God Told Him NOT to Get Surgery—Then He Was Healed of Cancer - #143 Brian Ward

0:00 All of a sudden I heard a voice say she's praying for you twice just as loud as I'm saying it right here to you to know. My wife was standing beside me and it kind of sounded like her, but she had lost her voice. She couldn't even speak. So I knew then that the Lord was really with me. We get done through the prayer and at the end I'm just like, I would just like for everybody to pray for me.

0:21 I'm going to call the doctors tomorrow, tell them I'm not going to do the surgery. I call the doctors the next day and I say I'm not going to do the surgery. I'm going to do what the Lord wants. I don't care what happens to me. I've got to do what the Lord wants me to do. But for some reason, they just kept calling me back that day. I just talked to you.

0:36 I told you I'm not doing it. But I go back up to the tent revival that night and all of a sudden I felt the Lord this time. And he said, Brian, I would not want to be you if you get that surgery or you fall away from me again. How do you know that that wasn't the enemy trying to keep you from life saving medicine and treatment? When doctors told Brian Ward he needed surgery for cancer, he expected to follow their advice.

1:05 But in the middle of that process, God spoke to him and he told him something very different. God said you're healed. No surgery. And against the clear instructions of his doctors, Brian obeyed God. What happened next was a visible, documented healing that changed not just his body, but his entire life. Today, Brian Ward shares how God spoke to him, how his cancer was healed through obedience to God's voice, and how that moment led to a radical transformation in his faith, his marriage, and his family.

1:44 Please meet Brian Ward. Brian Ward, first of all, welcome. I'm glad you're here. It's an honor to be here. Yeah, it's an honor to sit across the table from you. You're here with your wife Jill, who is in our studio audience, so to speak, and we are super thankful for that. I know Jill has been along in every step of this and so I'm super thankful that she is here as well. We got a message from your daughter. She said you talk to my dad, you will not believe the transformation in this man and I want him to be able to speak about it.

2:20 So we got on a call and it was a great call. And you guys made the drive from rural Kansas if I'm not mistaken. Rural Missouri. Missouri. Yep, all right. Rural Missouri. Always in Missouri. Have always, well, we lived in Iowa for just a little bit, but we've mostly always lived in Missouri. Landlocked Midwest, Yeah. We just kind of live out on the farm in the middle of nowhere on a gravel Rd.

2:48 Well, I love that you've driven here. You guys are celebrating some anniversaries and your intention is to head on down South to the our beaches down here in Alabama and Northwest Florida. And I can't wait for you guys to have a great experience and celebrating some of the anniversaries that we're going to talk about here.

3:07 But people sit in that chair because they tell me, and we've already talked about experiencing God in a world that debates whether he's real or not. So, Brian Ward, tell me how you have experienced God. OK, I grew up in the church, a Baptist Church in a small town, Gilman City, MO and I went to church camp and I really thought it, but I really experienced the Lord there.

3:37 He's all kind of sitting around a campfire. All of a sudden the Lord just touched me. You know, you just as you're 12 years old, you're, you got tears coming down. I mean, you don't want to go forward. You're kind of embarrassed or whatever. But I did. I got baptized, but I just didn't. I didn't really know the Lord. I knew I experienced the Lord.

3:57 So I instantly just pretty much fell away and just started living my life as a high school kid. My beautiful wife and I got married. I was 19, she was 16. We'd come pregnant and in the marriage, it really started off pretty rough. I just wasn't wasn't ready to be married and just didn't. I just went right back into partying and doing whatever I wanted to do. But we come back to the Lord when I was around 25 years old and really had another just wonderful experience with the Lord.

4:33 I mean, it was just so on fire for for God, but there wasn't maybe there wasn't the guidance around and just kind of kind of start fizzling out. And then I went back to the world for another 25 years of doing drinking, doing drugs, committing adultery, just being an awful person. And as we're getting ready to go into COVID, President Trump, you know, he comes in, he starts talking about all the stuff that's happening. And I was kind of conspiracy theory guy. So it was just like, man, maybe it is the end of the world is coming.

5:08 Maybe I need to go back to church. And we had these start having these grandkids and it's just like, my kids are wonderful kids. We get along great, but they was kind of partying with us. We was just out having a good time. And it's just like, man, I haven't really taught my kids anything. Who's going to really teach these grandkids anything? So I'm like, I've got to start going back to church. And I told Jill that I'm going to go to church. So I started going back to church and as you start going and it felt good for a while, but I just kind of become kind of become lukewarm, you know, you didn't then. I was just like more miserable than I ever was before. So I'm half in, I'm half out and

5:49 even coming down here to Destin in five years ago in 2021, I'd that was probably the last time that we had partied. And but I just start how I start experiencing the Lord was I felt right in here. I had like AI thought I had an infected hair, but I just felt there was something more to it. So I finally went to the doctor. The doctor said it's cancer and I'm just I've always been kind of a negative person.

6:19 Not really a lot of so many great things have happened to me, but I've got a negative mindset. Well, I figured I'd probably get cancer anyway. So I started going through this, going to the doctor and getting checked out and they said it was cancer. But my wife kept saying I needed to to go to the church, get anointed with oil and get prayed over.

6:41 I'm just like, I don't, I just don't want to do it. I just, even if I do get healed and after you're just going to church and you've never really had that encounter with the Lord, It's just like, what would make any difference if I was healed or not? It's still going to be kind of a, a miserable deal. But she kept talking about it and talking about it and I kept going to the doctors and just kind of back and forth and I finally it went and got ACT scan. So they, they checked it out.

7:09 They cut this thing out. They said it was cancer, but my uncle, who was the preacher at our local church, asked me to come over and help put on this metal roof on this lady's house. And I do roofing. So I thought, I don't really want to do it, but I'm going to. I'll go over there. There's got to be some reason I go over there.

