It's Supernatural

Sid:  We want every one everywhere to get a handle on your finances so that you will really be the head and not the tail, but make sure that the spirit behind it is not a wrong spirit. That’s why I have on the telephone right now I’m speaking to him at his headquarters in Littleton, Colorado, Craig Hill who is the founder of Family Foundations International. They conduct seminars having to do with the family, and I got a hold of his teachings titled “God’s Principals of Finance.” Now my background is finance, I have interviewed many men and women on this subject and this is the freshest approach and the most Biblical approach I have ever seen and that’s why I have him on the air. On yesterday’s broadcast we were talking about a scripture that we’re all familiar with Matthew chapter 6 verse 24 “And you can’t serve God and mammon.” Most people even some Bibles translate mammon as money, but Craig you found out that it has another meaning and actually makes more sense when you realize what Jesus really meant by that meaning of mammon.

Craig:  Yeah that’s right we were talking yesterday about the fact that that word mammon doesn’t actually mean money but it was talking about an idolatrous god worshipped by Philistine people at the time of Jesus. Of course the demonic principality or spirit behind that god that influences people’s minds and influences people’s emotions. We were saying yesterday there are two basic ways that that spirit does that, or there are two primary things just like any spirit. What it wants of course is worship unto itself, and it wants the allegiance of people’s hearts. It wants your heart to give allegiance to it, obviously nobody would do that on purpose so it has to deceive to do that. So what it does is it causes people to greatly fear the lack of money and to make money very very important, or money is the goal, then God becomes the means. So what happens when the spirit of mammon is involved is the master slave relationship is inverted. Money becomes the master and God becomes our servant to get us money.

Sid:  You know I hear what you’re saying and I hear many people seem to say the right words “I want you to give to my ministry so you will have money to give to other ministries.”

Craig:  Right.

Sid:  And that’s a correct stance…

Craig:  That’s right.

Sid:  …but still behind it is the greed principle, or as you put it “A false god by the name of mammon.”

Craig:  That’s right. That actually captures people’s hearts and I think sometimes as Christian leaders we actually can play upon that fear that spirit has created in people’s heart of not having enough money, and cause money to be the end, money to be the goal, and we’re using Biblical principles then to tell people then “If you will just do this or do that we’re going to use God to get money as opposed to just the opposite,” which would be the truth. We’re going to use money to expand the kingdom of God. So money is meant to be our servant not our master. Just when you think about how powerful that really is. If the Holy Spirit were to speak to someone today “I want you to go on a mission trip to China in 3 months’ time.” Do you know that most Christians would immediately say in their own mind “How am I going to get the money?” The governing factor is not the Holy Spirit, the governing factor is the money.

Sid:  So then when you go back to Matthew 6:24 “You can’t serve both you either serve that governing spirit, or you serve God.”

Craig:  That’s right and the issue is to which one has your heart given over an allegiance because the issue is there would be people listening to the broadcast… as a matter of fact Sid I bet you there are people have tuned into the broadcast because they heard we were talking about this today. The reason you tuned into the broadcast is because you wanted to find out “How can solve all of my financial problems? How can I get out of debt? How can I make money?” What we’re saying is God wants to accomplish those purposes but that not’s the goal, the goal is not “How can I get more money?” The goal is “I want to serve God, how can I pursue God?” Money then becomes a tool, or money becomes a… my servant to expand the kingdom of God. You know we’ve found some of the symptoms of this spirit of mammon are really interesting. A lot of things people wouldn’t necessarily think of but how gripping this spirit really is in terms of grabbing ahold of people’s minds and demanding allegiance to it. I thought of 10 different symptoms of this spirit of mammon. You know this is an interesting thing I thought, money actually is impotent. Money has no power God has power, the spirit of mammon has power and your heart is going to go after one of the two of those, but in reality money is impotent. But until a person recognizes how impotent money truly is his heart will never be free from its pursuit. So a person will continue to pursue money as long as he believes that’s where the real power is, whereas in reality the power is with God, or mammon and your heart is going to be given over to one of the two of those. But in terms of talking about the symptoms of mammon here would be some of the symptoms that I’ve found Sid:

