Jesus is the universal solution. If you have a behaviour that you can't stop, or know someone who's addicted in some way, Jesus says in John 4:16 'I am the Way, and the Truth and the Life'. But we need to find, for every single life, the key to the way into that life. And it's not the same key for every person!
Now, sometimes, I go to meetings - especially meetings that have been happening in the last five years - and I hear extraordinary things! Things like: '34 drug addicts got delivered last week!'. I don't know if I believe them! I always hope they're true.
{When I hear them} I think: 'I must be stupid!'. We pray with our drug addicts 24 hours a day, for 10 days! That means we have six people per day - they do four hour shifts, non stop praying. That's six people in one day. That's in ten days, sixty people! That's why this is a job for the Church!! Sixty people, non-stop prayer!!!
And the other people went to a meeting, somebody put their hand on them - 'Pow!', 'FREE!'. And I always want to ask: 'How do you know they are free?!'
I hope it's true! Now, it is sometimes! The problem is it is, sometimes! Do you see? For instance, I met a man once who the first time he heard about Jesus at a Gospel Meeting went forward, and was so delivered from alcohol that he could drink again. He just chose not to. What I mean is, he was free. He didn't call himself a dry alcoholic. He wasn't! He was free.
The problem is, if he told that story in too many Churches, everybody would think - 'all you have to do is to believe in Jesus and all your problems are over!' Not true!!
And that's because they don't understand that the problem is not the addiction; or the alcoholism! That's not the problem! The problem is: 'What caused it?' And that's why you may be at a certain meeting and you may hear a certain 'word', or hear a revelation of Jesus - and you may be completely changed in that moment - if the 'word' and the revelation are deep enough to meet the place where there was pain or guilt in the beginning.
And it's only the deep repentance either for what has been done to us, or for what we have done that will change our addiction and our behaviour patterns at the core. And that's what we (in our work) are interested in. We're not interested in praying somebody off drugs in a superficial way. That's why ten days isn't enough!
The (Chinese) man who just spoke was on drugs for Thirty years! Thirty years of not working, thirty years of habitual cheating, thirty years of habitual manipulation. When you come to Jesus you're new, you're qualified to sit in heaven at that very moment. Yes! But the habit and the mind of a life time are still there! And Jesus is interested in us having renewed mind.
Now, we don't start with the mind. I never begin with the mind with an addict. I never told an addict not to take drugs. That's Stupid! No logical person takes drugs. No logic will get him off!
I once knew a family where there were six brothers, and four of them were on drugs. And one of them, all the way through his father's funeral, every half an hour, he had to go out for injections. And he kept vomiting on the floor all the way through his father's funeral, which in China lasts for hours! Their house was full of slime. I never ever saw them doing anything but cleaning needles or lying on the floor.
And the fifth brother? Yes! He took drugs! He saw his brothers dying. He saw his brothers degraded. He saw them doing degrading things. And he lived in the filth. You think that would stop him taking drugs? No! (very long pause!)
It's not logical to take drugs!! Who would put a needle in their arm? Or sniff powder up your nose? But in your Churches - you've got girls, and if you were to look up their sleeves you'd find they'd scratched themselves with glass. They are amongst us, even here (in this building now), deliberately causing pain! Why would you want to vomit up your food? When you've eaten it? Why would you do these things that hurt your body? Because you're in deep pain or shame. And that's important for us to be discerning - and not judgmental - as to understanding why somebody would have this pain, or shame.
Let me just give you two different examples : -
In Genesis 3 we read that when Adam and Eve ad sinned, they suddenly realised (in verse 7) that they were naked. They were filled with guilt. Shame for what they had done. And so they covered themselves with leaves.
In 2 Samuel 13, there's an awful, awful story about a girl who was lusted after by her half-brother - her name was Tamar. And he must have her. And so he tricked her into bringing cakes to his sick bed. And then he raped her. And there are these terrible words in Scripture which says that: 'After he had slept with her he hated her as much as he had loved her before. And he wanted to thrust her from him.' And she said: 'No! Don't! Don't! For the shame you would do in sending me away is worse than the shame you have just done to me. My Father would not stop me from staying with you. Please keep me with you. But he threw her out! And this beautiful girl who'd been dressed in colours went around in sackcloth. She covered herself with sackcloth.'