7:28 So I go over and I finally asked him after we got done working, will you anoint me with oil and pray for me at church. And he was glad to do it. And so that's Sunday. He calls me up at the end and there's probably 40 people there at church is not a big church. I go up and I sit in this chair and they just pour oil all over me.

7:49 It's just running down in my beard and every place else. But that's when my really start experiencing God. I mean the tears are flowing. I mean I'm just I'm I'm broken. You know, I finally get over that pride. I finally humble myself. I finally walk forward and say I'm ready to surrender my life to God.

8:10 So in my life to Jesus. And then after that things start really changing. Me and my wife's relationship really start growing because it was we always knew we loved each other, but it was just pretty, pretty rocky and obviously with the things I was doing. And we started really praying together and really seeking and really, really seeking what the Lord truly wanted to do in our lives.

8:38 And so I'm going back to the doctor and probably my first real true experience was they put me in an MRI machine to see if the cancer had grown any, to see what they's going to have to do with the, the surgery, because at that time I wasn't for sure what I was going to do. So, but soon as they put me into that, the MRI machine and I don't have claustrophobia, but this fear come over me. I'm it was just unbelievable fear. And then they and I just told him to turn the music on as a, you know, a local rock station.

9:12 And I was still probably listen to some of that music at that time. And every time if I shut my eyes and just tried, I mean, it was just an unbelievable fear that all of a sudden I just started repeating. James 47 submit to God, resist the devil and he'll flee from you. And up to that point, I hadn't really been studying the Bible much or but I think it was happened back when I was 25 years old.

9:35 When we come to the follow the Lord for about a year and a half, I always read the book of James. So I guess that was just in my spirit. And when I would say that the fear would kind of go away. So I just kept saying it and saying it. I even tried to scream out one time to to tell the doctor to slide me back out of the machine.

9:55 I mean, the fear was just crazy. So he slides me back out finally after about 40 minutes or so, and he says, you got to go back in for about 10 minutes and I'm just like, I just I can't take much more of this. I'm I'm more out. I'm just, I'm just getting an attack so much in there. And so he slid me back in. And when I went back in the fear come back, the demons, the spirits were just, I mean, it was just all over me and I just started reciting James 47.

10:24 But after I kept saying that for a while, then I just started thanking the Lord for healing me. I missed out of the blue. I mean, I really, really know at that time, I'm not sure if I even really believed that I would actually be healed. I just, I didn't know that much about it. In the church we grew up, they didn't really talk about it that much or I never seen anybody be healed. But I just start, thank you, Lord for healing me. Thank you, Lord for healing me.

10:50 So he slid me back out. He come over to talk to me and just like I said, man, I'm wore out. He said, well, then he start giving me the claustrophobia stories of other people that been in there. And I was like I said, I've been anointed at oil at church and the devil man, he's after me. Of course, I don't know if you believe me or not. And so I got my clothes on and went out to my car and I just said in there.

11:18 I just, I just weep for I don't know how long I was just well, we're out. And so I drove down to southern town. I come back, the doctor said she called me the actual doctor and said the cancer hasn't grown. So good news, you still got to get the surgery. Cancer hasn't grown. So I'm kind of like, man, I just, I just was thanking the Lord for healing me.

11:43 What is what is happening? And we'd started going to this 40 day tent revivable outside. It was pretty cold outside. It was, I don't even know why we even started going other than the Holy Spirit and let us up there. And it's like I can't already sit in an hour in church, let alone 40 days of a revival. But I went up there and I just remember I didn't want to tell any of our other Christian brothers and sisters at that time because, you know, nobody was really into healing and just kind of like they would just push me into getting surgery. They would be like, I just, that's good news. You know, everybody does it.

12:19 So I didn't want to tell anybody up there what did, what had happened to me, but a guy had called me out from the song leader called me out. Want to know how it went? And I'm just kind of sitting there in my chair like I've never even spoken hardly in front of anybody my whole entire life. I mean, why are you calling me out like that kind of made me mad.

12:39 And I said, well, I'm just waiting to see what the Lord wants me to do. Well, there is this lady there that had missed the opportunity of praying for somebody up at the Mayo Clinic at Minnesota. And she heard me say that and she, and she's sitting there in her mind, it's like I'm going to do whatever it takes. The ground was kind of wet.

13:02 It been raining. Even if I got to go over on my knees or whatever and pray for this guy because I don't want to miss this opportunity for, to pray for him. But that didn't happen. We, we got to the end. I'm finally like, well, the preacher, he starts preaching another pretty awesome deal. He is he's walking up to the front. He's just like, man, the Lord just changed my message. He told me to go to Acts 3 and as you get to Acts 3 and you get to verse 6 and it says silver and gold. I do not have.

13:30 But what I do have is I give you, no, I don't ever memorize. But and soon as he said that it was just like, man, this sermon is for me. And I'm sure you've been in church before, you know, like man, the Lord is speaking to me through this. Then when he got to Acts 316 is this man, you know, has been healed.

13:47 And I knew right then that that I had been healed. So I'm going to go up and I'm going to pray with the preacher afterwards and just talk to him and tell him the situation and ask him some questions. But he kind of changed it. And he went back to this kind of getting around in the circle and everybody holding, holding hands.

14:04 It was probably like 12 of us there. And I'm kind of like a darn it, I was going to go up and pray with him. But back when I was 25, we used to get in a big circle in our old church and all hold hands and pray. So he's kind of the Lord was taking me back full circle from 25 years ago. So soon as he starts talking, then he asked this lady he was going to pray for me earlier to pray.

14:29 And afterwards he's like, I never not disrespectful or nothing, but I never mostly have a woman start off praying, but he just calls her out and she's kind of sitting there thinking I've never prayed out loud either. And so she starts praying. She starts praying for this man to the leftover for healing. And I can't remember what all she said. And I'm just sitting there and like my wife and everybody else knew she was praying for me.

14:53 I had no idea who she was praying for. It was just just like I went completely blank, just like somebody in here is worse off than I'm. So I thought somebody got up out of the tent and and left. I could not figure out who she could be praying for and all of a sudden I heard a voice say she's praying for you twice just as loud as I'm saying it right here to you now.