1. Simply worry and anxiety over money. People that lie awake at night would worry in anxiety.
2. Mismanagement of money. “I don’t know where it all went.” Or in other words, too much month left at the end of the money.
3. Never having enough. You know I found out what afflicts either rich people or poor people, some people would not recognize that even people that have great sums of money or asset values still never have enough. So in other words you’re consistently spending 120% of the resource that’s available it doesn’t matter what is available you never have enough.
4. A mentality of “I can’t afford it. No matter how much I have I can’t afford it.” I know one man that has probably over $3 million in assets but has great difficulty of letting go of money to purchase clothing for his family because, and he always says “Well we can’t afford it.” Well obviously he CAN but that’s a mentality that that spirit creates.
5. Another symptom would be impulse buying “Can’t turn down the deals.” A lot of times you’ll have… this’ll create tremendous arguments between husbands and wives. One will come home having purchased something and the other one will say “Well what is that for? What do we need that for?” The one who purchased it says “I don’t know but I got a deal. It was cheap.” So an inability to turn down things that we would buy on impulse.
6. Stinginess would be another one. Sort of the thing that goes along with that is a fear of tithing. Many many people have a sense that tithing is the right thing to do but there’s a tremendous fear if “I ever began to do that I would perish.” So I need to hang on to everything I have. A symptom of that spirit’s influence.
7. Greed would be another symptom. I define that as an inordinate desire to acquire or possess.
8. Discontentment would be an 8^th
9. Bondage to debt. Many many people in this nation have a tremendous bondage to debt that’s just overwhelming to them. Then the last one that I noticed is:
10. An exaggerated importance of money and overestimate of its power. When you hear people talk about somebody that has a lot of money they talk as though that were a very valuable person. Somebody who doesn’t have any money is sort of a not valuable person. So there’s an exaggerated importance of money overestimate of its power.

Again Sid I believe if we don’t recognize the spirit behind that and deal with that, that what’s going to happen is many of us know the things to do, we know that we ought to live on a budget. We know ought to tithe, we know we ought to be giving offerings, we know we ought to get out of debt but I find so many people have an absolute inability to do the things they know and the reason that is they’ve never dealt with the spirit that has grabbed ahold of their mind and all the emotions and thoughts that go along with that that they don’t even recognize have been operative in their life for years and years and years.

Sid:  What you point out is this spirit has a name.

Craig:  Yes.

Sid:  His name is mammon.

Craig:  Hmm hm.

Sid:  He’s been around a long time but then you say if you don’t get free of that spirit it links with other spirits.

Craig:  It’ll link with other spirits and it’ll couple with other areas of iniquity. Bitterness it’ll couple with often times. It can couple with greed, it can couple with other types of emotions that sort of thing and really influence people’s lives. We see an example of that in Acts chapter 8 where we find the man Simon the sorcerer who wanted to buy the Holy Spirit with money. Again the issue there was a spirit of mammon operative in his life that had coupled with what Peter described as the gull of bitterness and had really twisted his mind around in thinking that he could buy the power of God with money. Again just the opposite of what Jesus had in mind.

Sid:  Once you recognize it’s a spirit, what do you do about it?

Craig:  I think the first thing to do is to repent for allowing it to grab hold of a person’s mind.  A lot of times I’ve found it’s generational it’s come through several generations of time. So…

Sid:  I’ve noticed most of these curses are generational like an alcoholic you’ll find there’s alcoholics in the family.

Craig:  Yep.

Sid:  But you mean even the poverty and there are problems with money run in generations.

Craig:  I think it does. A lot of times a lot of us are of the age group that our parents went through the depression. So we heard time and time again “You’ve got to be careful. You could lose everything. You’ve got to be very attentive to money, collect all the money you can , save it for a rainy day and be very careful.” Again what it does it directs people’s attention off of God and makes God simply the means to get money, but money is the real answer.

Sid:  Now have you seen people take your seminar and their lives changed by getting rid of this spirit of mammon.

Craig:  We’ve seen so many people changed Sid it’s unbelievable and changed in practical results in terms of practical financial results but also to see the pressure lifted off of somebody, to see the fear come off somebody. To see somebody’s focus really return to be on God…

Sid:  I imagine a lot of marriages are saved just by getting at this spirit.

Craig:  That really is true because that spirit just wreaks havoc in a marriage. If you go to a divorce court you’ll hear probably I think 80% of the divorces have a tremendous influence of money and arguments over money…

Sid:  Give me one specific case that comes to mind of someone that’s applied these principles and had help.

Craig:  You know there was a young woman that came to a seminar in New Zealand. When we began talking she initially came and said “I felt like I had a pretty good handle on my finances.” She wrote me later she said “You know I found out that it wasn’t a handle it was a grip that I had fine finances.” She said “I know idea it was a spirit of mammon” but what she did on one of the evenings we were talking about tithing and that was just intently scary to her and her husband because there was no way she could live on 100% of her income she couldn’t see a way that she could possibly begin to tithe. But to make a long story short she and her husband made a commitment in their heart that they were going to tithe and trust God to be their provider. You know the day they made that commitment they had a supernatural release of finances that came to them that just changed their financial situation…

Sid:  Oh Craig we’re out of time!

