and he sees I’m perplexed. And he looked right at me and he said, “I didn’t fear God.” And he said, “There’s millions of Americans just like me. They love Jesus, but they don’t fear God.” You see, you have to understand the New Testament teaches that He is Abba, Daddy. But the same New Testament says He’s the consuming fire. Okay? So you have to understand something. If you don’t have the love of God and you don’t have the fear of God you’re going to end up in a rut. How many of you know that Jesus said the road to life is a narrow road? Right? How many of you know that every road’s got two ditches on both sides? Right? So the first ditch is called “legalism.” Now the church in the 1960’s was in a legalistic ditch. Now I wasn’t a Christian back in the 60’s, I didn’t saved until “79. But let me tell you something, I saw the remnants of this legalistic move. Because women would wear their hair up in a bun remember, they didn’t cut their hair and wore it up in a big bun, and they didn’t wear any make-up, and they had dresses down to their ankles. You know you can have a dress down to your ankles, you can have your hair up in a bun, you can have no make-up but still have a seducing spirit up to your eyeballs. Okay? That’s not holiness. Okay? So it was all about an outward form to try to hide a deficiency that was in our hearts and we were in legalism. Right? So what happened in the 60’s? God brings a revelation to the church. You know what the revelation was, he used one man to do it. God is a good God, and something good can happen to you. The man was Oral Roberts, right? And then the Charismatic move began. Right? And we found out our Daddy loved us. What did the love of God do? It delivered us from the ditch of legalism. But you know what we did? We said I went so far from that ditch I’ll never fall in again and we went to the other side of the road and fell into that other ditch. And the other ditch is called lawlessness or lasciviousness, which is an excessive, fleshly, worldly, disobedient lifestyle. And God’s given us a force that keeps us, keeps us out of that ditch. It’s called the fear of the Lord. So you see it takes the love of God and the fear of God to keep us healthy. Okay? It’s like two sides of a coin, you got heads and tails, if you don’t have tails you don’t have a coin, you need ‘em both. And so when we understand that God is Abba, Daddy, but He’s also the King, He’s also the consuming fire we understand that yes, we can jump in His lap, there are times for that but then there’s other times, let me tell you, I didn’t feel it was the time to jump in His lap when He came into Brazil like He did. You understand what I’m talking about.   When I was in Malaysia and those girls, those women were getting baptized in fire. That’s just not a time you’re jumping in his lap. And so there is a right way to understand that God is so much greater and more complex than our simple little, well He’s Daddy and here’s grace and it doesn’t matter how you live you’re going to get to heaven. That is a complete lack of the fear of the Lord. And you see if you’ve got the fear of the Lord, Paul says, it will perfect holiness. We work out our salvation, in the New Testament it says, with fear and trembling. If you look at the church in the earlyÖ in the Book of Acts, you know what? They were all drunk on the Day of Pentecost. I mean they were experiencing Daddy’s love, so they got a little too familiar, they got a little bit loose, and so now this couple who’s in good standing, they’re members of the Church of Jerusalem bring up an offering and it’s a big offering, it’s a big chunk of the land they just sold, and they lay it at Peter’s feet, and the next thing you know they’re dead. And if you read in Acts, chapter 5, verse 11, it says “So great fear came upon the church.” Not upon the city. Yes, it said somewhere else great fear came upon all those who heard these things. Great fear came upon the CHURCH! So what is the fear of the Lord? So first of all it is to be terrified to be away from Him. The person who fears God doesn’t say how close can I get to the line of sin and not fall in. The person who fears God says I want to be so far away, so close to Dad, so close to my Daddy, that I’m so close to Him I can’t even see that line of sin. Okay? That’s the attitude they have. You understand what I’m saying, they’re not saying how close can I get and not, and not fall in. What is it to fear God? It is to venerate Him. That’s a big word which means to honor, to respect, to esteem, to value, to reverence, to stand in awe of Him more than anything or anyone else. We firmly embrace God’s heart so we love what He loves, we hate what He hates, what is important to Him becomes important to us, what is not so important to Him is not so important to us. Remember Jesus said there are weightier matters. Are you with me? What is the evidence that somebody truly has the fear of God in their life? Okay? Now remember, the Holy Spirit, one of His manifestations is the fear of the Lord. Remember He’s the Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of counsel, the Spirit of might, the Spirit of understanding, the Spirit of knowledge, and the Spirit of the dear of the Lord and Jesus delighted in the fear of the Lord. What is the evidence that somebody truly has the fear of the Lord in their life? Okay? Well, number one, they reverence His presence. I talked about that in Brazil. But the second thing that you see in their life is they tremble at His Word. Do you know how the Bible talks about trembling at His word? What does it means to tremble at His word. Number one it means that you’ll obey Him instantly. Okay? Huh? I, I still see some looks and I want to make sure you’re really clear, [and] you who are watching this video. When I say what is the evidence of the fear of the Lord, let’s put it to you like this way: let’s say I’ve got an outlet and I want to know is there, is that outlet is it live or is it dead? Well if I put a brand new blow dryer in and it’s a working blow dryer in that outlet and I turn the switch on and hot air starts blowing, that’s evidence that that is a good outlet. Correct?

AUDIENCE:                 Yes. That’s right.

SID:                 It ‘s like going to a football game!

JOHN:  Yeah! So I’m sitting there going “this’ll calm down.” Well it doesn’t! They get through with the praise and worship and the leader comes up and starts reading out of the Bible. I’m still seeing people sitting there looking around, people looking down like this, people are whispering to one another, and you can actually hear “em mutter from the people whispering to one another. Now I’m angry, okay? I mean I am really angry. So they introduce me. First time I’ve ever spoken in Brazil, 1996, publically. I walk up, I walked up to the podium with my interpreter right beside me. And I just put my elbow on the podium and I just sat there and stared at “em and didn’t say a word. Now, now, now picture this, okay? Friday night, national conference, the guest speaker’s introduced and he’s just glaring at you for 45 seconds!

SID:                 Not too cool!

JOHN: That gets people’s attention, right! So when I knew every eye in the whole auditorium was on me, this is the first words in public I’ve ever said in Brazil, I said I have two questions. Question number one: you’re sitting across the table talking to somebody and the whole time you’re talking to them they got their hands in their pocket looking around like this, or they’re looking down like this, or they’re whispering to somebody sitting beside them, next to them at the table. I said, “Will you continue to talk to them?’

SID:                 No.

JOHN:  They said, “No,” right. I said, “What if every time I go,  you go over to somebody’s house and you knock on their door and they open up the door and they go, “Oh, it is you, again. Come in.” I said, “Will you continue to go to that house?” They went, “No.” So I said, “I’ve been in this auditorium for an hour and a half and I have, or an hour, and I have not felt one ounce of the presence of God.” And I said the reason is He’ll never come into an atmosphere where He’s not held in the utmost of respect. I said if Pele you’re, well first of all I said if your President, the President of Brazil would have walked onto this platform tonight he would have gotten ten times the respect you gave the Holy Spirit. You, you would have listened to every word he said, you would have given him your attention. I said if Pele would have walked on, Pele’s the greatest soccer player ever in Brazil, would have walked on this, out on this platform, you would have been on the edge of your seats!

SID:                 Of course.

JOHN:  Okay? I said you’ve given no respect to the Holy Spirit. So I speak to them for 75 minutes on the fear of the Lord. At the end of that, now this is amazing what I am about to tell you. I said every person in here, you say you’re born again but you lack the fear of God, stand up, and you’re willing to repent, stand up. 75 percent of the whole auditorium stands up. Now this is what’s amazing. The moment they stand up the presence of God comes in. First time in two hours. And people are weeping, right? So it lasts a few minutes and it lifts. And the Holy Spirit speaks to me and says lead them in a prayer of repentance. So I led them in a simple prayer of repentance. Forgive me for my lack of reverence, for Your presence, Your work. All of a sudden another wave of His presence comes in. It’s even stronger, lasts 3 or 4 minutes. It lifts. So now we’re all there and the Holy Spirit speaks to me and He says I’m coming one last time. Now what I’m about to tell you I got emails on this 8 years after it happened. Okay? The only way I know how to describe what happened is you’re at the end of a runway and a Boeing Jet’s taking off right in front of you. That kind of a sound of a violent wind came blowing in to that auditorium. When it did, the people started screaming. Now can you imagine thousands of Latinos screaming? You know how loud that would be. The wind was louder. So that same thing that happened in Malaysia happened to me there. I’m like, “Oh my God!” There are like goose bumps on my goose bumps. And I’m standing there frozen, and I’m like “Whooooa…..” because it’s awesome! …what’s going on, and terrifying. And I remember it lasted for about 90 seconds and it left in its wake people collapsed on the chairs, people weeping and I’m like, “God, what do I do? And the Lord’s like, “I’m through with you.” (laughing) So I turned and I looked at the leader and I said “It’s all yours.” So he comes up, they walk me out into the car. And the singer, the national singer and her husband get in the car. She screams, I mean literally, you know how passionate Brazilians are, “Did you hear the wind!?” And I said, now I didn’t want to say it, I said, “Maybe it was a jet airplane flying right over the building.”