15:14 You heard it audibly. Audibly. With your ears. With my ears. Not in your spirit. Nope. My wife was standing beside me and it kind of sounded like her but she had lost her voice. She couldn't even speak. I mean couldn't even spoke that loud. It was just like, couldn't even really hear if she's told if she talked. So I'm just like, I mean, is this so? I knew then that the Lord was really with me. Did anybody else hear it?

15:46 Nope. But you heard it with your ears. Heard it with my ears. OK. And we get done through the prayer and then at the end I'm just like, I would just like for everybody to pray for me. I'm going to call the doctors tomorrow and tell them I'm not going to do the surgery. And in the preacher, he was kind of made him a little bit nervous.

16:09 Like I hope I didn't, you know, you know, nobody want the pressure on him of that. So we get in the car and I told Jill about it and she's just like, you know, as good as you could hear. I mean, that was just that's the Holy Spirit. I mean, obviously I've never heard the Lord speak to me like that before that that I knew of.

16:27 And and that's when our lives really started changing. But I go back up to, I call the doctors the next day or the nurses and I say, I'm not going to do the surgery. I'm going to do. I'm going to do what the Lord wants. I don't care what happens to me. I've got to do what the Lord wants me to do.

16:46 But for some reason other than Satan, I guess they just kept calling me back that day four or five times, just like, OK, we got your appointment changed. Like I just talked to you. I told you I I'm not doing it. A little bit later, they call back. It's just like, what is the deal? Why don't you listen to me?

17:04 And but I go back up to the tent revival that night. I'm just almost there and I'm ready to turn at the stoplight. And all of a sudden I just I felt the Lord this time. I didn't I didn't hear him. But you know, when the Lord speaks to you and he said, Brian, I do not, I would not want to be you if you get that surgery or you fall away from me again. And I mean, the power of God was so strong. I mean, it just broke me.

17:33 I mean, I was just like, she just weeped and weeped and weeped. And I went to the revival and I can't even think what truly happened on that night. We went every night since then. But then the next day we're back home and the actual doctor calls again. And she was telling me all these big doctor terms, you know, And obviously I don't know nothing about that.

17:57 I was just like, wait a second, I've got to run inside from the shop. I'm going to give the phone to my wife and have her talk to you because she used to be a nurse. And if she was sitting there and that Lady was talking and she goes, I know you're religious. My parents of religious too, but they always said the Lord gave you a brain, you ought to use it. And I'm kind of thinking that old story, you know, where that guy's praying, He's on top of the roof and he wanting the Lord to help him and he sends a helicopter. He says he sends that.

18:24 I just kept thinking maybe I'm just not I haven't, you know, obviously I don't follow the Lord that close other than right now. Maybe maybe this doctor's, you know, being good to me and just kind of saving me from killing myself. And she was saying, you know, you this could grow and die. And so I gave my the phone to my wife. She listened to her for a while.

18:46 Then she handed it back. She said, I just believe this is the devil speaking through this lady. Don't do it. Wow. And I'm kind of like, oh, man. And just kind of a funny story. The day before she was getting ready for a little banquet or something and she'd kind of lost faith and something pretty simple. And I'm thinking, man, I've got to listen to you and you've lost faith on this little dealer.

19:08 This is life or death. I finally just kind of like, I'm not going to do it. I said, I'm sorry, it's nothing against you. The Lord told me not to have the surgery hung up the phone and as the story kind of goes along, you know, than just the last time as we I was laying in bed, I was reading in the book of James chapter 5 about ritual pressors and being good to his slaves and we'd own business and I knew that I'd been greedy and not good as I should be laid my phone down, went to sleep and the the devil woke me up and said you made a mistake. And I woke up in fear and grabbed my phone and it went from James 5 over to James one, James 123 and four. And I got to four said let perseverance finish its work. And when I read that I knew it

19:59 is over with. This is after about 3 months of just this battling this doubt with the with the devil you know, just attacking me all the time and make it from my making the right decision and all these different things. And after that I knew I was healed and. A Mexican fellow good friend of mine, he kept saying to pour salt water on this wound. I mean, it's, it's growing out of the side of my my face. I think I showed sent you a picture pretty, pretty gross. And it just stunk the whole time just smelled like sulfur. I'm just constantly just like sin that was coming out of my body, all the all the stuff.

20:36 And so she would pour warm salt water on that wound about every evening and pray. Then all of a sudden it just start breaking off and just it all cleared off. Now it's completely gone. And obviously through that, I mean it, it built our marriage up stronger than ever. Lot of stuff, you know, I had to come and tell her, you know, of all the things that I did, all the lies.

21:03 And as we work through that our marriage is better. All my family follows the the Lord Now all my you know, I got 3 kids, two daughters and a son. Their lives have been completely changed. We have 8 grandkids, obviously their whole lives. So generations upon generations are going to change because of really, I wouldn't want anybody else to go through it. But getting the cancer and the Lord, I think maybe you know, is one of these ways to to speak to me and to get my life to change because other than that, I was just out of control. So there's a lot.

21:44 So your your primary place that you go in this talk about how you experience God is the healing of your cancer. So you had or the cancer that that you had. What kind of cancer was this? I can't even say the word of it starts with an M. It was skin cancer, obviously. OK. So it was on your neck. I did see pictures of it. It was growing and it was out, right. So it's not an internal, it was, it was visible. Did they give you any sort of prognosis with this if it went untreated or didn't have the surgery or anything like that? I just want to get a handle on what we're dealing with here. The doctor said, you know if you don't get the surgery, you know it could lead to to death.

22:33 Then they said if it even though it might look like it's cleared up, it could still be in you. But I knew as the Lord has spoke to me that it was completely healed and I think that he had it grow on the outside of my body instead of the end, so people could actually see it for the the testimony of it.