So, we have two different kinds of people. One who has been grossly shamed and sinned against, covering herself up. And the other, who are guilty themselves of sin, cover themselves up. And, if we, because we've heard how one person got free from their addiction, approach somebody else and carelessly expect that the same words will work for them - then we're arrogant!
We have to understand that everyone is different - and that the secret things in their lives are not places that they'll easily let us come. In fact, they've spent their lives covering up.
I went to a Church of a relative of mine a few years ago, and there was a wonderful lady who gave out the hymn books, and she was always sick. She was in her seventies - sweet, sweet lady. But she was very weak. And I went to pray for her one day, and God showed me something.
And I offered it to her - because you mustn't ever, by the way, when you pray for people, you mustn't say: 'God's shown me this about you!' You mustn't do that, that's blackmail! You must say: 'I wonder if this is helpful?' And then, you offer what God's - what you think God's - shown you. And then they can say: 'Yes!', or 'No!'.
And I said to her: 'I wonder whether there was ever anything with your father that made you feel bad?' And she confessed that from the age of seven, until around 14, her father had slept with her regularly. And, of course, when you're seven you don't know what's right or wrong. But she felt bad. And her father made her promise never to tell her mother. And she grew so weak she couldn't go to school. So, she grew up uneducated. And when she was 18 or 19 she became engaged to a Curate. And she felt she'd tell the Curate what her father had done. And he broke off the engagement. And I met her in her seventies.
Do you know what she had done from the age of 19 to 70+? She'd tried bathing six or seven times a day! She couldn't get clean. She gave out the hymn books. She hoped to serve God. But she never felt clean. She couldn't tell anyone.
There are people like this here in such pain. And you know, when this has happened to you, you don't know if it was you who did wrong or not. In Hong Kong, when little girls get raped, we've heard of Ministers that make them confess their sin in luring the man in the first place! Terrible! Terrible! Terrible! How awful of us! How awful of us! A woman is so confused at these times. She has been shamed, and then she has to confess her sins!
I prayed for this woman and she… {very long sigh} .............
You must allow time when you do this, otherwise - just slowly - I mean, if you've had this covered up in your life for sixty something years - I mean - don't expect it to go in half a minute when you pray with someone! Just open the door gently. But they've got to trust you. So, in a minute, when we come to pray for people, it won't be appropriate to finish the whole thing in one minute! It won't!! It will be appropriate to find somebody you trust. And when I say trust, I mean someone you like. If there's someone you're a bit afraid of, and they're a bit religious - don't go for them! They'll make your problem worse!! Guaranteed! They'll put things on you that you already can't bear. So go for somebody you like.
OK! You don't have to tell your problems to anyone, except somebody you like. And that's a completely free thing.
So, anyway, after praying with her for about an hour, she could begin to let the pain out. But she couldn't forgive her father. Of course not! She needed another week, which is pretty good, pretty good. And then she forgave him. Of course, she'd had to do it again, 'cos you forgive every time it still hurts. Do you understand? That's what seventy times seven is partly about. When you say: 'Well! I've done that. I forgave them!' Yeah! But if it still hurts a bit, you'd better do it again. And every time you do it, more of the anger, or more of the bitterness, goes. That's how it works. And the wound is soothed, with Jesus.
What I would call heroin, or alcoholism, or bulimia, or any of these compulsive behaviour patterns - I call them a Presenting-Problem. In other words, that's what you can see on the outside:
When Jesus, in Matthew 5:17, met a paralytic who was lifted through the roof where Jesus was speaking, He said to the paralytic: 'Your sins are forgiven!' Now, He could have said: 'Pick up your bed and walk!' Why did He say: 'Your sins are forgiven' ?I believe, because his paralysis was connected with his sin.