AUDIENCE:                 (LAUGHTER)

JOHN:  And she got angry at me. She said, (yelling) “What are you talking about? I saw fire all around the building.” And her husband’s a lot more analytical and quieter. He quieted her down, he said, “Sir, that wasn’t a jet airplane above the building. I said, “How do you know?” He said because there were union security men all around the outside the building. He said most of them aren’t even saved. He said when the wind started blowing they came running in to see what was going on and they started saying to our leaders “what’s going on?” He said I was at the sound board, because I had to check the levels for my wife. He said the decimal beaters were at zero the whole time the wind blew. It was 90 seconds the wind blew. He said “not one ounce of the sound came through our sound system.” I said, “My God, take me to my hotel room.’

AUDIENCE AND SID:             (LAUGHTER)

JOHN:  No kidding, I didn’t even go out to eat that night. And I remember I just sat on my balcony and worshipped until 1:30 in the morning. And so you’ll never find the Lord in an atmosphere where He’s not held with the utmost respect.

SID:                 ÖI want to ask you to do something.

JOHN:  Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

SID:                 I would like you to speak just a little while on the fear of the Lord and then lead us in repentance. Would you do that, John? Thank you.

AUDIENCE:                 (CLAPPING)

JOHN:  Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Okay. So, what, what is the fear of the Lord? All right. Let me say this. And I’m, I’m going to say to you tonight, I’m going to repeat some things I just said on this program because I need to lay a foundation again. What is the fear of the Lord is NOT to be scared of God. And as I said, when Moses led Israel out of Egypt, and let me ask you as an audience, when Moses led Egypt out of the audience, or out of, excuse me.

AUDIENCE:                 (LAUGHTER)

SID: I am going to take this wonderful opportunity to ask a couple of questions to John Bevere that I’ve really wanted to hear from him the answers. John, you said something when I interviewed you on television. You said there was a season in your life where you were praying in the Holy Spirit two hours every day. But then you made a switch and tell me what the switch was and the results that happened.

JOHN:  The switch was, I kept, if I’m, if I’m remembering, I’m going back to our radio interview. I was praying everyday “God use me.” Use me to win multitudes to Jesus, use me to cast out demons, use me to heal the sick people, use me to restore people’s lives, restore marriages. And I was praying this way for years. And one day the Holy Spirit spoke to me, and He said, “Your prayers are off.” And I said, “What!” He said, “Your prayer are off target.” And I said I’m asking you to use me win multitudes to Jesus, to heal people, to heal marriages, to heal bodies. How can they be off? And He said this to me, He said, “Judas cast our devils, Judas healed the sick, Judas preached repentance, Judas led people to me,” because when He sent the 12 out He sent the 12 out. He said, “Judas left everything he had to follow me.” He said, “Judas is in hell.”

SID:                 Uh!!

JOHN:  When He said that to me, I literally started trembling inside. I said, “Then what should I be praying?” And then He said to me, “What Paul prayed: that I might know Him.” And so those who know their God will be strong and do exploits. So He said, “You can use me.” He said, “I don’t use people. I transform them into the image of My son.”

AUDIENCE:                 Mmmm, huh!

JOHN: I mean can you just see me coming into my, or my wife coming in to me and saying, “John, use me to make babies for you! (pleading) I want to make babies, Ohhh, I want to make babies. Give me babies or I’m going to die!

SID:                 Ha!

AUDIENCE:                 (LAUGHTER)

JOHN: Okay, so what would I look at my wife and say? Oh my gosh, who did I marry! Okay? (Sid and audience laugh) But we’re intimate and out of our intimacy came four really great boys. And He said, “I want you intimate with me.” So my whole prayer started changing. “God, I want to know You intimately. I want to know You intimately. I want to know You like You know me.” Well you know what’s interesting? This was back in 1984-85. And in this time period when I started changing my prayer, I started getting free. I was bound to pornography and here I was in the ministry. And I asked Lester Sumrall to pray for me. I opened up to him, I said, “I’m bound, will you pray for me?” He prayed a very strong prayer and nothing happened. Nine months later I’m on a four day fast, and May the 6st, 1985 I get completely delivered from pornography. Okay? So I’m walking in my freedom a couple a years and I said to God, I said, “I don’t get it.” I mean I humbled myself. I asked one of the strongest men of God I know on the planet to get me delivered, and I don’t get delivered. And then nine months later I’m on this fast and I get delivered.     And the Lord showed me that what I was praying, I was praying that “God use me, God use me” and I was afraid that pornography was going to keep me to the preaching ministry I know I was called to. He said, “But then you changed your prayers and you said I want to know you, I want to know you intimately. And He said, “You had sorrow, but your sorrow was worldly when you opened up with Dr. Sumrall.”  He said, “Nine months later your sorrow was godly because your heart was breaking because you knew your sin was breaking My heart.” So if you look at the difference you can see it in two kings. Saul says, “I’ve sinned, I’ve sinned.” But he’s embarrassed, so he says “Now honor me by worshipping with me in front of my elders.” You’ve embarrassed me in front of my elders. David, when he gets nailed, falls on his face and said “I have sinned and against You only I have sinned.” He couldn’t care less what his elders thought. So that’s the difference between worldly sorrow and godly sorrow.          Godly sorrow the focus is on Him, worldly sorrow the focus is on what’s going to happen to me. And when we pray that we can know Him intimately, that we can please Him the best a man or woman can please Him, now it’s all about this relationship over everything else and that’s what pleases the heart of God. See Psalm 89, verse 7 says:  “God is to be greatly feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be held in reverence by all those who surround him.” So you’ll never find the presence God in an atmosphere where He’s not held in the utmost of respect. I remember when I learned this experientially. Back in 1996, I was asked to speak in Brazil, the nation of Brazil. There were thousands of people at this conference, it was a national conference. I’m the Friday night speaker. They drive me to the auditorium. There’s cars parked everywhere. And as I come into the auditorium I can hear the worship coming from the inside of the building. Because in their big auditoriums down there, if they have a ceiling on it, there’s like a six foot gap between the upper wall and the ceiling, and it’s for air ventilation but you can hear what’s going on inside. So they walk me in, they put me on the platform. There’s not a seat open anywhere. Thousands of Brazilians, right? So there’s no presence of God. There’s no presence of God in the whole auditorium. Now when I say this Sid, as we know there are 2 types of the presence of God. There is the “omnipresence” of God. That is where David said “where can I go from your presence? If I go to the highest mountain you’re there, if I make my bed in the lowest valley you’re there.” That’s the presence of God that says “I’ll never leave you nor forsake you.” That’s the omnipresence of God. The other presence of God the Bible speaks about is the “manifest presence” of God. “Manifest” is to bring from the unseen into the realm of the seen, the unheard into the realm of the heard, the unknown into the realm of the known. It’s when God reveals Himself to our senses. Okay? That is a very real experience in Christianity.   Jesus said, “I will manifest Myself to you,” right? So that presence was totally void in thatÖ and I’m sitting there going “this is a believer’s conference.” Place is packed, best worship leaders in the nation, why is there no presence!? So I asked the Lord, I said, “God, why is there no presence?” And all of a sudden God open up my eyes and I’m looking at the people. And they’re standing there with their hands in their pocket looking around like this, they got their arms crossed looking down like this, they’re whispering to one another, they’re fumbling through their purses, and they’re walking in and out of this auditorium getting concession stand stuff, okay?

Sid: We want everyone everywhere to be so filled with the supernatural love of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that it will literally radiate out of every pore of your body and just reach out and touch that person that’s so broken and so hurting, and so thirsty for that love. I’ve got on the telephone Kevin Howard, Kevin is a Hebraic scholar and a Bible teacher. He’s written a book which I find fascinating. It’s called “The Feasts of the Lord” it’s hardback book with a 150 full color photographs and paintings and charts so you can visualize what each of these Biblical festivals are. As a matter of fact something else that I find very interesting, there are other festivals besides the 7 that are commanded in the scriptures and many of them Yeshua celebrated. But one in particular is a Jewish festival with a very sad day, it commemorates the destruction of the temple, but isn’t it amazing that on that precise date many events have happened in Jewish history. I have on the telephone Kevin Howard, I’m speaking to him at his home in Cincinnati. Kevin would you talk a bit about Tish b’Av?