22:56 And then it was it was kind of yellow. And and so after we go through it, it heals up I go and I give my testimony the very first time at these men's revivals that the Lord had us put together. And all of a sudden, after I get done speaking, my brother-in-law sends me a picture of his son in law's grandpa and is the cancer look just like what was on my face, but it grew completely over his face and and killed him. I don't know what his situation was, but soon as I seen that I knew because he had got the surgery. And I knew soon as I seen that if I wouldn't have listened to the Lord after he told me in the car that I wouldn't want to be you, that would have been my fate. Because up to that time, you

23:47 know, I mean, I see my brother-in-law quite a bit that after that, that showed me how important it was to truly listen to the Lord. So if I didn't, if I'd have got the surgery, I believe that would have been, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be here today doing this podcast with you. You said God spoke to you a second time and what you just said where you felt like he said I wouldn't want to be you if you A get that surgery and B fall away again.

24:22 The first time you said that that happened, it was an audible voice that spoke to you. What was this when you feel like God spoke to you here? What? What was this? It was like a voice that you just, it's hard to describe. I mean, I, I know what he said that it's just kind of like a voice, like a voice in your head, kind of like a like the spirit, just it was just a real true knowing that it was the Lord.

24:51 People get thoughts often. We have imaginations. Kids, little kids even have imaginary friends that they play with. What with what you said earlier, you said you know when it's God speaking to you, what's the difference for you in a thought that's fairly prominent in what what you experienced that day? For me, I didn't really know when the Lord is speaking to me to do different things.

25:21 It's just like brings on just a real tears if I have tears and just to have that knowing in me, I know it's the Lord speaking to me and it's not just my thoughts. I just, it's hard to describe how the Lord speaks to different people. Everybody gets spoke to in a different way, I think, and I just have a true knowing in my spirit, in my soul that it's from the Lord because I'm not a person that ever really ever week for my whole life.

25:58 Then when you have your just regular thoughts, they can be taken away. Is it common? I mean, is this something that had has happened a lot in your life or is this all happening since the time that you heard the audible voice? Since the audible voice. So you really never had this? I mean, God, in my experience yet and in most people's he, he nudges us in directions and you sense in your spirit the right thing to do.

26:26 And sometimes it's not what you want to do or you think you know the right thing might be in One Direction, but you feel this prompting to go and it's like, OK, that's God directed me in this way. But what you said, it's like, no, this was this was an unmistakable in breaking of God into my being that said I wouldn't want to be you if you get that surgery. Yes.

26:51 How did you know it was God? Other than the emotional response? Is there any other thing that sort of put some sort of descriptor around it that people can say, OK, I've not experienced that. I don't know if I'm asking the same question again that it's the same answer, but I'm wondering if there's a deeper level of insight that you can offer around what that particular voice was like. It was just very powerful.

27:21 It's very hard to describe, but I mean, I just, I just know it's the Lord. I mean, there's, I know I didn't think like that before and it was just it over. It just overwhelmed me. And I think when the Lord truly speaks to you, it's something that you do not forget. And then you ask the Lord. And I mean, I just, it's just hard to describe. I mean, I, I just know that it's the, I just knew it was the Lord.

27:50 What do you think brought on this healing? What was the the thing? I mean, if you had to say it was, I believe this was the moment that I was healed. Was it the prayer of the woman? Was it the anointing at the church? Was it this just you getting into a place of submission? Where do you think the healing took place? I think it begun by submission.

28:21 I think it begun by finally humbling myself and putting my faith in in the Lord instead of myself. So I think it all. I think it was just like a, a process, you know, obviously as you're reading the Bible and there's other people that I've even prayed for that you've prayed for and they was immediately healed.

28:41 But I think it was a process for myself to just keep building my faith. When I finally got to the point and had all my faith in the Lord and was like I want to do nothing other than what the Lord has told me to do, then, then I was healed. But I think the but I think it all had to be that process. I think it had to be the humbling. I think it had to be the anointing with oil. I think it had to be going to the tent revival, the ladies praying for me.

29:15 Just the whole the whole process, I think is what it took for me. Now can he heal instantly? Yes. Can some people get cancer and they go to the doctor and that's their situation and you get healed there? Yes. This is just what this is how the Lord healed me by just kind of breaking me down and completely changing, changing my mindset. I've always been such a rebel and just, you know, believed it only in myself.

29:48 And I just think this is what it took. But I think when it really started, as I said, when that guy read Acts 316, when he said that as you see, this man is, he's crippled. And I wasn't like crippled, but I was crippled. I was crippled mentally, spiritually, marriage was crippled. My being a dad, I was just crippled.

30:09 As you see that he was healed then as I kept going and kept praying and kept seeking and my faith start building and building and building, then the Lord had healed me did. You go back to the doctor. I did go back to the doctor and that's what really changed because I was kind of on the fence of getting the the surgery or not.

30:34 And I went in this doctor, she was an ear doctor and she done the surgery. I mean, she was just starting messing with my ears. It's just almost like it was a, a demon. I mean, it hurts so bad as she was like, you know, cleaning my ears or whatever. I mean, it was so painful. And she just took a, a marker and just draw it all over my face of what she was going to have to cut open and, and get out of there.

30:57 And after that it was just like, and as you go through the COVID times, you know, and you know, the conspiracies and stuff, I was just kind of a little bit leery of the medical system at that time. And I think that was another thing the Lord had kind of gave me a little bit of doubt not to just go ahead and do as the doctors has said.

31:19 But after it completely healed up, I never went back to the doctor then had them check it, no. So you didn't go back after it healed? Up. No, because I knew it was healed. I'm just curious as to what they would say. I seen the doctors a couple times, seen the one doctor to Sam's Club one day and I showed it to him and I said the Lord completely healed me and he just said praise God. That was just my first doctor, not the surgeons, but I never seen them.

31:50 Another real weird thing that happened was the lady that cut the thing open to make sure that was cancer in the CT scan. She just called one time and it sound like she was like hiding in the corner just like whispering to me like you ought to. You need to come back and you're going to you're not going to make it.