Sid:  One of the biggest problems in marriage today, one of the biggest problems among people today, in this one of the most blessed countries the world has ever seen the United States of America is money. One of the most misunderstood areas is money, debt it’s unprecedented.  The little plastic cards that people have managed to get themselves in so much debt and paying so much interest that there appears to be no way of getting free unless you go bankrupt. I have on the telephone the founder of Family Foundation International, Craig Hill. This is a seminar teaching ministry primarily in areas of the family. There are so many misunderstandings to the point where people are turned off on a lot of the appeals by ministries, or approaches if you, will by money.  We did with the area of prophecy we corrected some misunderstandings on the air and this week we are going to correct some misunderstandings on money. I have Craig Hill on the telephone I’m speaking to him at his office in Littleton, Colorado. I just recently listened to a 7 audio cassette series on God’s principles of finances. I’ve got a question for you Craig I want to start out with.

Craig:  Sure Sid.

Sid:  I know an individual that decided to go into business for himself.

Craig:  Hmm hm.

Sid:  He felt God gave him the idea. He’s a strong Spirit filled Christian. A young man and…

Craig:  Hmm hm.

Sid:  …he didn’t have money. So he decided this was such a great idea “I’m going to borrow money on my plastic, on my credit cards.” And he borrowed a large sum of money on a number of credit cards which I think it’s just a crime that credit card companies would just give this amount of money to a young person with no assets starting a new business. The business went under, and now he’s in a position of having to pay so much in interest the interest is growing faster than he can pay the principal.

Craig:  (Laughing)

Sid:  He’s in a first class mess and looking at bankruptcy. If you were counseling this young man what would you say?

Craig:  Well I think that could be any number of a lot of people Sid. I would think that there’d probably be a lot of people listening right now that would be in a similar type of situation. The thing that… first that people need to understand is that this has afflicted many types of people and that we live in a society that is drunk on debt. That usually when people find themselves in that kind of situation it’s certainly no secret to them that they’ve made mistakes…

Sid:  You know I want to interject something. A lot of people don’t know this but before I became a believer I was an account executive at Merrill Lynch…

Craig:  Oh!

Sid:  …in the investment business.  Before that I was in the life insurance business. I used to say to people “We will never have another 1929 because there are laws that have been instituted to not allow people to borrow so much on their stocks,” it was called margin. As a result of these, and this is what I was told to say “we won’t have another 1929.” But you know what? We’ve got worse situations because of plastic credit cards than they ever had in the borrowing on stocks on the margin accounts in 1929.

Craig:  That’s really true. I was reading a newspaper article not too long ago here in our Denver newspaper about several people, young people – college students, several of them who had committed suicide as a result of the pressure of the debt that they had gotten involved in through credit…

Sid:  Hmm.

Craig:  …through the credit cards, plastic cards. One young woman had called her mom up and just weeping on the phone “What am I going to do? What am I going to do?” Her mom said “Don’t worry we’ll help you” but that pressure was so intense they found that girl dead a couple of days later having committed suicide with a raft of credit cards spread all over the room and bills and she had just been overwhelmed with the pressure of that and not knowing how to get out of it.

Sid:  Well there is a new marketing strategy of getting credit cards in the hands of college students. So start them in debt before they even get their degree.

Craig:  Sure. That’s really true. You know an interesting thing, I think a lot of times as Christians we haven’t really realized that we have opened the door for that ourselves toward our own children by utilizing credit cards in that same way ourselves as…

Sid:  Monkey see, monkey do.

Craig:  Yeah that’s right. In Proverbs 22:26 says “Train up a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not depart.” We’ve opened the door and trained a lot of children in that way and they do start very very early.

Sid:  Okay you’re advising this young man. He’s made his mess, now what advice do you give him?

Craig:  Yeah he’s going to have to do 2 things that I know of for sure Sid. First thing that’s he’s going to have to understand is that there is a spiritual aspect to this as well as a practical aspect. So there are things that always needs to be kept in balance in terms of what is happening spiritually as well as what is happening practically. Jesus said you know in John chapter 4 verse 23 “Those who worship the Father will need to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.” So the first thing I’d advise this young man he’s going to have to understand the spiritual side of what’s happening to him. There are a lot of things that he’s feeling, a lot of pressures the things he’s experiencing are absolutely spiritual and need to be dealt with in at realm. Then there’s a practical that he’s going to have to deal with to walk out of this in terms of stepping up to his debt. In terms of stepping up to each one of these creditors he owes and beginning to make agreement with them. What we’ve found that happens an awful lot of times regarding debt is that people are willing many times to eliminate the interest. They’re willing to renegotiate all kinds of prior agreements when a person is honest…

Sid:  But it’s so much easier when it’s overwhelming to just go bankrupt. There’s whole industries that are set up. Is there anything wrong with a Christian going bankrupt?