Now, that's not so in every case. we can't assume it. But it was the right words for him. And, by the way, when Jesus healed the sick He hardly ever talked about sin! Doesn't mean to say it wouldn't be dealt with at some time. But He rarely started with it.
John 5:2 - He comes to the clinic where the men were waiting for the angel who every now and again stirred the water - and whoever got No. 1 ticket could get healed! And He said to this man (verse 2): 'Do you want to be made well?' Extraordinary question! But, of course, it's important.
You see, many of us have made a friend of sickness or our problem. And it's comforting, even though it's life-endangering. You know, sometimes when people say to me: 'Jackie, can I pray for you?' when I'm sick. And, really, I don't want to be prayed for. I want to be sick! I want to go home early 'cos I'm sick! You know! (Maybe there's no one else like me here!) But Jesus said: 'Do you want to be made well?' - which is an important question.
A lot of people bring addicts to me and the addicts have no intention of changing. But their mother has! You can't do it! You can't do it to someone else if they don't want to be made well. There are other things you can do for them. You can pray 'behind the scenes'. And, by the way, I always pray that people get brought low, quick! I pray for them to be arrested. I pray for them to be bankrupt. I pray for them to have a disaster, quick! Because, if they can hit the bottom quick, it will be better than dying slowly! And getting a hardened conscience. I'm really serious about getting people saved.
Now, you needn't pray such awful disasters on them! But you could pray that 'the bottom falls out quick', somehow. And that they realise: 'I don't want to live like this, anymore. My addiction is not my friend, it's a deep bitterness.'
Let me suggest some things that may be Presenting-Problems, just in case you've thought it's simply people who take heroin and cocaine : -
Not all these things in themselves are addictions. But they are often the way that those of us that have got excruciating pain or shame use to stop ourselves thinking about it or bring comfort: 'I build things around the shame at the core of my personality!'.
And there are Triggers that set these off. The trigger is some kind of event that happens in your life which is so hard to cope with that it triggers off the comfort eating into something else. Or the drinking into something else.
Now the problem is everyone is going to have triggers. You may very well know someone yourself who came to Christ, who came off drugs, who did awfully well. You've got them a job and said: 'Everything was wonderful! But he had an awful boss who was unfair to him. So he went back to drugs!'. Or the more usual story is: 'This girlfriend let him down! And he went back to drugs!'.
Now, I have to tell you that everybody's going to have these things. You can't go through life without them - these triggers - these points of pressure - which are going to happen to everyone.
And if someone gets off drugs and follows Jesus - but the inner core of their personality hasn't been dealt with - even though they've not taken drugs for three years, and they are prophesying well in Church - if they go out, and there is a trigger, it will set it off again - because it's the inner core of the personality that needs to be touched!
Here are some triggers : -
And everyone will go through these - all of us will. So we want to deal with the inner core of a man or a woman or a child, and find out how or why that shame or pain or guilt got there. We will call that: 'The Root of the Problem', 'The Core of the Problem'.
So, I'll just suggest some ways that these 'Roots' get there :–
As I've already said, Tamar received terrible abuse and many have shame because of hurts/ abuse. The most common reason amongst our brothers, easily the most common, is that none of our brothers has ever been told they were loved by their parents.
They were all beaten severely by parents who wanted them to be good students. So, by the age of five, they all knew they were awful! In Chinese custom, you must not say your child is beautiful in case the spirits steal your child. So, you say: 'You are ugly, you're useless, you're hopeless and you brought me bad luck!' So, by the age of five, they know it's true. And, when you know something is true, you know it's true! They cannot believe otherwise. So, they grow up.
I can spot an addict at four. It's usually set at least by eight. You know the future possible addicts that early. It's very often what's happened to them. It's lack of love, abuse, rejection, or just 'being left' because the parents are working so hard. Isolation and sadness result in anger, hatred, panic.
If you met somebody who's excessively Christian - I don't mean Christian in the proper way, I mean Christian in their language - and you hate it - 'cos I hate it! - religious language! - look underneath. They're probably covering up something and trying to be accepted by you, by saying what sounds holy. We won't allow that kind of language. Try and see what's underneath.