32:09 You're going to go to die. And it's just like, but she was just like whispering. It was just real demonic. And I just like, why? Why don't you listen to me? I'm not going to do it in a nice way. I just like for you to, to leave me alone. Then after I finally have just completely put all my faith in the Lord, he just completely cleared up the little chunks.

32:32 You know, they just kind of kept falling off and each of them kind of like stunk, then just healed back up and I've just moved on. How long ago was this? I would have been in 21, probably almost 4. Years ago, almost fine. Thanksgiving of 21. Well, I mean, you know, here you sit. Four years later, it's remained healed.

32:57 I think there's some conversations around faith in here. I, I just, I've been on a personal exploration around faith and healing and what faith is it as it relates to healing? And I probably have some questions around that and a healing of cancer where God felt you felt like God said don't get the surgery.

33:22 I don't know that you're saying don't follow medical processes. God can use those. But in your case, it was like, I'm going to, we're going to do a thing here, right? So I wouldn't want people to say, hey, you know, a stronger faith is advocating against using modern medicine and certainly we're not. But God, God is going to do what he's going to do and what we will always tell somebody to do is whatever God's telling you to do right, do that.

33:53 Yep, because he's bigger than all of it. And in your case, he said don't have the surgery. We've had a few episodes on in the last few months that have been very similar words like, Hey, I don't want you to get the treatment because I I want the glory needs to come to me. People need to see this as me doing it and and not the medical community, right? So, so that is really awesome.

34:19 And that is certainly a miracle. I don't think that's the only miracle in this from my conversations with you. I also want to get into this. You were saved as a young child and live for the world. And at 25, you guys got heavy into it again. And but you, from that point on, still live the life of pursuing the lust of the flesh and absentee dad and unfaithful and alcohol and drugs and whatever the heck you wanted to do. That doesn't seem to be the person that you are now. Tell me about O'Brien.

35:16 Well, was we, I just was always just super wild. I just wanted to party and do whatever I wanted to do. I love my kids, but I just wasn't always there, you know, I just was always kind of grouchy with them. And then with my wife. We just, we always knew that we truly loved each other. But I just didn't want to commit. I just wanted to do what what I wanted to do. And that's the life that I lived. And that's before that between the 19 or 20 to 25, I was doing things I shouldn't have.

35:58 She did things that she shouldn't have done. And we just kind of come back together and was just like, we need to go back to church. I mean, where you grew up, you know, you think church is where it's at, but it's really a relationship with the Lord. But I didn't know that. I just figured going back to church is what I needed to do.

36:17 So we went back to church and just something kind of happened in the church that I didn't like and got really frustrated that a kind of a business situation. And so I just left and it really just broke the heart of my, my wife, you know, and she was really into it. And she even went to the preacher one time and just like, what should I do?

36:42 And he told her that the Lord doesn't want divorce. And so she held on to that. And we've been married for 33 years. And that's just the Lord spoke to her at that time through the, the preacher. And she's just like, this is my job. It's not a great one, but just to stay with this, with this man. And and as we finally had come back together, but I've owned a business, I've done a lot of racing stuff and coaching stuff. And I would just put my mind on whatever I was doing. I get all into racing, I get all into this, all into that, but it never would be my family.

37:23 And so I was just a very selfish, angry, just filled with dealt a lot of anger problems, breaking stuff, just just crazy stuff. And so the Lord is just like, I mean, the cancer is it was such a wonderful healing testimony. But the main thing that he changed in me and my wife had prayed for me the day that we got annoying from oil.

37:48 The other deacons would was praying, you know, for healing. But she prayed that the main thing would be Ezekiel 3626, that they would heal his heart. That was the real, that was the main problem. It wasn't cancer. It was just my heart was so hard. And that's what's really changed. That's what's changed the most about me.

38:10 Were you a pleasant person to be around? It's funny, but I was making fun of everybody and just being a a jerk. You know, when people for some reason people like being around me. I I don't know why you look family. Yeah, they did too. I don't know why people like being around me, but just being it's a jerk and mouthy and stuff like that. So I but I didn't really like I just didn't like myself, you know, I mean, you act like you like yourself because you're prideful, but I was just, I was so miserable on the inside, you know, just be going along and just couldn't ever without the Holy Spirit, without the, you know, without the Jesus in you, you just you don't really know true, true happiness. And there's Times Now, I mean,

38:58 where you can really see like the healings of just like and was driving down here, the they have a flat tire on her car. And I did get frustrated, frustrated more than I should have, But it wasn't like nothing like what I would have used to. I mean, I would have used to blow completely, completely up.

39:15 Just made a real fool of myself. Who knows what I tore up, But just I was mad. But still just he just took that anger, took that just took all that rage and all that stuff out of me. I mean, that's the, as I said, that's the true healing of myself. That doesn't sound like it happened when you got reconnected to the church at 25 or when you got saved.

39:47 It sounds like there's a difference between connecting in the church, maybe even getting saved, and transformation and awakening. Sounds like you had a transformative awakening within the last five years that even your stints in church didn't really touch. It's important that we be in a community of believers for sure, if somebody were in a place where they were.

40:27 Living selfishly for themselves and destroying themselves through drugs and bad relationships. And I would say I would say church is a good place to go because what I'm really wanting in that situation is someone to begin a pursuit of God. Right. And really, that's where the transformation happened in me.

40:52 We did the church thing and got involved and it was the right thing to do. We want to raise our kids kind of here and being in a community. Believers were good. We were doing good things. I wasn't being transformed necessarily because of being in church on the inside. There was a time in me where God opened my eyes and it became less about my participation in church and more about His pursuit of me and my pursuit of Him. To the point now that I think that could happen in any church and in church is the thing that is a supporter of that. But that's not the access point for me. The access point is direct me and God no matter what church I'm in.