Kevin: Sure I’d be glad to Sid. Tish b’Av is a holiday I’m sure most believers have never even heard of unless they have a Jewish background, or live in a Jewish community. But Tish b’Av is a holiday that occurs in the late summer usually in the summer heat months, late July or in August. Tish b’Av actually as you mentioned is mentioned in the Bible in the book of Zechariah it’s called the “Fast of the 5^th month.” It is a fast very somber holiday which commemorates or observes, bemoans the fact of the 1^st and 2^nd temples being destroyed. 586 BC the Babylonians came in and destroyed the great Solomonic 1^st temple, and then in 70 AD the Romans destroyed the 2^nd temple, the mighty magnificent beautiful temple that Herod had remodeled and was there in the time of Christ. The temples, both temples were destroyed on the same day so it was… it marks the ultimate tragedy of the nation of Israel, the temples being destroyed. But as you mentioned many other things, tragedies, have happened on that date throughout history. For example several years later in AD 135 Bar Kokhba who was trying to lead a rebellion to throw off Roman rule he was… his rebellion was crushed on that day and any hope of Jewish independence was snuffed out for another 1800 years. It was the last attempt to gain independence to rebuild the temple but it was not to be and snuffed out on the same day the temples were destroyed. As well as in 1290 AD one of the greatest tragedies of all times for the modern Jewish community was that’s when the Inquisition started. That marked the end of Jews… I’m sorry of Jews in England being kicked out as well as a few hundred years later in 1492 the Spanish Inquisition started and Jews were pushed out of Spain.  They either had to convert forcibly to Catholicism, or were pushed out of the country…

Sid: Isn’t it amazing all these tragic events in Jewish history occurred on the same date. By the way, isn’t it an interesting year in Spain 1492, does it remind you of a poem about Christopher Columbus sailing the ocean blue in 1492? Many people believe especially from his diaries are pretty much convinced that Christopher Columbus was Jewish and that’s why he left, that was the date the Jews had to leave Spain.

Kevin: That’s very interesting isn’t it? We remember the great events of 1492 but oft time we negate the tragedies of the great inquisition. That marked the end really of the golden age of the Jewish community in Spain, really the renaissance of that community was gone with the inquisition. But as you mentioned Tish b’Av was a day of great tragedy throughout history.

Sid: It’s a… understand the great day of persecution of Jewish merchants in Germany under Hitler, Kristallnacht.

Kevin: Right.

Sid: That was the same day too.

Kevin: That was in what 1938 a tremendously you know a day in infamy. We think of Japan but it was a great day of violence against Jewish people here just in our own country.

Sid: Well we were talking earlier this week about the 3 major festivals that are coming, actually the first one begins this Friday evening that’s why I’m featuring this book and interviewing you, and that is Rosh Hashanah. Would you tell me a bit about that as you do in your book from a Biblical and historical viewpoint, then how it’s done modern, and the prophetic significance?

Kevin: Sure Sid. The Feast of Trumpets is known today as Rosh Hashanah. So sometimes people are confused they hear Rosh Hashanah they don’t connect that it’s Biblically what was known as the Feast of Trumpets. But Rosh Hashanah is a Hebrew word for Head of the Year. Today that marks really the celebration of the Jewish New Year, the new civil year, but Biblically it was known as Trumpets. Actually in the Bible it was never called the Feast of Trumpets and it was never called Rosh Hashanah, but it was simply called… the 5^th holiday was simply called A Memorial or a Day of Blowing as in blowing the trumpet. So popularly today we speak of it as the Feast of Trumpets or as Rosh Hashanah the beginning of the new civil year. I find the Feast of Trumpets very fascinating because it celebrates only one thing the blowing of the trumpets as far as Biblically.

Sid: It is kind of… the more modern approach when it was changed to the Head of the Year etcetera, but that Biblical thing is all God’s concerned about.

Kevin: Yes that’s correct. The list of, you know Biblical record for observances wasn’t lengthy and it wasn’t complicated, the day was simply to be celebrated blowing the trumpet and a day of no work, it was Sabbath of rest.

Sid: You know something I’m suggesting when I speak many times, and I really believe God would be pleased, that is for Christians to understand our Jewish roots, and understand the Biblical precedence for the festivals, understand the way they used to be observed, understand the way they are observed today, understand the prophetic significance, and then look at the scriptures for yourself and say “Holy Spirit how would You like this festival which is a shadow of a great event of what has happened or will happen in the future life of the Messiah. How would it be pleasing for us to worship You this year?” You see one of the things coming from a traditional Jewish background that I used to get bored with really is same old same old, have it the same way every year not one change. I mean God is bigger, God is fresher and there’s revelations the Spirit of God will give you on these festivals and they are meant for families. If we know one thing in our society both political parties are even talking about this is we need family values we need families to come together. I personally believe that’s why God designed these Biblical festivals for families.

Kevin :I agree with you Sid. God as we mentioned on an earlier broadcast God appointed them and they were to bring the nation together, they were to gather families together, and they were appointments with God Himself. So these are not just dry observances or…

Sid: But they’ve become that in traditional Judaism by doing the same ol’ same ol’ without the Ruach haKodesh, the Spirit of God, over almost over 2000 years but God wants to revitalize them. You know what I’m thinking of Romans 11:11 it says “Salvation has come to the Gentile to provoke the Jew to jealousy.” Now what’s going to provoke a Jew to Jealousy? Having a family Passover meal and inviting some of your Jewish friends, or having Easter bunnies and an Easter egg from pagan vestiges? I mean give me a break (laughing)!

Kevin: (Laughing)

Sid: So tell me a bit more about what’s coming up this Friday night, Rosh Hashanah.

Kevin: Well as far as a modern observance of Rosh Hashanah it’s a, it’s sort of a bitter-sweet, it’s a very somber time because it begins the high holy days. In the synagogue it’s a beginning of times of concentrating on repentance and past years sins, and just repenting and it’s very somber in that sense. Along with that a tradition has risen in the past 2000 years that in rabbinic tradition it’s taught that on Rosh Hashanah, on this Friday night, that God opens 3 books in heaven, 3 great books. One is a book for the righteous, one is book for the wicked, and one is the book of life for those in between.  According to rabbinic tradition during the high holy days that is from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, those 10 days people’s welfare or their destiny for the year hangs in the balances. Those who are righteous God immediately writes them in the book of life for the righteous. Those who are wicked they are written in the book of the wicked and they will not continue to live for the next year. Those who are in the book of the in between have 10 days, according to Jewish tradition, from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur to repent. If they truly repent and turn to God on Yom Kippur God gives them graciously another year to live.

Sid: I remember from the traditional synagogue those were serious times those 10 days because it was a question of whether you were going to live or die and by repenting of our sins we would live.

Kevin: Yeah.

Sid: So these were very… that’s why they’re called the high holidays.

Kevin: Right. In fact it’s not a joyous time at all. There’s no weddings during that time, there’s no parties, there’s no joyous activities at all during those 10 days. It really harkens back to the days of the temple where, which we’ll talk about in a later broadcast how on Yom Kippur the high priest would go into the temple and they would have a covering, or sacrifices for the sins of the people, but it would be dealt with sins of the past year. So…

Sid: Well Kevin we’re out of time.

Sid:  I have on the telephone Mrs. Ella Brunt and if anyone’s been red hot for the Messiah it’s got to be Ella. She was in just an amazing accident. She was out on a sailboat with her 2 children a little 8 year old and a 6 year old Cody. Cody gets knocked into the water, the sailboat turns over and they can’t find him he’s under the water 10 minutes go by they finally find him. He’s dead they apply CPR and the water gushes out of his and they take a helicopter in and they take him to the hospital. She goes… she drives to the hospital still in her bathing suit her husband wasn’t with them. He didn’t even know he goes home from work because she couldn’t reach him he was in between work and going home. He turns on the answering machine, which he never does, this is how he finds out what happened to his son. As he’s driving to the hospital God gives him a game plan exactly what to do. He didn’t know it at the time nor did Ella know at the time that the doctors wrote Cody off they thought there was no chance literally. They thought he had brain damage and so the game plan. Tell me what God told your husband you should do Ella.

Ella:  Okay he said that we would only speak faith filled words and we would only speak the desired end result that Cody would walk out that hospital 100% restored and that we would guard Cody from anybody that would come around that could not do that. We would guard the situation. In fact we really just wanted to create an atmosphere around Cody that would be conducive for a miracle.

Sid:  You also said your husband instructed everyone to say only what they desired not what they were seeing with their eyes.