Craig:  That’s very true that a whole lot of industry is setup to do that. What I think happens Sid is a lot of people are not counting on the supernatural at all. They’re not looking to God at all they’re only looking in the natural and what I find that debt does to people is it is so overwhelming it creates so much shame, so much pressure people feel absolutely overwhelmed , overloaded that many times they choose that option when there’s no need at all for choosing that option when if they would simply step up to their debt, begin to talk to their creditors do what they can do. What I notice you know there’s always a pressure the enemy on all of our lives that cause us to focus on what we don’t have and what we can’t do. I find so many times that when people quit focusing on what they don’t have and can’t do and begin to focus on what they do have and can do, and they begin to do the natural things then God will begin to do the supernatural things.

Sid:  Okay let’s make a shift right now because we’re talking about this whole series on money. There’s something that has disturbed me, it’s been hard for me to even articulate it which is hard to believe because that’s what I do.

Craig:  (Laughing)

Sid:  But it’s hard for me to… there is something about the spirit that is behind a lot of evangelists that ask for money…

Craig:  Right.

Sid: …that say, this isn’t what they’re saying but this is how it’s received by many people. “If you will give to me God will give you a 100 fold back on what you’re giving…”

Craig:  Right.

Sid:  “…and give everyone that gives a $1000 today watch what God is going to do.” Somehow there is a greed motivation…

Craig:  Right.

Sid:  …and I don’t even think God honors that even though there’s a law of sewing and reaping. Somehow we tap into that but there’s something in this greed that causes it to not even work and the only one that makes money is perhaps the evangelist.

Craig:  Yeah I think what you’re saying Sid is absolutely true. Well what a lot of people have not recognized is I think there really is something very powerful operative in the spirit realm that people haven’t recognized. Now first, I saw this in Matthew chapter 6 verse 24 a scripture that would be very familiar to most of us where Jesus said “No one can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” All my life I’ve heard mammon taught as simply being another word for money, even in some translations of the Bible it translates it directly as money.

Sid:  I’ve seen that.

Craig:  Sure, but the way that Jesus has set this up is these two things are absolute opposites. God and whatever mammon is, and if indeed mammon were money if we were to fully give our hearts over to God and serve God then we should have nothing to do with mammon. If we do have anything to do with mammon then we are not serving God. Well if mammon meant money the obvious point is that we should have nothing to do with money. People in past centuries of course have taken that approach checked themselves into a monastery taken a vow of poverty and had nothing to do with any kind of money or worldly possessions for the rest of their life. But the thing that was startling to me that finally gave me some help in understanding this was when I heard a friend of mine with WYAM in Canada, a man by called Earl Pitts. Had done some research with another founder of school of Biblical studies with WYAM, Ron Smith, into the etymology and origin of that word mammon, and Sid do you know what they found the actual original meaning of that word was, is it didn’t mean money but it was actually an idolatrous god that was worshipped by Philistine people in the days of Jesus.

Sid:  Huh!

Craig:  So when Jesus said “You can’t serve God and mammon” He wasn’t talking about money per se He was actually talking about an idolatrous god that people worshipped. I think that it’s pretty evident to most people that behind every one of those idolatrous gods was a demonic principality or a demonic entity that was working behind that. I really believe that that same… that what that mammon is is actually the proper name of demonic principality that is operative still on planet earth today. The purpose of which is to grip and grab hold of people’s minds and I think that spirit is doing 2 powerful things in the lives of people in this country:

1. Is to cause an intense focus on money and cause people to highly value money and look to money as the answer to all of their problems.
2. To cause people to greatly fear the lack of money.

So if an evangelist as you say, in the example that you were just sharing is motivated by that spirit without realizing it, what can happen is he can indeed use the principle of sewing and reaping as you were suggesting to key in, or tie in, to the fear that is already in people’s hearts that they don’t have enough money and suggest that… the goal of this whole exercise is to get you money and we’re going to use God now to get you money. Of course all of us have heard offerings taken up in that way, or have been in services where that happened and there’s something that just grates on your spirit on the inside. The thing that I finally discovered that was is there’s a wrong spirit behind that.

Sid:  Craig we’re out of time we’ll pick up right here on tomorrow’s broadcast.

Sid: I believe that God has risen up my guest I’m speaking to him at his office in Tulsa, Oklahoma the he’s Senior Pastor of Family Prayer Center Dave Roberson just for you. Dave many people would question why did Jesus fast for 40 days? Why was it even necessary? What did he really accomplish by fasting?