Sin - Adam and Eve covered up 'cos they knew they'd offended God. One of the things that we routinely deal with when we pray addicts off drugs is their sexual history. And we have them confess every single person they've ever slept with or touched - by name, if possible. The more you confess clearly, the more you can get free from.
Now, there's a way of doing it. You can say: 'Dear Lord! Forgive all my sins!', and He will! But you don't get free from them that way! If you are specific about where you have offended God and man, and God's way, you can get free from it. That's how to get free from it. And you can get free preferably by finding the person you like - you're not going to tell anyone else - and telling them - and receiving forgiveness together.
Demonic - Another thing we routinely do when we're praying people off drugs is to find out their demon-history:
You may not understand these things. But they exist. Check and see what history there's been in that person, or their parents - spiritual or demonic-history. Have they taken a blood-oath? Has there been an oath, a covenant, etc.?
Accidental - Some people are addicted 'cos they've had an accident and they were given a drug, and they just simply went on taking it. Or the doctor has prescribed something and they've got addicted because the substance created a physical dependency. And after the physical dependency was a spiritual dependency.
Teenage is the most common reason - It's because other people are doing it! That's all. These days our teenagers are perfectly sweet. I mean, they're not like the last generation of teenagers we had. Our last generation of teenagers were extremely street wise. They knew how to fight, and swear and cheat - and all kinds of things. Our current teenagers look like angels before they're Christians! They're just simply empty. You fill them with good things, they're good. You fill them with bad things, they're bad. They just simply follow the crowd. And there's a whole generation who do that. we call that Peer-Pressure.
And there's Generational-History: - That's what's been passed down. In Exodus 20 it says: 'If you sin - if you worship other gods - the sins of the fathers will be visited on he children to the third or fourth generation.'. And all the way through Deuteronomy 32 and 11 it says, that what the parents have done wrong will result in terrible things in the children's lifetime. It's there in the Scripture! It is! If the fathers sin and don't love the Lord, the children get mental sickness, miscarriage, danger on journeys, awful things, rape, engaged to marry one but she's stolen. These you can read in Scripture. They are of the result of parental sin or disobedience.
And sometimes there are spiritual things that are passed down. You'll note, very often, that a gambling father may have a son who's a heroin addict. There's an addiction that's passed down. but it may not be the same addiction. Sometimes it skips a generation. This does not mean to say, if there's been an addict or a workaholic in the family, that everybody is going to get it. But it does mean that if there's any hurt or sin in the child's life, it can attach itself to it almost like a spirit.
Not all addiction is a spirit of addiction. I know, I've been asked to meetings where people say: 'Cast out the spirit of tobacco, or whatever!' No! With some people that's it. But not everyone, not everyone! So, casting out spirits of addiction, you know you might just get the right one if you do it every time. But, you know, 59 time out of 60, you'd be wrong! So, don't use 'what worked last time'.
Listen! Listen to how the Holy Spirit teaches you. (Tomorrow we'll teach you how to get 'words of knowledge' because, when you're paying for people, you need 'words of knowledge' - that is, you need insight from God into the problems of person's heart. And it's to help them, not spy on them! And you always offer it with humility.)
So, towards a solution : -
Admit you've got a problem/ Find someone to share it with/ Call on God. You must do all those three towards a solution.
Here's how to work the solution out : -
And if they take drugs again, which they almost certainly will, they won't want to come back. And, you know, it's much worse if they've failed the Church because they've got nowhere. No hope. Failed!
Do you know, I'm always meeting people who've failed Christian Drugs
Centres! Well - I think I would, too, in some of them! Really! I don't even
understand their Booklets. They're all addressed at the mind. That's not where
to start. Let God renew the mind. You start somewhere else. You start
spirit-to-spirit. Not talk-to-talk.
Just one 'word' would do: 'Do you want to be made well?' That was the one word for that man. It's not the one 'word' for everyone. 'Your sins are forgiven' - that was the 'word' for that man. I don't know what's the 'word' for your man. But you'd better ask God. And don't talk too much, until you get it - 'cos you'll turn them off.