Ella:  Right he said that he would walk out a 100% and that was the desired end result. The only thing we would speak about the situation and even though medical reports were coming that his lungs were hemorrhaging, that they couldn’t stop it, he had irreversible brain damage, he had no pain reflex at all, no deep pain reflex. Everything was negative coming from the medical standpoint but we didn’t allow that to be the final word that the word of God was what we were standing on that if Jesus performed miracles in the Bible that we could also have it and we were claiming our miracle.

Sid:  Now at the same time did Cody ever regain consciousness while this was going on?

Ella:  No in fact they had the… the only way they knew how to treat the hemorrhaging of the lungs they first of all wanted to try this before they tried the experimental drugs. That was to have the incubator, the breathing machine, up so high that the pressure would actually try to close those capillaries and things that were hemorrhaging. It was a day or before we started seeing the lung situation come around. We would speak to those lungs and literally just say that those lungs would have to stop bleeding that they would become normal and function properly. So every medical report that came to us we would speak it into a positive that his brain would be normal and there would be no damage and that he would walk and he would run. All these sort of things we would speak to our mountain…

Sid:  When you looked at your son Cody describe what you saw with your eyes the equipment around him.

Ella:  Okay he was only 6 years old and he had pretty blond hair and he was just on these white sheets in this hospital room. He was in PICU ward, actually his bed was kind of out in the open and there were other kind of compartments in there and later on I asked why he was out here kind of open and not in one of those little more private areas. The nurse “Well we really didn’t think he would make it and that whenever he’s open like that we can pull in more equipment and be able to work on him.” I thought “My goodness he’s got so many machines on him now” but I found that out just a couple of days later after he was admitted in. So he’s got all the IV’s and all the… they immediately started antibiotics to combat the infection, the pneumonia that they knew would set in after a couple of days, and it did. Then on the right side of his bed was the ventilator which actually breathed for him. There was no movement he had catheters in his veins and arteries and his legs which that was a procedure that they did in the ICU room and it took about 2 hours. It was really a surgical procedure that night, the first night. So we had… it’s set up to where a nurse friend of mine would call the nurse’s station every morning before the new morning shift would come on and find out the medical status of Cody. Then she would call me in and put it in layman’s language and I’d write it down and we would contact the church and let them know what to pray for that day. Yes these are the medical situations that he’s facing and to pray specifically for that those were prayer targets that we targeted in prayer even though they were on his body at the time those were symptoms and that they had to reverse and leave. His body… we could see probably within a week and half that things were starting to turn around. Really during the day…

Sid:  Now was he in a coma?

Ella:  Right. He wasn’t talking, he wasn’t moving and at one point they actually had to give him paralyzing medication so he wouldn’t move in case he did wake up or whatever because the ventilator pressure were so high if he did move that he could even blow out a lung.

Sid:  Now what’s going on with your faith and your husband’s faith as time is going by?

Ella:  We, thank God, we were allowed to stay by his bed all hours of the morning and night. So we pretty much did that. We had a cassette running with teaching tapes or music or whatever all the time just creating an atmosphere there. Ted and I would only help build up each other. If we saw the one kind of getting down or discouraged we would just speak scriptures, find scriptures, we would whenever the nurses take a changeover we go to the hospital chapel. I’d get on the piano and play choruses and sing. I imagine that looked kind of funny in their video cameras, but anyway we went there and built ourselves up during that break of time that we had that nobody was permitted in there. We had to keep ourselves built up too by just getting into the word of God and finding scriptures to stand on…

Sid:  Now after about a week something strange happened to his legs tell me about that.

Ella:  I was in there one morning and they were cleaning him up and changing the bedding and everything and I noticed that his toes were starting… his ankles were starting to turn in, and his little hands his fingers were starting to curl. I asked the nurse “What is the meaning of this?” and she just kind of looked at me and real softly said “This is effects of the brain damage he has.” So at that…

Sid:  Now that’s not a good sign.

Ella:  No, no in fact this was just artillery for them because they have to really prove that he’s brain dead and then do several CAT scans, that’s not it it’s uh CT scans of his brain to prove that he is brain dead. Then the organ transplant team comes in and talks to us and gets our permission to donate his organs.

Sid:  What were you doing with his legs as they were turning in?

Ella:  I would get lotion on him and just rub his legs and rub his arms. He was a great little t-ball player at the time he’d just got through with his baseball season. I would rub his legs and just speak to his arms and legs and say that they were going to run and they would play baseball again, and just speak positive words over him.

Sid:  Now you put a picture over his bed, what was that picture?

Ella:  That picture was a picture of his 6 year old birthday and he’s just there full of life and it was just the epitome of what Cody was, we would use that as a focal point. We would point to it to any of nurses, doctors, or visitors that came in, we would point to that picture and say “Cody will walk out of this hospital just like that a 100% normal.”

Sid:  Now there’s an interesting story about a pair of socks.

Ella:  A particular young lady she’s a nurse and with each one of my children she came up and actually put the first pair of socks on my children right after they were born. So she had been coming up to the hospital and this on a Wednesday and so Saturday night she asked me “Ella you know in the Bible they have handkerchiefs that Paul prayed over and things like that.  Would it be okay if I got a pair of socks and allowed a pastor to wear those while he was preaching in tomorrow mornings message, tomorrow mornings service and bring those up afterwards and let’s put them on Cody?” I said well sure because the anointing prayer clothes and that sort of thing, so socks would be the same thing.”

Sid:  Ella hold that thought we’ll pick up right here on tomorrow’s broadcast.

Sid: I have on the telephone Margy Palm. What you are about ready to hear almost sounds like a movie almost sounds like something that doesn’t happen in real life almost sounds like something in the Book of Acts.  But it did happen and Margy I’m going to take you back to December 11, 1981.  And that morning you were praying a great deal in the Spirit were you praying it more than normal or was that what you usually prayed Margy?

Margy: Oh I prayed a lot more than normal.  That morning I distinctly remembered waking up and saying “Lord I’ll do anything you want me to do for You today.  And then right after I prayed that prayer I was getting ready to go down town for to do a volunteer for job downtown and I had this tremendous burden come in on me and into me. And I had had this happen before where I knew that it was a burden from the Holy Spirit to pray but I felt this tremendous heaviness inside. And all I wanted to do was pray and I had 2 small children, I had a lady that was watching them that day and but it was time for me to go down to this volunteer job. So I went downstairs and got in my car and threw my Bible in the car and all of these evangelistic tapes I was listening to and this little notebook scripture that I was compiling. And I just could not quit praying in the Spirit I could not quit it was an overwhelming heavy feeling. And I had remembered in years past I had learned from a man named Kenneth Hagen that I mean not from personally from me talking to him but from one of his tapes where he was talking about intercession that when you have a burden like to pray keep praying until you get victory.  Until and he said “What I mean by that is when you feel like it should lifted off of you and you feel like praising just you know just keep yielding to it.”  So I had learned that and I had done that you know before at different times so I was aware that it was a burden from the Holy Spirit so I just yielded myself to it and I prayed.  And I prayed all the way down to this volunteer job and even while I was in the place where I was helping out the girl in charge there said “Is there something wrong with you?” Because I kept going back and forth into the ladies room praying.  Nobody really knew what I was doing I was just king of doing it secretly but this went on for 5 hours and they let me go from the volunteer job. They said “You know why don’t you just go home you seem like you’re a little disturbed about something.” So I went out and left the volunteer job got in my car and when I got in my car the burden totally lifted off of me and I felt like praising the Lord.  Which was exactly what I did I started singing praises in my car and I knew whatever it was I had prayed it through.  Well unbeknownst to me I had not read the paper that morning the headlines of the paper declared that there was this man loose in San Antonio.  He had at 2AM the previous morning he had killed a girl at a bar in San Antonio he tried to steal her car and she went out to her car and he shot her in the face.  It was awful and then it also stated that there was a girl that he had raped and brutally murdered in Corpus Christy the week before.  And he had another girl tied up in a motel room in an area it’s a real kind of seedy street but in back of it it’s a very beautiful area of San Antonio. And they suspected the police suspected that they knew where he was they thought he was in this motel which he was in this very seedy street in San Antonio. And they had raided this motel room and he jumped out of the window and got on a bus and it was he was circling San Antonio on this bus and ended up in a Kmart in San Antonio.  Nobody knew he was at the Kmart but the article just stopped with the fact that they had raided the motel room and he jumped out and they couldn’t find him and they were circling the city looking for him.  And I didn’t know a thing about any of this stuff.

Sid: Oh there were a few more details that I read in your report and that was he was on the FBI’s list of one of the most one out of the 10 Most Wanted Men in America.

Margy: Right.

Sid: He had brutally raped and murdered over 30 women.

Margy: Right.

Sid: And even one just a few hours just before you and another thing you did not know is that all of the women looked the same had a particular type of look.