Dave: Sid it says in Matthew 4 that Jesus is led up of the Spirit He was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tempted by the devil. And while He was in the wilderness He fasted for 40 days. And the question I had over that in the Lord’s prayer He said “Lead us not into temptation.” Yet here He’s saying that He was led up the Spirit into the wilderness for the purpose of being tempted by Satan. See when He went into the wilderness He was actually going in as part of the substitution in identification work that He did for you and I. Such as He was made to be sin, you and I was made the righteousness of God in Christ. He bore our sicknesses and He carried our pains that we might be whole. And the chastisement of our lack of peace was laid up Him with His stripes we were healed. So He began the redemption work substitution identification when he was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  But He fasted to shut His flesh down to prepare Himself for that temptation. And He went out into the wilderness as my substitute to be tempted in my place. So He fastest to prepare His flesh to face Satan and He was tempted in 3 realms, 3 areas spirit, soul and body. In the Body it says that “If you are the Son of God turn of God turn those stones into bread.” And Jesus He stood up to him the horriblest strongest temptation that could ever be brought to a man. Jesus had to be able to stand up under it and He did and He said “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” So Satan then moved his temptations up a level into the soul when he couldn’t defeat Him on the level of the flesh. And he said “If You’re the Son of God jump off the pinnacle of the temple he said because it’s written that the angels would bare you up less you dash Your foot against a stone.” And Jesus resisted the emotional level of torment and temptation that would put a man in the levels of an insane asylum on the miss interpretation of a verse. He said “Jump off the pinnacle of the temple” as he tempted him in the emotions of the soul he said “Jump off.” And Jesus resisted and He says “I will not tempt God.” So when he could not defeat Him in the realms of the soul he moved onto the realms of the spirit. And he said “Look I’ll make you a world ruler” he said “Look at all of the kingdoms of this world look at the glory of them, look at the wealth of them all you have to do is fall down and worship me” and he said “I’ll give all of them and all of the glory of them to you.” And Jesus said “I will not,” He said “I’ll worship the God and God alone will I serve.” And so He was tempted inconceivably in those 3 areas spirit, soul and body as my substitute and he defeated Satan. And then as an act of grace that victory that standing that he received from passing that temptation and defeating Satan by an act of grace He turned around you and I Sid and by grace He gave us His standing that standing that He defeated Satan with. So that when you turn around to the devil and say “Come out” that devil has to come out because Jesus defeated him in the wilderness. So Jesus fasted for the same reason that you and I fast that was to prepare his flesh for that temptation that Satan tried to bring Him under and defeat Him with. So somebody asked me “Well what if the devil doesn’t come out when I tell him to come out Brother Roberson?” I said “This is why Jesus said ‘This kind cometh out by prayer and fasting.’” Fasting will drive your flesh down below the level of the operation of your spirit and enforces that position of grace that Jesus gives you which is His standing. When that standing He has given you is free then those devils will come out because it’s not you see it’s Him. So He fasted Sid for the same reason that you and I fast and that was to positionally or to prepare His flesh for that temptation and to defeat Satan.

Sid: Dave for the past number of years there have been men and women moving in a very strong anointing we’ve been calling it revival and then people’s lives have been touched and they literally got excited and passionate for the Lord. But then over a period of time they slipped back to right where they were before. Is this really revival that’s it’s been labeled as revival in a number of churches in America?

Dave: What I’ve seen Sid is what some classify as revival you know I wouldn’t classify it as revival and a lot of times when the pastor is not hungry you know and people will get hungry and he said “One being taught is not above the disciple the one teaching him or the teacher.” And a lot of people are just held there just held passively in one place to just abide their time till the years go by and they remain exactly the same they just kind of babysit them in their salvation until Jesus comes. I’ve seen moves of the Spirit and things they classify as revival, but then and but then I’ve seen and read about revival that has come in times past and I haven’t seen too many of them but I have seen some. One was in the Amazon State in Brazil by a man Sid that got our fasting series and right now he’s causing a raging revival in the village along the Amazon. But this man we trained for 5 years and for the last 6 months up to this time in fact this last year for 6 months he did the series fasting a few days on and off. And ended it with a 36 day fast and was caught up into heaven Sid and they talked to the creatures that worshipped God around the throne and came back. And he told me 1000’s are pouring out now down in the Amazon and they’re coming to this village wherever he is they’re laying them down and they’re getting them healed. I mean the things that are happening are absolutely incredible.

Sid: Are you impressed with a seeker sensitive church that’s got 5000 people and just seems to grow and grow and grow, but really isn’t close to a demonstration to the power of God are you impressed with that?

Dave: No not at all Sid. The other day Sid a good friend of mine said “What do you measure the success of your ministry on Brother Roberson?” And I said “That’s easy on the permanent change that it brings in people’s life as they grow in Christ.” No it doesn’t impress me at all because I know that numbers has nothing to do with that.

Sid: Going back to fasting tell me some changes you’ve seen in other people that have moved into fasting.