41:43 So I'm where I'm trying to get is talk to me about the difference between getting involved in church when you were 25 and what you're experiencing now from a transformation sound standpoint, it sounds like. Well, when I went to church at 25, you know, I was, I was reading the word a lot and I was involved in all the stuff. Why?

42:11 Why was I reading the Word? Yeah, I just, you know, that's what they tell you to do. And it's obviously good to read the word. I mean to have the word in you and to where you truly believe yourself. But it's all about your personal relationship with the Lord. I mean, that's how you become that's how you get your oil is that personal relationship. It's not the church, it's not the not the events. Yeah, I got to a point where I I had to read it. I wanted to read it.

42:40 Were you in this place of like, I can't wait to get in and consume Scripture? Or is it like, hey, you know, we're going to church, Where's that Bible? And let's, let's, let's, yeah, you will open that up and we'll use it here. And I'll, I'll start reading it some or whatever. Was it an insatiable craving of it, or was it a discipline? When I was 25, it got to be where I really wanted to read the word good, but I still like what happened was it's back there.

43:11 When I went to 25, we didn't with the church we went to didn't have the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They didn't have they didn't know anything about deliverance. They didn't know anything about healing. So when I come back this time, I got baptized in the Holy Spirit. I got delivered from the demonics and and obviously I got healed. So I think back then, if wonderful people, they just didn't know anything about the deliverance. And the deliverance is what's changed so much of my my life is to be is to get the spirits of stuff out of me is I mean, where it all started was we come back, went through all the healings. We went down to a marriage conference, me and my wife. And obviously she's, I never

43:55 would go anywhere with her. I always want to do what I wanted to do, but I went down there with her. But every time I'd go into this building where they would speak, I mean, I would just go completely numb. I just kind of about like when I couldn't understand that person praying for me, I just sitting there and get angry.

44:12 I'd walk out of the place for a coffee. I was back to normal, go back in there. It was just I would get oppressed again. So as soon as we got home, a guy had been telling us about going to Oklahoma to a deliverance deal. And I'm kind of like, I mean, I believe there's got to be something else wrong with me. I mean, I've dealt with demons my whole life. There's got to be, I hope there's you know, you almost at that time where the church is kind of funny, like they don't want to believe in demons, but I'm kind of like, I hope there is some demons in me that can get casted out. Then I could be healed.

44:45 I mean, there's got to be something else going against me reading the Bible all the time, going to church all the time. I'm still battling with these same problems. We get in the car, we drive home from wherever he's at. We go to Oklahoma, we do a deliverance. They don't seem like, you know, much happens there, but at the end he's kind of this older guys, he's casted something out of me and kind of coughed around a little bit.

45:11 And just like, yeah, I just got like, and they told me, you know, how to when demons come off, you're going to cough, sneeze eyes will, you know, just different things will happen. So I'm kind of sitting there and you're just kind of like, what's going on? And all of a sudden I just cough out of nowhere. When I went home, my life was changed. When was this?

45:33 It would have been in 22. So post healing. Yep. OK, keep going. So we go and then my life is just like completely changed. Then you kind of go back and you start telling the churches that we was going to, you know, and they got pretty offended. I mean, it caused a lot of a lot of problems around there.

45:55 They didn't believe that could happen. And, you know, just on and on just kind of made it. Caught up in the moment and all this other stuff. Yeah, you shouldn't be doing that. And it's like it says in the Bible is like, but they don't, they believe in demons, but they don't believe there can be a demon and a Christian. I'm like.

46:11 A lot of people still don't believe that despite overwhelming evidence and in scripture. So I mean, if I'm not a Christian, a lot of people are in big trouble. Yeah. And so when I kept going and one time me and my my wife was doing deliverance together and I just like, I think might have the Jezebel spirit in me. And I said, see if you can get that out. And course, she'd never done it before. She's kind of, she wasn't real confident about it. And she comes over and she's casting something out, this and that.

46:46 And then she got to the Jezebel spirit. She was telling it to leave. But in the whole time that spirit is speaking in my head is like, she has no power. She can't do this. She can't do that. I mean, all these things that you wouldn't want to say out of your mouth because he's pretty offensive to her.

47:04 And all of a sudden she gets in front of me and just like stares me right in the eyes and just starts praying in tongues. And all of a sudden I could feel my eyes going, I can't do it. And they would go up, then the spirit would just left. I did not expect a conversation around deliverance here. So this is where we're going to go, right?

47:24 I'm I'm asking you about what's the difference between Brian at 25 checking back into church, sort of expecting you to say, yeah, I was checking the box and, you know, doing the things, but really didn't have deep connection and relationship with God, wasn't pursuing it. But it doesn't necessarily sound like that. I mean, you, you feel like you had in that time a drive to consume Scripture.

47:54 That's one of the signs of the present Holy Spirit to me is, is this insatiable? I've heard it a million times. I couldn't get enough of the word. It just came alive. The words jumped off the page before it was like I was reading a total foreign language. I didn't know what it was going on. It didn't make any sense. But all of a sudden my eyes were opened and it was communicating with me.

48:16 Because my old Bible, back when I was 25, Jill would open it up after I'd fell back away. And, you know, it's got the yellow marks all over them. I was just reading it like crazy, consuming it. But I still had the the spirits in me because if I went to the, you know, I quit drink and I quit chew and I quit doing this, quit doing that.

48:35 But I would see it at the store like a can of chew that I would chew at that time and I'd look at it and like, I thank God I don't do that anymore. I mean, within a couple days, I mean, I would just the spirits would just just pull on, pull on. You got to do it. You got to do it. You got to do it.

48:50 I mean, be overwhelmingly just almost like possessed. I'd go back and buy it. Same thing with alcohol, same thing with drugs, same things with other. After you've committed your life to Christ. The first time. Right. So let's kind of break this down here and let's make sure we're talking about something in a in a clear way.