Margy: Right.

Sid: Which you just happened to have.  Okay so you’re driving your car and then what happened?

Margy: So I’m now after praying the 5 hours and the heaviness has lifted off I’m singing to the Lord on the way home.  And on the way home I kept thinking about that I wanted to go to this Kmart which is nothing…this store is not at all by my house in fact there was a Kmart very close to my house but for some reason I wanted to go to this one that was kind of centrally located in San Antonio. So I drove over there and I wanted to go to a Radio Shack over there so I went to that and then I looked over at the Kmart and decided I needed a few more things there. And um unbeknownst to me this man was sitting right in front of the Kmart watching me and he’d been there he told me that he’d been there the 3 hours just sitting there didn’t know what he was going to do. So I walked in got what I needed walked out and you know I never noticed that anybody was following me or anything like that I got to my car and the next thing I realized there was something in my back I could feel something in my back. And I turned around and here was this man standing there with this 38-caliber revolver sticking in my…you know he had been sticking this gun in my back and I was totally shocked when I saw this.

Sid: This just doesn’t happen in real life Margy.

Margy: It’s like a movie it was like a bad dream.

Sid: Just as a little bit of background tell me you’re married you had your children.

Margy: Yes 2 small kids at the time you know that their…

Sid: And obviously you’re a pretty strong Christian but again you were directed by God to go to that Kmart that’s what you’re telling me.

Margy: Yeah.

Sid: You had prayed in a victory that’s what you’re telling me when you started singing after all of that intercessory prayer. And all of a sudden there’s a gun in your back what was your first thought?

Margy: Well my first thought was “You’re going to die.” You know you’re…some people might not know this but the Bible says you’re a body, a soul and a spirit.  And you’re soul you’re soulish realm is your mind. And the thought came into my mind is “You’re going to die today.” Because I could feel the terror around this man was tremendous and of course this gun was not a normal hand gun it was about 3 times the size of a normal hand gun it was huge.  And when I turned around he jabbed it into my ribcage and he told me that he said “I’m the guy that killed a girl last night at Maggie’s and he said “I cut out a man’s heart in prison and I will kill you if you don’t do exactly what I tell you to do.” And I you know my mind just I mean like I said at first I thought “I’m going to die” but what was amazing was that right after that the words that came out of my mouth were “Do you know Jesus Christ?”

Sid: Oi e vey Margy you have got chutzpa that’s a Hebrew word it means nerve we’re going to leave that right here and pick up on tomorrow’s broadcast.

Sid: My guests in the studio are Doug and Jean Jones teachers with Shiloh Place Ministries from Conway, South Carolina. You’re familiar with Shiloh Place because of Jack Frost and the wonderful teaching I’ve had him as a guest a couple of times on Messianic Vision. But we’re finding out that what we’re talking about here is bitterroots strongholds in your life that can affect your marriage, can affect your relationship with your children, affect your relationship with your church, can affect your relationship with your employer, in fact it can affect every relationship in your life.  And normally it’s “Oh if they would only change but guess what you can see the fruit there’s a root somewhere hidden in you that’s releasing that type of fruit.  Now we were talking on yesterday’s interview Doug about 8 common ways that stronghold are built within us. The first was the generational strongholds like your father had anger Doug and then you had this anger and then deep hurts or wounds we’ve received whether they’re a verbal or sexual abuse or… and we went over that. And perhaps Jean we’ll start with you, what is the 3^rd way that that strongholds are built within us?

Jean: That’s probably a misinterpretation of love and how we perceive love or rejection.  And many times our parents love us but we still perceived that we’re not loved. And I know that there’s a book out about incubator babies that they feel rejected because they’re not held at birth. And our daughter was born 34 years ago and she was an incubator baby so we were not allowed to hold her accept when we went to the hospital to feed her at feeding times. And so she felt very rejected and would be very clingy but yet we loved her and from the time that she was home we always held her and took care of her.

Sid: What happens in later life in someone that either perceived not being loved, even though they were, or literally not being loved what kind of fruit results?

Jean: Sometimes they’re in and out of relationships and in and out of different kinds of sicknesses, have a hard time establishing relationships sometimes there are just different characteristics.

Sid: Let’s go to the next point.

Doug: The next point is having inner vows that we make about like I saw my father and I said “I would never be like that man.”  I made a vow inwardly that I would not be like him and I ended up being the same way in many respects. Inner vows that we take…

Sid: Those things are very powerful but you would not think that they are that powerful but they are.

Doug: You can have an inner vow that is so powerful that it can affect your very life being. And it can be so strong a death wish or a death vow that you have that you really don’t think that you ought to be here that you want to go on and be with the Lord and you consciously don’t even realize it but that vow is working on your physical body and begins to make parts of your physical body function that it starts to just shutting down.

Sid: Hmm.

Doug: And the death process starts.

Sid: What do you do about that?

Doug: You confess it as sin you may take ownership of the responsibility and don’t blame the person that you were judging and making a vow against I won’t do this because of this and because of that.  Take ownership and when you take ownership and confess your faults and then God can deal with you and correct whatever it is that’s happened in your life.

Sid: Now let’s see the next one we have touched upon and that’s words that people speak over us they’re literally according to the Bible called curses.

Doug: That’s right and as a little child in school I remember my teacher telling me in the hearing the kids in the break fussing at each other “Suzie said this or Billy said this” and the teacher said “Sticks and stones will break your bones but words will never hurt you.”  Now that’s just a lie out of the pit of hell.

Sid: We’ve all heard that.

Doug: Words spoken over someone will hurt them

Sid: How can you break the effect of those words?

Doug: Well if someone’s speaks something over you renounce it and say “I just I come against that.”

Sid: Or well even as a child if it was done the mother says “You’ll never amount to anything.”

Doug: Well as a child you’re at the mercy of your parents at that time but when you grow to the point of your own accountability for that. “Did I judge my mother for that, did I become angry when she said this, did I become just what she said?” It does it goes right back to your own responsibility to the words that were spoken over you. Did you judge them for it?

Sid: It’s so easy to blame someone else but if we don’t understand our sin in the involvement we’ll never be free we’ll be the prisoner.

Doug: Our sin connects us to the sin that goes against us.  Until we confess our sins we’re tied to that sin if someone else has sinned against us because of our sin of judgment. The next one goes through false teaching and false doctrines the young man that came to the seminar one time came and he just could not get set free from the inability that he had to function in church properly, he was a Christian but he just couldn’t trust Father God to make a decision for him he just he just always messed-up emotionally. And we found out that when he was a young man his father died when he was about 8 years old and he went to the funeral and one of the doctrines of what was plugged into this little boys head was a statement that the pastor made at the funeral. And the pastor made this in a way not trying to hurt the family but he looked at the little boy and said “You know “Father God needed your daddy more than you do and that’s why your father was taken on to heaven because God needed him more than you do.” Now that’s doctrinally wrong it destroyed this boy’s ability to trust God to do what’s right and what’s fair. And he could not for a long time until he understood this he judged this man he judged God as being unfair and untrustworthy.  “How could God need my daddy more than that little boy did?” And so he found out that doctrines are taught wrong. Number 7 is through ethnic and cultural backgrounds how you were raised was through American Indian through ancestral worship through the winds and the spirits and the sky and the trees and all of this. This came in through an ethnic and a cultural background.  And these people suffer because of that and then they realize them worshipping the wind and the spirits or what have you have affected their ability to hear from God.

Sid: And what about the 8^th?

Doug: Negative thinking patterns and false belief structures. The negative thinking patterns are things that we learn at a very small age and we do that as a way of trying to protect ourselves.  And we get hurt we get wounded and we get hurt and we start thinking negatively about the person or the situation that hurt us and it builds this pattern of negative thinking. And then that becomes sin in our lives and then as long as that sin is un-dealt with then darkness comes into our life. And then we continue to let the darkness stay there it gives room to some type of demonic activity in our lives.

Sid: And so to reverse all of the things is the first thing is to look at where the problem came in and where not where someone sinned against us because in most instances they did.  But where did we sin against them by judging them instead of their action do I have that right?

Jean: That’s right and there are also positive good judgments like we judge where we’re going to go to church, what doctor and dentist we’re going to go to. But we’re talking about a judgment that we’ve made when we’ve been wounded or been hurt and that’s a bitterroot judgment.

Sid: Let’s look at the reverse let’s look at that there are actually laws to have healthy relationships.

Doug: That’s right there are 4 basic laws that scripture teaches us the first one is honoring your parents. Ephesians 6:1-3 it says in whatever way you honor your parent and in whatever way we dishonor them a curse comes. And in my own life I dishonored my parents in many ways. My father dishonored me in that area but he handled finances I thought he was stingy I thought he was just too tight with the money but he had 5 children to take care. As a little child I didn’t realize the responsibility he had and he gave us everything we needed but not everything I wanted.