Dave: The biggest changes that I see Sid is like it happened in me that whatever’s in these ceilings that causes them to be weak the Holy Spirit and the fasting begins to destroy them.  And I’ve noticed that it will bring those problems in view where you yourself can see them and understand the weakness and understand the complacency and the difference. Myself I begin to hate those things so bad as He revealed them that God said “Good to me” He said “Good that you hate them because when you loved them indifferently in the world what did I have to work with? But now that you’ve fasted and you hate them as much as I do you’ve given Me something to work with and I can move them out of your life and I can destroy them.”  And they range from habitual things to strongholds from people’s past such as being hurt very bad and generational things as they would call and generational things as they would call them, curses and things like that.  But the change is phenomenal Sid because as it breaks the power of the flesh.

Sid:  I have on the telephone Dave Roberson he’s Senior Pastor of the Family Prayer Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And we’re talking about a revelation that Dave received from God that allows believers to get from the level they’re at in the Spirit where they’ve been for years and years and years and breakthrough to where God really wants them. Others have been praying for years and years and years and it’s almost as though “Well I believe God’s going to answer this prayer someday” but year after year after year you’re praying and you’re not seeing results. Others don’t have the intimacy with God Dave for many years you’ve been a man of the Spirit. You spent many many days praying 5, 6, 7, 8 hours in tongues, you really have been moving in the Spirit. But when you got the revelation on fasting that it wasn’t something that moves God.  What does fasting really do, you told us on yesterday’s broadcast, but review that what does fasting really do for you?

Dave: Well in Romans 8:10 because I wondered when that devil wouldn’t come out that Jesus had ended up casting out for the disciples the apostles and they turned around and asked Him “Why wouldn’t that devil come out?” He was very plain He said “He would not come out because of your unbelief.” And then he went on to say something tremendous “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed you could say to that mountain be removed and be cast beyond us and it would obey you.” And then He said “Absolutely nothing, nothing should be impossible to you.” So the disciples had been casting devils out up until that time and suddenly a devil just would not come out. And when they asked Jesus the reason He said “It’s because of your unbelief.”  So when I saw this I thought to myself “Well if the primary reason that devil wouldn’t come out is because of their unbelief then I wondered what in the world does fasting have to do with unbelief? Now what does going without eating what does that have to do with my unbelief period? But yet it does because Jesus said that “If you ever dealt with this particular unbelief.” You know the kind that the apostles had or the disciples had that day when they couldn’t cast that devil out. Because if they knew why they couldn’t cast that devil out they wouldn’t have asked Jesus but they couldn’t get it to come out so they asked Him why? He said “Because of your unbelief.” So we’re talking about a very seductive, deceptive kind of unbelief that had put a ceiling on a person’s life. A kind of unbelief that we don’t even know that we have for one year is like the next until decades turn into generations and pretty soon our whole life can go by.

Sid: Do you believe that people have a very specific destiny from God and many people never even know what it is let alone accomplish it?

Dave: I do because of these kind of ceilings that’s over their life and the unbelief that’s involved we bounce off of that ceiling prisoned in that world of unbelief many times. Put into that world by doctrines that people preach and teach that’s not exactly true. It puts us in a holding tank and we spin our wheels all of our lives and we don’t know why we can’t break through into our ministries and our calls. Just like this particular kind of unbelief they didn’t know why they had it but He told them that they devil wouldn’t come out because of your unbelief.  Meaning, Sid if you and I ever learned how to deal with that kind of unbelief that He was talking about that subtle kind that we spend years in sometimes just not knowing how to breakout. But if we ever learn to deal with it we’ve got a person promise from Jesus that absolutely nothing and I mean nothing would be impossible to you. But then He said “How be it…” an analytical word, “…how be it this kind He said to come out by nothing but prayer and fasting. And that certainly wasn’t the prayer that hovered over the demon possessed boy because that one didn’t work.  He was talking about a lifestyle of prayer. But He said “By prayer and fasting.” And so my question to God I said “Oh Father what does fasting have to do with my unbelief especially that  very subtle kind that a person doesn’t even know that they have and just explain a little bit on that?” Let’s say that the whole room was full of wheelchairs and children in them and Jesus walked in and emptied all of the wheelchairs in His glorify body and I’ve said I’d already prayed for him and I couldn’t…why didn’t you do that when I prayed? He’d turn to me and say the same thing. He’d say “Son it was because of your unbelief.” But then I know Jesus and he does not speak a problem he doesn’t outline a problem without going on and giving the answer to the problem before He’s finished. And I knew that if He walked into the room he would tell me exactly the same thing He told His apostle that day.  He said that “It’s because of your unbelief how be it this kind will come out but prayer and fasting?” Now He just wasn’t talking about deliverance He said “You see that mountain and you could speak to it and that mountain would move.” He was talking about power and ministry when you can destroy those kind of ceilings that keep you in the same place your whole life time see.  So my question “What does it have to do with unbelief?” And that’s when I found out Romans 8 and 10 “If Christ is in me,” and He is, my spirit is already seated in heavenly places with Him. He didn’t say “It’s alive.” People in hell are alive my spirit has entered into the Zoe that kind of new nature life with Him. But my body has been declared dead as far as its ability to reign over my spirit positionally the carnal appetites of the flesh has had its position provided for it which is dead. And fasting enforces that position. When I began to fast then it began to drive my flesh down below an operation of my spirit. And I used to think fasting moved God but the moment my flesh dropped below the operation of my spirit things that I’d been believing for, power I had longed to operate in, habits that were not pleasing to God they begin to die. And prayers that I had on hold for years began to come to past.