They don't need Christians getting at them. They've already got a problem.
They need people who will accept them, anyway. Now, it doesn't mean to say you
love their sin. You say: 'I'm available to you. If you want to change, I'm
here. I'll love you anyway. Don't ask me to take part in what you're doing. I
don't want any part of it. But I am for you, and so is God.' Keep an open
door, somewhere.
When I go to other Countries, people are always giving me their addicts! They say: 'Pray for them!' You'll probably do that to me in 2 minutes! Well, I cannot do in two minutes what the Church is supposed to be doing day-in, day-out, throughout the year! So, please don't ask me to!
I'm going to ask you to behave like the Church! Would you be willing to do a four hour duty for someone? Well, you'll need six (duty periods) a day, by the way.
Now, if you're going to take someone into your home to get them off drugs, you must have a minimum of three, preferably four people (per duty). Not one!
You need one to be sitting with the addict. Then, you need one to answer the front door, or the telephone. Can't be the same person, because otherwise they have to leave him. Got that? And it's not safe to leave him - 'cos he loves Jesus this minute - but if you walk to answer the front door, he might not love Jesus a minute later.
They do very strange things, you know. Of course they love Jesus! But their feet don't! You know, we have people drinking Harpic in the loo, and all kind of strange things. they jump out of windows! They're all right if you're with them.
We pray in tongues non-stop. They pray in tongues non-stop. And then they sleep. And all our people come off drugs with no pain, or almost no pain.
You need a third person to be asleep. The third person is asleep so they can take over from No. 1. And you need somebody to cook. So, that's all the people that are doing the other things so the other people don't have to do that too. So, that's four people (per shift). And then, you're going to need refills, right, for those who pray for the one's you're praying off drugs.
If you do this for 10 days (the addicts) will all be completely free, physically. Then! Then… {derisory smile} the real work begins!
By the way, while you're doing this - lots of baths, lots of massages, lots
of worship, lots of praying in tongues, no walks round the block, no
'telephones to my girlfriend'. None of that. You must clear all that before
you start: 'No telephones. No visits. No aspirins.' We would say no cigarettes
- but that will be up to you.
Our brothers here all say that it's the miracle of God delivering them coupled with the care of the brothers and sisters that touches them the most. And they can never say which is more important!
Five minutes prayer in Church will not do! It's the ongoing care of the
brothers and sisters.
They need, lastly, ACCOUNTABILITY - a willingness to check-back with someone and say: 'I'm in trouble again!'
And, if they're in trouble again, you must say: 'Congratulations! It's so good you tell the truth. You're forgiven. Now you seek to speak to Jesus again. Now, let's see what caused you to need to do that again.'
Don't blame anybody for taking drugs again. How many of you have not sinned after you've known Jesus? Yours are just hidden! Don't expect him to change any quicker than you are!
And I tell you, once you start to live with addicts coming off drugs, you'd realise you're part of the same programme! You realise you can't tell them to do something you haven't done yourself (Ho! Ho!) That means, you don't talk much! Really! We're all the same! Other people can see in us what's wrong better than we can! We're very good at sorting problems.
So, if you ever get involved with helping people with problems of this kind, you'll find that the person that is most being helped is oneself!
And you call out to the Lord again and say: 'Oh! Woe is me, I am no different! I'm no different!' And that's why you'll be filled with forgiveness and love and hope and mercy. You ought to be! And that's what you'll receive yourself.
And you will, if you keep saying: 'Oh! Woe is me, I'm no different! I'm pitiful, blind and wretched! Lord, I need you. I'd rather be addicted to you than my paper on the train! Or my orange juice for breakfast! Or my half an hour in the toilet by myself!' Or what ever way it is you find you can get through your day! It's not necessarily Christian. Nor unchristian, either. Just the ways that we get used to behaving.
And that's why you'll find that whenever you go on a Ministry trip, 'specially to a foreign Country - and you have to live closely with other Christian - everything goes wrong!