Sid: So curses are triggered.

Doug: I lost 3 businesses, the last one everything we owned we lost because of my judging the way my father did finances was to a large extent the result of it. The second is the law of judging and it says “If we judge someone for a particular characteristic that same thing will come back on us.”  That’s in Luke 37 and 38 and the law of sowing and reaping in Galatians tells us if we sow we’re going to reap more than what we sow. It says don’t be mocked God is not mocked whatever a man sows he’s going to reap. But there’s a principal of sowing and reaping that we sow one seed we gain many many more.  I just the other night was looking at an ear of corn when we were eating. And on that one ear of corn there was 7 to 800 grains of corn. And one seed planted in the ground produced 3 ears with 7 to 800 grains on it. So that what was replaced from that one seed was 2400 times that was planted.

Sid: I don’t want that.

Doug: No.

Sid: What about that 4^th law of becoming what we judge in others Roman’s 2:1.

Doug: I can go ahead and take care of that it says we become this way because I’ll never raise my children the way my father did. I made that mistake I will never raise my children the way my father did.  And I thought I wasn’t because I didn’t beat them but I beat them verbally so I became exactly the same thing that I judged my father.

Sid: And there are questions that we have to ask ourselves are we duplicating things in our lives that we resented in our parents or someone else.  Oh are we acting out an attitude, emotion or behavior that we said that we’d never do? Has the Holy Spirit working us in area of our life that we seem powerless to overcome? We just don’t have time to go on.

Sid: My guest right here in the studio Doug and Jean Jones they’re teachers with Shiloh Place Ministries in Conway, South Carolina. We’re talking about a specialty area that has changed their life as Doug like to say he was married for 39 years, 38½ of those 39 years  he was happy but his wife wasn’t she was ready for a divorce. And she prayed and you know a lot of times we say “Oh if my wife, oh if my husband would only change everything would be fine.” But the only one we have control over is ourselves. And as Doug thought nothing was wrong with him the problem was with his wife. Jean you probably thought the same thing “Nothing wrong with me but the problems with Doug.”

Jean: That’s right.

Doug: I was such a good manipulator I had her believing that it really was her problem at times.

Sid: Well a lot of people don’t understand the signs if you will of emotional trait or unhealthy traits. A recent study showed that 82% of the people in this country are emotionally unhealthy.  I think the study’s wrong I think that it’s much higher than 82% but if there’s selfishness going on in your life, if it’s a pleasure seeking mentality I believe in God I have my life insurance policy I’m a good person and I want to have fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun.  Or you disregard the consequences of your actions or if your involved in addictions how about overeating we hear drugs and alcohol but could overeating be in that same category?

Doug: That’s part of the addiction overeating is just part of the abuses of ourselves.

Sid: And compulsions and dysfunctional behavior such as you don’t trust anyone or you don’t want to talk because you don’t want to get hurt, or you don’t want to feel. And these are all I’m wondering if television is not one I know I’m putting the blame elsewhere but television you kind of you want to be entertained all of the time. And intimacy with one another and intimacy with God it almost becomes an artificial world that we’re living in.

Jean: That was one of the problems in our home.

Sid: What do you mean?

Jean: Doug would lose himself in TV. When he would come home at night he would be tired he would just lose himself in the TV and there was no communication.  Even though I insisted that we’d have devotions so he turned it off for devotions and we’d have devotions with the children. And I think that that produced in them also something that they used to say “Well he really doesn’t want to have devotions why are we having devotions?” So you know the wife really can’t promote herself as the spiritual head because the children know what’s going on they know what’s happening.

Sid: And Doug do you still lose yourself in the TV do you use that as the drug of choice?

Doug: No I do not I stopped it.

Sid: Was that a tough thing to break?

Doug: Yes it was and in another sense no it wasn’t I struggled with it for awhile but then when I finally allowed the Holy Spirit to work with me it was an easy decision to not let it be my drug of choice.

Sid: Now one of your problems was anger.

Doug: That was an Achilles heel.

Sid:  Because you had judged your father and you reaped the fruit in your generation you did end up doing. And some people do end doing exactly the same some people end up doing exactly opposite. But you did exactly the same as your father and I said to you well yes you got free the root was exposed and you got free but you still had those trigger points in the thing called the flesh.  And there is no one on the face of this earth that can trigger you better than your wife.  I think that’s one of her purposes.

Doug: That’s right.

Sid: And so she triggers you now and you said “What you do is you the first reaction is you…I don’t want to put words in your mouth you ask is it a Holy Spirit moment or what did you say?

Doug: When I prayed about it and found out where the root cause was and I confessed that as sin my life I said “Father I want to be free from this anger this bitterness that’s down deep inside of me and Father when someone says something to me or against me or my automatic reaction would be violence or explosion or verbal abuse Lord give me a second to think about what my decision is because Lord I don’t want to do this.” And He has been a perfect gentleman to start with He will give you that second or that 2 seconds to think will I respond the old way or I won’t I want to respond the new way. So He gives you a choice what we have done over the years what I did over the years I didn’t have a choice because I had a habit structure built in within me.

Sid: It was just like driving a car you didn’t even have to think.

Doug: You didn’t even have to think about it it was automatic and yet she’s said “A” I said “B” it was an automatic thing and I didn’t think about it.

Sid: Jean did you have some automatic deals going too?

Jean: Mainly I judged the main thing that I used to do was just judge Doug I blame-shifted I thought everything was his fault. Like I said, “If he gets straight we’d be fine as a family.” So I had to ask him to forgive me for all of those years of judging him.

Sid: Doug did this help you

Doug: Yes it did, yes it did.

Sid: I mean you’re the root problem if I was to be looking from the outside in I see you verbally abusing your wife, I see you exploding, I see you losing your cool so I might say “You are the problem.” But something happened in the invisible realm when your wife confessed that she had a fault too.

Doug: Well it just enhanced my understanding of what Father God had for me as a husband and as the head of the family.  Most of the responsibility in the home is in the father’s hands and I so abused and misused the responsibility. And I see that God is allowing me to once again get a hold of responsibility in my wife coming to me and saying “You know Doug forgive me I’ve sinned against you I’ve accused you this way.”  And it made me understand more deeply what it means to be a father, husband, and a head of the home the way that God wants me to be.

Sid: I asked you this before but I need to ask you this again Jean “How different is it today as opposed to the way that it was? Do you want to divorce your husband?

Jean: No the difference is night and day, but when he said that the Holy Spirit gave him a second and the Holy Spirit does that and we begin to expand our time.  And the same time that we get angry it’s like the Holy Spirit would give him more time to make a decision and then more time until he begins to walk in a new way of living instead of in the old response.

Doug: A new habit structure was developed.

Jean: But the first time he got mad I called up Jack and Trish and…

Sid: That’s Jack Frost….

Jean: And my pastor, Jack Frost and I said “He’s not changed he’s still mad he got angry just like he used to.” And that’s when they had to walk me through that and they said “We’re constantly being transformed it’s a process.” And I had to change my confession and instead of saying “Doug hasn’t changed” I began to say “Doug has changed he’s just reacting to the old way but Doug has changed.” And so that began to change the confession in me where I didn’t look to him and say he hasn’t. But God is a positive God and I began to confess that Doug has changed. And those old familiar spirits will lurk around and wait and see until we’re tired or…

Sid: They like to more in in fact didn’t they do that with Jesus when He’s fasting and then it says the devil came to Him when He was in that weakened state.

Jean: Yes and then he went away for a season so the devil may go away for a season but he will wait until there’s sickness or tiredness or working all of the time and he will try to get in at that time and bring the old patterns back.  And then that’s when we begin to pray and we learn to pray together against those patterns.

Sid: Let’s shift gears for a little bit in your tapes you talk about or Jack Frost talks about 8 common ways that strongholds are built within us. Explain some of the ways that these strongholds are built.

Doug: Well the first one I already explained and that would be the generational iniquities of our forefather that he passed on to us.  And number 2 would be the deep wounds and hurts that we receive at the hands of others when we get hurt and we get wounded then we build these walls around to protect ourselves. And there are 5 major areas that the wounds come in sexual, emotional and verbal and even captivity like putting a child in a home and not allowing him to do anything on his own. He can’t leave his house, he can’t leave his room he has to stay there and he cannot leave. Or you can do the same thing to a wife you can make her stay home and she cannot be free to go shopping or to do this or to do that because you’re so jealous that you hold your wife and your family into captivity. And that puts hurts and wounds in to your wife and your family in captivity.  And there’s also the psychological type of hurts and wounds that we put into children particularly promising children that I’ll take you fishing tomorrow, when I get off of work Saturday we’ll do this, we’ll do that, we’ll play ball. And when you come home you’re tired and you tell your son that I really don’t have time to do this.