Sid: Can you get a little specific in your life Dave?

Dave: Yes.

Sid: Tell me specific things that happened to Dave Roberson.

Dave: Marilyn Hickey’s and Wally Hickey’s and I had gravitated towards the flesh and felt like I was out of control. I kept getting no peace and I asked Marilyn “Can you help me?” She said “Yes I can get you an appointment Dr. Cho.” I said “Oh thank you” but on the way home in my airplane God told me he said “Do you remember I told you to go as far into Me as you could?” I got home Sid and canceled my meetings and I managed to go on a longer fast and 2½ fasts later I entered into…I mean I broke levels the flesh off of me and a peace came back the torment left, a peace came back so strong I finally ended up doing a teaching on “Peace the aggressive weapon of God” because it broke the power of the flesh. When I first entered into it Sid I couldn’t even read my Bible hardly I couldn’t do anything it’s so crazy and I couldn’t have any peace to pray and even open my Bible felt like a thousand fish hooks was pulling my flesh back…

Sid: What was stopping you from opening your Bible?

Dave: Emotions that were unexplainable, I mean they were so strong I couldn’t force myself to do it like a supernatural presence had gotten ahold of me and was tormenting me. And for the first days of the fast Sid I just laid there on the bed and went “Uhhhh” and I couldn’t do anything hardly but I refused to eat. And it wasn’t too long into the flesh and one day I woke up I felt like praying again, you know I felt like opening my Bible again. Something had broken and I didn’t know at that time that I had driven my flesh down below the operation of the life that was in my spirit and I started getting free.  It was a tremendous thing (Laughing) when I think back over it now you know I just want to cry.

Sid: You know I’ve heard your series on peace.

Dave: Yes.

Sid: Explain just briefly what is this peace you have experienced every believer experiences peace from time to time as they walk with the Lord.

Dave: Yes Sid when the further I walked out of the flesh and into His love He said “That where I am you may be also as I am so are you in this world. Seated at the right hand of the Father in His glorified humanity as man and as God.” He talked about it “So are you in this world.” That peace He has there I can have here.  And the further I got into God’s love the stronger this peace got. But there isn’t that there isn’t tornadoes that come right up to me that die right at the tip of my toes. It’s not that there not alive and around me but they do not enter in, not meat, eat and drink but righteousness, peace and joy they do not get in. And when I conquered that would of peace on the inside that’s when I began to conquer the world around me.  I used to have to have God changed the world around me to have peace but now if He can change that world on the inside of you that’s the key to changing the world around you. And boy that peace is one of the strongest things I ever ever had the pleasure of walking with, with my Savior.

SID: Hello. Sid Roth here. Welcome to my world where it’s naturally supernatural. My guest carries so much of the presence of the Glory of God, of the Spirit of God. This is going to be hard for you to believe, she’s driving along one day and a stranger, someone she doesn’t even know, jumps into her car. She stopped to leave her children off. Jumps into her car and says, “You’re beautiful.” Now what would you do? I’ll tell you what she did. She didn’t do anything. The Glory of God, the fire of God jumped off of her on this man. He starts sweating profusely, starts shaking and then she leads him to Jesus. Do you want to know about that fire? That Glory is for you. You know, I travel all the time like you, but I have never had someone sit next to me like Alice Cresswell. Tell me about this man that got stuck next to you on a plane. There was nowhere else for him to go.

ALISS: What do you mean stuck next to me?

SID: He’s thinking, how can I exit.

ALISS: He was pinned in because he was by the window because I’m in the middle. There’s another guy to my right.

SID: That’s even worse.

ALISS: So I’m just sitting there minding my own business. We’re just about to take off and as I’m looking out through the window I notice the guy to my left by the window is starting to look a little bit red in the face. And then I notice he’s got beads of sweat begin to appear on his forehead and start to trickle down the side of his face.

SID: Now if that happened to me I’d think the person was sick.