People come to Hong Kong, and they say: 'We'll have Spiritual Warfare!'. And I say: 'No! No! You're not having Spiritual Warfare at all! You're simply living with other Christians!'.
You know, I mean it's not Spiritual Warfare! You see things that you normally do to keep your life straight are not Christian: 'Oh! I have my paper!', 'I have half an hour with the Lord by myself!'. In our Country, nobody can have half an hour with the Lord by themselves. There's nowhere to go by yourself! Do you see what I mean? So, we get used to ways of coping. They're not unchristian, they're not Christian. And, when you're not with those ways - 'Ka-Pow!' - all your weaknesses come out. But they were there all the time. They were there all the time!
Let's pray…
"Dear Lord,
In your mercy we ask you to visit us. Some of us are so good at seeing other people's weaknesses. We can see how other people use other things to cover up problems in their own lives but, Lord, we ask first of all that you reveal to us ways in us that we have got used to coping with daily life, and they are not necessarily You.
Lord, we would be truly addicted to the Ministry of the Saints. We would be addicted to You:
So we ask You to forgive us for judging addicts and alcoholics. We want to ask You for forgiveness for having such short patience with those who have lived with pain and shame for so long. And, dear Lord, we are sorry we give them a chance or two and then we blame them for not living up to our standards when, Lord, we have fallen far short of Yours! So we ask, Lord, in mercy, that You will reveal to us what we need to know now about ourselves, that we can find help in time of need and have You to offer to others in need."
We want to pray about two lots of people, now: I want those of us who admit to having a habit that's 'out of hand'; I want you to go to this side…
This may be chocolate, it may be cigarettes, it may be gambling, it may be cards, it may be washing, it may be thoughts about pornography, it may be anything which we have used to keep busy or to cover up and we ask you to take the 'first step'. - you may even have worked at a drugs centre… in fact many of us that work with addicts are the ones that do have these problems… that's all right!
Would you come forward now, we want like pray for you, just here: Come to a Merciful God. You don't need to cover up anymore. Don't cover up, but don't be afraid either because He won't too quickly expose everything. He is terribly gentle. He will just reveal to you what you need to know.
And the people who are going to pray with you now ... they are careful people, they won't blame you for what's been done to you ...they won't blame you for what you've done wrong, however awful.
There's nothing too awful! All shame was put upon Jesus Christ on the Cross - all shame.
If you've been abused and you are trying to cover it up any other way but going to Jesus …come now. He was abused. He understands. But the terrible thing is that He even, as well as taking the abuse on the Cross, took the punishment of the one who abused. That may be too awful a though for you now to think about, but He did!
Over this side we want those of you who have friends who are drug addicts/ alcoholics … who have people down the street that you wonder what to do about. That's probably about half of you. If it's not half of you, then you have had your eyes shut! We want you to come over here and we are going to make ways of praying about this.
Will you come over here those of you who have got friends, relations, people in your church, in your street … and you wonder what to do about them, you go over there. Good! Actually it nearly ought to be everybody if you have half an eye open!
Okay! Good! Right! Now! Everybody who didn't come forward, you are very free to go. And the people who have come forward we want to get you into two's, and we want you to tell the person you are with about the people you are concerned about … and start praying. We have some people who are going to come round and bless what you are praying about because the people who are coming round have some knowledge of how to help people with compulsive behaviour.
Okay! So, find a partner, and some of the people who are going to come round may give you a Word from God and bless you to take steps in 'walking this out' in your area.
If you are not on your way out - if you have not come forward to pray for people or to receive prayer - please don't stand and watch! Put your hand out and bless them because if this lot 'get going' we will change Britain! We will change the Church and people will start to come into true freedom, true healing.
"Come, Holy Spirit. These people are concerned about freedom. And You said You have come to set us free, and those that you set free are free indeed.
Lord! Give them Wisdom. Give them practical steps. Give them people who are willing to 'walk this out' with them - that those that they care about may be changed. Lord! Work on the hearts of those they care about."
Bless you people
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