Sid: Now when you talk about sexual wounds are you talking about being sexually abused.

Doug: Sexually abused incest, and that’s common and much more common than I like to believe but it’s common through our counseling and ministering because there’s a lot of this.  And people become so hurt and wounded and so inward that they are trying to protect themselves they think that it’s their fault and there’s something wrong with them that caused the person do this and that there’s something wrong with them. And they build these walls around them to protect themselves.

Sid: Now Jean you were being verbally abused and didn’t even realize it.  How would someone know if they are being verbally abused?

Jean: Well I began to change personalities like for 18 years of my life I thought I was the most wonderful person in the world and then after 29 years of marriage before we got help I became very inward and really thought that I was the problem.  And people used to tell me that I was so different when I with Doug and when I was without him. Because I was president of Aglow one time and I would just be a different person and I would be free to be who I wanted to be. But when I was with Doug I would just withdraw because I knew that he was going to get angry at me or correct me in which he did a lot in public. And so I was just really withdrawn when I was around him.

Sid: Does he do that a lot in public now?

Jean: No.

Sid: When you realized you did it to her and you obviously didn’t realize…

Doug: No I didn’t realize.

Sid: …but when you realized how did you feel about that?

Doug:   At times I was sickened that I would treat my wife that way that I love her deeply I’ve always loved her but didn’t know how to express the love. And when I found out how short…what a short handle that I was giving her in my response to love to her it sickened me at times how I responded to hurt her.

Sid: My goodness our time is slipping away from us we have so much to cover.

Sid: And I’ve got 2 Jewish people on the telephone they’re married to each other that are red hot for the Messiah. I’ll speak first with Geoffrey Cohen. I’m speaking to them at their home at Ventura California.  And Geoffrey you were raised in South Africa and had a very good Orthodox upbringing are there many Jewish people in South Africa?

Geoff: Well when I was growing up there was about 120,000 I believe now it runs between 70 and 80,000.

Sid: It’s still a pretty pretty good size Jewish community.

Geoff: Yeah it’s very strong economically very strong in the business world over there.

Sid: Well tell me about your Orthodox Jewish background.

Geoff: Well I went to an Orthodox Jewish Schools really from kindergarten of which even kindergarten was Orthodox Jewish.  And most of my friends until my last 2 years of high school were all Jews so I had very little interaction with non-Jews of course that were around me time. But I was brought up in a very tight knit Jewish community because of Anti-Semitism in South Africa it made the Jewish Community even more tight knit.

Sid: You know I’m thinking as the world itself according to the word of God and according to what we’re seeing becomes increasing more anti-Semitic it will cause Jewish people to come back together if could have been lost in the United States but it will cause that. And what we’re believing is that it will cause Christians and Jews to bond together. But you did a nice Jewish thing you went to the university to study law.

Geoff: Yes.

Sid: Why did you go into the military was it required?

Geoff: Ah yeah I was actually in my second year of law in South Africa and I had to do it…it was mandatory to do the military it was never my desire to you know to serve in the military there because of apart-a and these things like that.

Sid: But you bumped into a lot of Anti-Semitism in the military why’s that.

Geoff: Well if you look at the historical roots of South Africa many of the Elfie-Connors that are the ancestors of the Dutch, German and French.  But they’re called Elfie-Connors and many of them during the II World War or the I World War were sympathetic of the Germans. And of course the Nazi’s World War II mainly because of the tension between the British and them because the global at the turn of the century.  And so of course there’s many Elfie-Connors who are wonderful Christians so that definitely the case but many of them are pretty Anti-Semitic because of that sort of Anti-British pro-German kind of sentiment that we experienced.

Sid: And you took up a very un-Jewish profession you took up boxing why is that?

Geoff: Yes well because although I’m not small I’m about 5’1 185 pounds which man Elfie-Connors are very big 200 pounds which describes normal over 6 ft.

Sid: Well I’ll just fit in fine there go ahead. (Laughing)

Geoff: (Laughing) Yeah so basically it was just to defend myself and I actually became quite good at boxing and so I was actually offered a professional boxing contract before I left the country. But I decided that boxing wasn’t for nice Jewish boys.

Sid: But what was why did you leave the country?

Geoff: Basically I just wanted to make my future outside of South Africa. In fact I would have gone to live in Israel and I would have served in the Israeli Army that was my desire but at that the time I was dating a nice Jewish girl in South Africa and because of my loyalty to her to stay in the country and go to the army.  But really my heart was to go to Israel and become a citizen and serve in the Israeli Army.

Sid: You eventually did go to Israel.

Geoff: I did.

Sid: And live on a kibbutz.

Geoff: Yes I did.

Sid: And you met a man by the name of Frank tell me about him.

Geoff: Yeah I hope Frank’s listening to this because I’ve been trying to contact him for about 16 years. (Laughing) All that I remember about him is that he was the son of the Vice Secretary of the America Navy I believe it was in 1984. But really stood out to me about him is that he was a true born again Christian. And basically what happened was while we were on the kibbutz called “Shyin we were sitting outside and having a drink or 2 and just talking about world politics.  And everybody had their opinion as is the case when you discuss politics you can have 20 opinions especially when many of them are Jewish you can have 100 opinions.

Sid: Of course a kibbutz is sort of a communal place that many Israelis live on and it was the way that Israel really started originally.

Geoff: Yes.

Sid: And so you’re just enjoying yourself and how did he start this subject?

Geoff: Well basically everybody was talking about their opinion of politics and if the Russians are right or the Americans are right or if the Arabs are right.  And everybody was trying to decide “Should Israel have invaded Lebanon in 1982 and they were discussing this and everybody had their opinion.  And then basically this guy started to speak and he said “The problem is not America, it’s not communism, it’s not capitalism he said the problem is sin.”  And I thought “Oh no here we go now this guy is going to preach to us this is all we need now.”

Sid: Had anyone ever preached to you now?

Geoff: You know they had and I but I never touched home with me because I thought that it was God’s way of reaching the Gentiles,  I thought that Jesus came for the Gentiles and that’s very nick for now the Gentiles can also have a relationship with God as well as us Jews. And so I was very happy for all of the Gentiles that the too could know God. But I believe that us Jews just go directly to God we didn’t need a mediator.  But I’ve since determined that that’s not the case but that’s what I believed.  And so I never heard the gospel presented in a way that was relevant to me or it made any sense to me.

Sid: But what did he say that had an impact on an Orthodox Jew from South Africa?

Geoff: Well seriously it wasn’t what he said although it was partly what he said.  But what really had tremendous impact on me was this man’s zeal that he was absolutely willing to lay down his life for what he believed.  And with the people around him I mean we some people got pretty mad at him so I just saw that he wasn’t wavering he was unmoved and he was fearless in his faith so that his conviction about what he believed is what’s impressed me the most. But then when he began to explain what sin was for the first time it made sense to me because many people don’t know this many Jewish people don’t have a normal concept of original sin like a Christian would know to be born in sin. Maybe not a real understanding of what sin is or what sin is and I didn’t.  And he said basically every person is selfish and that’s why ever country and every nation wants their way and their culture and everything to predominate because they think that’s the best one.  And because of that basic selfish nature people clash with each with each other and so for the first time it began to make sense.  I thought “Oh that makes sense that’s why there’s wars and we clash and things like that because people are basically selfish.  And so I began to understand what sin was for the first time and I began to make sense. And then he explained how the Lord had come into his life and set him free from a life of drug addiction and peer pressure and growing up in very high circles.  Which I did as well in South Africa because my father was a very successful businessman so growing up under that pressure of can I make it can I follow in my Dad’s footsteps and all of that kind of thing. And his Dad being high in Washington he’d gone through the same kind of thing. And then he’d gotten saved and set free and filled with the Holy Spirit and he knew that his identity was in the Messiah in Yeshua in Jesus.  And so he was secure now in his identity.  And so that’s when it made a strong impression on me and began to make sense.

Sid: Now did you know that Jesus was Jewish?

Geoff: No I didn’t I thought maybe He was a Catholic or He was like one of those priests that wear those giant hats that are about 3 feet high or something like that.

Sid: When did you find out that Jesus was Jewish?

Geoff: Well Frank began to talk to me well this happened to Jesus in Jerusalem and that happened to Jesus in Jerusalem and all of the various things that happened to Jesus and how they bought monuments where Jesus was supposed to have wept. And another church where you know He stopped and looked at someone and He was kind of cynical about you know building a church everywhere that Jesus was supposed to done something. And it wasn’t that that struck me but I thought why are you talking about Jesus in Jerusalem what was He doing there?