ALISS: Well to be honest I just thought, well maybe he’s scared of flying, and I was actually starting to think maybe I ought to offer to pray and say, is there a problem with flying. But before I had a chance to even think about what I was going to say he just turned to me and he said, “What’s that? What is that?” And I was like, “What’s what?” And he said, “There is so much fire coming out of you,” he said, “so much power and so much heat.” He said, “You are making me sweat.” I said, “That would be the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit that you can you feel.” Now he told me that he was into new age stuff. He had been into Buddhism. He said he knew the spirit realm very well, but he never felt anything like this kind of level of power or fire from anybody. So I just went on to tell him that Jesus is the access point to the spirit realm. Jesus said, “I am the door.” And I told him a bit more about Jesus and how he died on the cross. And as I’m telling him this I get a pain in the base of my spine. So I just thought, maybe I’m picking up on something with this guy. So I just said to him, “Have you got a problem with your spine?” And he said, “Yes.” He said, “For 14 years,” he said, “I’ve been in constant pain.” He said, “What happened was,” he said, “14 years ago I was in a bar, got involved in a fight and I was actually, my back was broken, like severe.” Breaking his back. He had surgery and sciatica. It was pressing on his sciatic nerve. He had been on liquid morphine for 14 years, but still had all this pain in his body. So I said, “You know the Spirit of Jesus you could feel coming out of me, the Holy Spirit, would you like a little bit of that power, just a little bit to go into your body and heal you?” And he was like, “Don’t mind if I do.” So I’m just sitting there and I just put my finger on his shoulder like this and I said, “I release the spirit of the power of Jesus, the healing power of Jesus now. In Jesus’ name be healed.” All the bones go back together. He had metal rods in his back. I said, “Metal come out, all pain go in Jesus’ name.” Then I said to him, “What are you feeling?” Because I always like to ask. It’s always a scary part, but I do ask what is the person feeling. And he’s like, “Nothing.” So I said, “What do you mean nothing?”

SID: You must be feeling all sorts of things.

ALISS: Yes. And I expect him to be healed, you see. So I’m like, “What do you mean you feel nothing?” And he says, “No, you don’t understand. For 14 years, I have been in constant pain. Now I feel nothing.”

SID: Wow. Now Alice has a bed and breakfast and a boutique, and tell me about someone, a man that came into your boutique and was, he’s looking for a gift or something.

ALISS: I noticed this guy, as he walked through the shop he had quite a pronounced limp, and I just got chatting to him, and I said, “What’s the trouble?” And he said, “Well 30 years ago, I was involved in a major car accident, this car wreck.” He said, “It nearly killed me.” He said, “It was terrible.” He said, “Three of my vertebrae” in his back were crushed. They thought he was going to die. He’s actually lost, he said, he lost four inches in height because his back was crushed. And he broke all his jaw and he actually lost all his teeth. They had to reconstruct his jaw. The top part of his mouth they had to put a new one in. He had bruising on his brain and he had epileptic fits now. He had pain in his body all down his legs, sciatic nerve and everything. And he would wake up very often in the morning with blood in his mouth and with, just his arms and legs were numb.

SID: Sounds like an awful life.

ALISS: I mean, terrible. They told him he was going to be in a wheelchair very soon and his hands were shaking like this ever since the accident. So I said, “Well Jesus can heal you. Can I pray for you?” And he didn’t know anything about Jesus, but he was amazing. He said, “Yeah, have a go.” I don’t know if he believed or not that it was going to work. But I started to pray and the power of God just came in such a mighty way. His knees started to buckle and he started to fall over. My husband Rob, across the other side of the shop, saw what was happening and he just raced across the shop and managed to catch him in time, and we helped him into a seat. And he’s sitting there, and you know, he couldn’t even speak because just the power of God was so strongly upon him. And he was crying, and he was crying, and he was crying. I was like, “Are you okay?” He said, “The pain is gone. The pain is gone.” And as he’s sitting there he’s trembling and he’s crying, and he can hardly speak, and he’s like “The pain is gone.” He sat for a while and I said, “Come on, just jump up.” And he said, “Last night I went to the movies. It took me 20 minute to get up from my seat.” He said, “I can’t just jump up.” I said, “Jump up in the name of Jesus because the name of Jesus is so, so powerful.” He literally jumps up out of his seat and he’s still crying, and he’s like, “I’ve grown! I’ve grown. I’m taller.” Because he was four inches short, he said. He said, “I feel taller.” We prayed for his jaw and it went numb, and he said he feels it moving around, and his hands stopped shaking. They were just perfectly still. And he stayed in the shop for maybe another couple of hours. He was so overwhelmed and he prayed to God, and he said, “God, thank you for healing me. Please come into my life. Come and fill me with your Holy Spirit.”

SID: You know, when we come back, I want you to put yourself in this situation. You’re driving a car. You’re by yourself and someone you don’t know jumps into your car, and this person has evil intentions. That’s what happened to Alice. But what happened to this person, we’ll talk about him when we come back.