49:09 You're saying that from your perspective right now when you were 1225, in these times where you are engaged in church, that you're not just engaged in church, but that you have given your heart to Christ. Is that true or not true? I believe I did. That you confessed with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. I mean, you got the baptism, the whole is there all this are these check marks, check marks of yes, yes, water baptism, everything right there in Scripture that says these are the things that you even had.

49:45 Did you have other fruit of the Spirit of God in you that you demonstrated Lovejoy, peace, patience, kindness? Oh, yeah. I was taught Sunday school, vacation Bible school. I mean, really that some of the problem was I become kind of the leader of the church with little to no experience. And obviously in the Bible it says not to do that. So it was a lot of pressure to be caring. Yeah, but the question is, were you a follower of Jesus Christ? Yes.

50:13 Then would the Christian society today stamp you? Yes. Brian Ward, Christian, living a perfect life? No. But he's yes Christian. He's in, he's going to heaven 100%. And what you're telling me is that even in that, that you had some things that were spiritual in nature, unclean spirits that remained in you after you became a Christian. For sure.

50:46 When were you filled with the Holy Spirit? Do you believe? It would have been after I got delivered in 22, went to Oklahoma the first time they prayed the baptism of the Holy Spirit over me and it's been prayed over since then. I never even heard it. I even heard about it until then. I just figured you go to you go to church, you get baptized.

51:06 I did everything you're supposed to do as a Christian. I had all the fruits of the Spirit. I helped people. I was out vangelizing. I mean, I did everything, but I had so much, but I never was completely cleansed out. Yeah, well, the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove at his baptism. So it's like, OK, the baptism is you were raised to life.

51:31 The Spirit is in you, right? The Spirit of God is in you, right? That's, that's what takes place there. Now there is a baptism of the Holy Spirit. That is effectively what we see happening in Acts 2, right? Which is a whole nother thing. Those guys started speaking in tongues and and it went to a new level. But what we're trying to break down here is you tell me that you were saved, yet you still had unclean spirits in you that needed to be removed.

52:13 Yes. And those got removed. Was it a deliverance session? Was it I want to ask you this question. Is that in your experience, the only way that those spirits, unclean spirits, have been removed? I don't think you have to sit down with somebody and have a session. I mean, I've prayed over a lot of people and I've done a a lot of different deliverance, you know, by the power in the name of Jesus. But it can happen by just it can happen all kinds of ways, but it's just Lord does things in so many different ways. It's not just like we've done deliverance at 1st and we had kind of a system how we was going to do it. Obviously that doesn't work every time the Lord does it how he wants to do it.

53:05 He gives you the names of the spirits to call out of people. And that's what they've done to me. I've been delivered, you know, by people just praying over you. I've been delivered by just being at home, reading, reading the word, casting stuff out of my own self, calling something out that I might think it in it and then, you know, I've coughed and sneezed around. So I mean it happens in all kinds of and. Sometimes there's not a call for a sneeze or anything like that in in my experience, right.

53:35 So this is a a, a great conversation because we're talking about your cancer healing and we want to talk a little bit more about that. And if you feel like that is the origins of that, if that was demonic in nature of no, hey, this is just a I've fallen where we lived in live in and I I got cancer in and God wanted me to lean on him to to be healer, which is great and learning faith in that, which is a super conversation as well. But this whole being a Christian and because a lot of people say, Hey, look, man, the Holy Spirit and a demon cannot cohabitate inside of a person.

54:16 And I know that if I were had a panel of deliverance ministers that are experienced with 25 years on here, they can get into the details of how, OK, there's a difference between spirit and soul, right? And, and soul is where this takes place and spirit is where the Holy Spirit owns you. And so I know there's a whole conversation.

54:40 There's just people that don't believe that that can be the case. And I feel like it leaves them unaware that they could be free from the things that they think is just who they are because they're saying, I go to church every Sunday, I've been baptized, I love the Lord, I'm in scripture all the time, know the Holy Spirit's in me.

55:08 I can't have a demon in me. And I would submit to them that that is not true in my experience and in conversations with people like you. So the test was asking you examine yourself, Brian. Were you actually a Christian filled with the Holy Spirit who also had unclean spirits that need to go? And your answer is yes.

55:32 I also feel like that the closer we get to God, the more the devil and his demons flee from us. So when we keep God at a distance in certain areas, it's like magnets sort of repelling each other, right? The closer I get to God, the more that magnet kicks these other guys out. So pursuit, earnest pursuit of God, I feel like is another way that demons are expelled.

56:05 But but for me, in my experience, and here's the thing, I didn't believe any of this stuff I was uncertain about is like, OK, I'm reading scripture and and Jesus is casting out demons. And I remember going to one of our denominational pastors and like, but what about this? Why don't we talk about this in church?

56:27 Is this not a a thing for today? Was that just then? And I think the response was something like, I don't know. What do you think? And, and it was like, well, I'd like to know if demons are active in this world right now and are active in me as a Christian or potentially active in me, and how can I identify them?

56:48 And how do I find someone that can do what Jesus did to remove them? If there's a thing. So deliverance is, is that where transformation happened with you? It's made a huge difference in my my life. I don't know, because up to that point, after getting healed, you know, you're pretty, you're filled with the spirit, you're, you're excited.

57:11 You're like, man, the Lord's changed my mind, but I started kind of falling back away again. How I don't understand that what what would cause you to fall away after what you believe is encountering God and he is like a supernatural healing? It's just your sinful nature. You're just, you know, you get listening to the the devil's lies.

57:33 That's that's still, I mean, I still battle it. You know, the devil, he'll tell you some lies that are just like, I'm not going to listen to that stupid. But sometimes he'll tell you a lie that it sounds pretty good. You're like, yeah, that is right. Then you just kind of start kind of following down that path.

57:48 You kind of start looking at things that you shouldn't. And I don't mean like pornography, just like you just get looking at life different and so you just all of a sudden you can easily get drawed back away from the Lord. Yeah, I find that that happens and, and, and for me, the cure in that time is just to go seek God again.