Sid: Hmm.

Geoff: And so for the first time I began to think you mean Jesus might be Jewish? I mean if He’s Jewish why did these people who call themselves Christians hate the Jews it didn’t make any sense to me.  So I presumed of course that He can’t be Jewish because then non-Jews couldn’t possibly hate the Jews if He was Jewish then they would love the Jews automatically.  So that’s why it kind of confused me.  And I thought if He really is Jewish then you know this something I really have to look into.

Sid: Well you not only looked into it you had an encounter at the Jaffa Gate where I’ve been many times in Jerusalem.

Geoff: Yes.

Sid: Tell me the circumstances.

Geoff: Well basically after maybe a few days after Frank had shared with us and had been kind of a clash between him and some of the people that didn’t believe in the Lord I had planned to go to Jerusalem. And so what happened was when I went to Jerusalem is go to the Arab market or the shuck was the call it and you get really good bargains there.  And I was with a friend of mine that was traveling with me a friend of mine from Zimbabwe and as we walked into the Jaffa Gate on your immediate left there is the Arab market you probably remember this there is long passage way whatever you call it a market on either side.

Sid: Yes.

Geoff: And we were just beginning to walk towards the market when all of  a sudden Jesus appeared to me as real as this television is or my house is or as real as you are on the other side but even more so.  Jesus appeared he was standing about 20 feet away from me…

Sid: How did He look?

Geoff: Well he was dressed as He was 2000 years ago so He was wearing a robe but really the most striking thing more than anything else was His eyes.  And people say “Well how did you know it was Jesus?” Well basically that’s my thing well how do you know that you saw God?  I was looking at eternity and eternity was looking at me and when He looked at me it was incredible it was like He knew everything about me because right through me I was looking at eternity past and eternity future and yet He totally accepted me and loved me unconditionally and He spoke a word to me without opening his mouth and there’s no way for me to explain that its just what happened. And that one word was Hineini which means “Here am I in Hebrew.”

Sid: Hold that thought Mishpochah we’re going to pick up right here tomorrow….

Sid: I’ve got a Jewish man that’s red hot for the Messiah we find out that he was born in Odessa, Ukraine in 1950 to Jewish parents. He didn’t know much about Judaism it was at that time very difficult to be a practicing Jew. He was raised as an atheist. He left the Soviet Union although he was a great Star there in the Moscow Circus and come to the United States and with $150 he borrowed from the Jewish Community he started a business of acro-gymnastics one of the first in the United States and he won a National Championship himself and he had all of the money he needed but there was something missing. He got into drugs got out of control messed up his life spent money like it was water and you know once you’re hooked on cocaine.  He even saw Jimmy Swaggert on television and said a prayer of salvation and something happened but he continued with his life of drugs. He went to Las Vegas with another Russian friend and things began to close in and you were I guess in a hotel room your friend was there and you cried out what did you cry out Igor Ashkinaszi?

Igor: That was just it was 4:00 in the morning I came extremely disappointed with myself me and my friend we walked into the same room he fell in his bed I fell my bed, he fell asleep immediately but I just could not sleep. My whole heart was just tormented and I said “What have I come to and my life has turned out to be absolutely nothing.” And I realized that there’s nothing to life. My friend was still struggling and my Russian Jewish friend was supposed to make it here you know to get some help he thought he was looking about $30,000 a year at that time.  I was making just 6 months ago over $150,000 a year just cash you know, but now I was on drugs of course and discouraged and disappointed.  In my heart I laid down and I cried “If there is God He alone can help me I don’t want to live in this body I don’t want to live in this situation I don’t know what to do I lived in communism, I lived in capitalism I was an athlete no body now I was poor I was rich and I don’t know what is the life?  What do I belong to is there a God please God help me” and just at that moment my heart was so open and so broken I cannot describe to you my whole being was just I couldn’t even feel myself it was like I didn’t exist just my heart spoke. And suddenly I heard a voice, it was dark it was 4:00 in the morning Vegas windows was completely covered with those heavy curtains and you never know time in Vegas there was no clocks it was dark. But it was 4:00 in the morning I looked at the watch when I came and lay in bed. And suddenly I hear a voice “Igor.” I thought my friend called me Igor but he was sleeping he was snoring in fact at that moment I was gripped with fear I thought I cracked up completely.  And I thought to myself “I don’t hear that voice it just seemed to me.” And then I hear it again “Igor I am your God.” And at that point I thought “That’s it I’m absolutely crazy now I know that I’m crazy because there is no God.” But He said “How can you think this you just called to Me and I answered you.”  And truly I remember I did call Him God to help me and I said “And I said “No it can’t happen.” But I heard the voice outside of me and inside of me at the same time. It was a strong powerful voice so strong it was like a thunder and yet it was so gentle it was like my mother and father blended both together.  I couldn’t deny there was a supernatural voice I’d never heard it could be in my mind it couldn’t be anything else.  But it could be something else and I said to myself “But God. no God doesn’t exist.”  And He answered on my thought “But I Am.”  And at that moment for some reason I don’t know why I ask Him loud it was strange when I asked loud “Um, um, um are You talking to me like You talked to Moses?” Why I said it I have no idea the only time I heard about Moses was my grandmother one time told me when I was about Moses.  And I said “Are You talking to me like You’re talking to Moses?” Surprised that I said it loudly and He laughed.” And that was the first time I heard God laughing and He said “Almost.” And now I think He said it because he didn’t want to hurt me but that was the question again I said loudly “But I know that You don’t exist” and this time He repeated strongly again. “But I Am what are you going to do with Me I Am?” That’s how he said to me at this point I felt in my heart I actually know that I talked to God I actually believed that God exist and the moment I knew in my heart I believed that God is the light broke through like the ceiling disappeared a brilliantly bright light with a silver light with gold streams like a veil with a golden rays in it I couldn’t even look at it. And it was not a light it was just a presence of God. And out of this light He said “Igor because you believe I am going to touch you now and you will never stop talking about Me.” And the light began to go down and it began to expand and descend on me. And where I was there was darkness but where the light was there was light and I could see that light and darkness in the middle. And as the light was moving upon me I begin to see my entire life in a whole but God knew everything about my life. I began to feel so bad about myself. Like I was repenting in my heart because I was in a meeting with God I was about to meet God face to face that was like I felt, I felt dirty I felt bad my whole life like a television video tape passed by me my whole…when I said something to somebody but meant something else. When I smiled but hated when loved I mean when I was double-hearted when people didn’t know what I meant but God knew always my heart and I felt bad. And at this moment the light….a hand came out of the light a human hand.  Now I cannot tell whether a human hand came out of the light or light transformed into a human hand.  I cannot remember I try to remember I always wanted to say it was a scarred hand but I don’t remember scars I just remember it was a hand and He touch me He touched my right shoulder. I just read recently Benny Hinn’s book “He Touched Me.” And I felt my God You actually touched me and the moment He touched me I died, I felt like I died, I died. And at the same time I was dying I felt death, I felt I was stiffening I was dying but suddenly at the same time another life starting pouring inside of me. Light life excuse me life full of joy, full of exaltation and the marrow of my bones began to sing and I’m not exaggerating I felt the music of heaven in my bones.  I was filled with so much love and so much joy that I wanted to bring that same joy to my best friend and my worst enemy.

Sid: But then you asked God a question a very strange question you asked Him is Jesus Your Son?

Igor: At that moment first I jump to my feet and my heart began to shout actually God is Jesus is God I didn’t know why my heart was saying that shouting this. And so I screamed from the top of my lungs “God is, Jesus is God.” But then I stopped and I stopped and I said “Jesus.” How could I say this? And I asked and I look up again to this wonderful light I was basking in it and I said “God is Jesus Your Son?” And He said to me very gently not like He’d spoken to me before no with a strong voice but you almost could miss it if you weren’t spiritually so aware and so spiritually alive at that moment.  He just said simply (softly) “Yes.” But when He said it was so dear to Him this question was so important so dear to Him this revelation is so special to Him He just said (softly) “Yes.” And when He said Yes that Yes just stuck to my heart until this day I just know that I know that I know that Jesus is the Son of God!  I just knew that this is that same Jesus Yeshua that is the Savior I just knew that.  And He said to me at that moment “You will never die you will be with me forever.” Oh the joy that flooded my soul I shouted from the top of my lungs again “God is Jesus! Jesus is God!” My friend jumped to his feet saw me at that state and that condition naturally he thought that I lost it.

Sid: Let me ask you a practical question “What about your smoking, your drinkings, your cocaine addiction?

Igor: That moment it disappeared!

Sid: Oh we’re out of time…