58:15 It is just to get back in Scripture. I find that when that those times happen for me, something has eroded my time with God. I've gotten real busy or, you know, the kids are back in school. So that really disrupts the morning routine or summer hits when you got kids, it's like, OK, that really disrupts them, the schedule. So and, and I find that it's a drift from God that usually opens the door for me looking at the world with more weight and value and that the answer is just turn back to God, right? Turn.

59:01 Just just if you don't feel like praying, pray anyway. Carve out a time and say, God, I don't feel like praying, but here, here I got to get back in your presence. I need you to talk to me. I'm going to tell you how I feel and, and just pray again. Just get in scripture again for me. That's how I find that.

59:22 That's the antidote for me on that. That's the same thing that I do, but a guy can get distracted for a little bit. And before I ever went to the first deliverance, it was I felt like I was reading the word, but I knew the wheels were coming off. So then we went down to the Oklahoma Deliverance Ministry.

59:41 Then after that, it completely made it. It changed me, whatever that was. It was in me. The spirits of rebellion, anger. He delivered 5 spirits that day. I can't. He wrote all the stuff down. Then the deliverance session with the my wife, it just made all the difference in in the world. Now if there wasn't for deliverance. So I just went back to church and I got healed. Would I still be here today?

1:00:07 I don't I don't know. And I prayed over a lot of people for deliverance and seen a lot of demons leave. Even with my wife. One night we was laying in bed and the devil really attacked her for. Probably 2 years on, just all the crap that I had to tell her, you know, he she would, he would come and like he's he's no good.

1:00:25 You got to leave him and all these different things. He's whispering to her and she just woke up and just like yelling at me right there as he's laying in bed and I just felt like blood was going down her throat and I just prayed, casted out whatever that spirit was, it was gone and and we've moved on from that deal. So learning deliverance, seen other people that's prayed for him, casted out the Jezebel spirit in the name of Jesus. Their lives are completely changed. So, so many Christians as we know, setting in church, good people that maybe don't believe it, their families maybe not going to church.

1:01:07 If they would believe in deliverance and believe what has truly happened and get that stuff out of them and get completely cleansed, then their walk with the Lord is going to be so much closer. Because if you're filled with unclean spirits, your walk with the Lord just cannot be as close. You need to be completely cleansed out. You need to completely confess.

1:01:27 You need to completely repent and forgive so many people that one of the main things that I do with deliverance and what so many people are walking around with unforgiveness. And so we work a lot on that with the people I minister like who do you have any unforgiveness? Like I don't think so. And it's like you surely got somebody you need to forgive. And soon as they start speaking that stuff out of their, their mouth, I mean, without ever casting out a demon or going through any of that, I mean, you could just tell them start getting, start getting delivered from there. So that's the main thing is be sure you don't have any unforgiveness, any unrepentant sin. And and that's where the

1:02:08 deliverance problem, that's where the deliverance process begins. Yeah, there's going to be a lot of people hearing this that are going to say, Oh my gosh, this is for this is this was created for me because this is exactly what I'm experiencing. And I had no idea that this could be the problem. And so freedom is coming to a lot of people through this. And we have deliverance ministry partners for this reason. And if you go to strongerfaith.org/prayer, you will find them.

1:02:49 And people are flooding to them and people are getting freedom at alarming rates, which are is wonderful. There's going to be other people that watch. This is like, oh, come on, this isn't even this isn't this isn't scriptural, this isn't biblical. This isn't right. People that are Christians that are filled with the spirit can't have demons. You guys are assigning this demonic attribution to something to a behavior you need to work through. This isn't demonic, not if you are a Christian. What do you say to to those to that crew? We've dealt with a with a lot of that, you know, and just like you're a Christian and you love your brothers and sisters and if this is how they get healed, if

1:03:43 this is how they their walk with the Lord changes. This is how their family comes closer together. They're reading the word. They're doing every box that you want checked. Why would you be against it? Jesus, he cast it out demons. I've seen it. I, I've, it's just you go so far and I'm sure you've seen, I've seen too much to ever really even worry about what they think. That's probably where I'm coming from on this as well. I, I didn't, I, I would have been in firmly in that camp as well.

1:04:11 It's like, hey, you're not being accountable for your behavior is what's going on here. You can discipline yourself back into the right behavior and make a decision and I just didn't know. I didn't either. I mean, I didn't know anything about it. I was just, what's sad is kind of like because, you know, most of our brothers and sisters sitting in church, everybody's got problems. It was just like, if somebody come up to me and say, well, that could be a demon.

1:04:37 I mean, I'll be almost be like, praise God, get it out of me instead of like, no, that can't happen. But most Christians are offended that you would suggest that they have it potentially have a demon. Oh, I know it. Are you are you sitting there trying to tell me that I have a demon? I mean, can you offend me anymore?

1:04:56 And you know what I'm saying? That's that's the posture rather than humility and saying, hey, they're coming to you in love. I see something that I think you should consider. And though that behavior that seems to be impulsive in you that you can't seem to control could very well be a person that is inside of you, that's not you.

1:05:24 And I'm not talking about an altered personality. I'm saying it could be an unclean spirit. That's mentioned a gazillion times in the New Testament. This is just this is just the truth. And there's been a lot of people like with back pain, leg pain, different pains and you cast a spirit out. Maybe you know, they they're holding unforgiveness and they forgive that person. All of a sudden the back pain is gone. There's people that's go to the doctor that's like the doctor, they put them in all the machines. Like we don't see anything, but there's something wrong with the person.

1:05:57 Well, that could be a spirit, but they don't, but they don't want to believe it, right? So. And, and I guess what we're saying is that's not a a neat idea that it could be. It's like, we've seen it happen. We've seen it in people. People have reported that to us. And I've seen it happen in my family.

1:06:16 So. Yeah. And several times, Jesus, the healing took place. The boy that was having the seizures, he's like, oh gosh, she's he's having seizures. That's a medical problem. He cast the the demon out and they stopped, right? And so the, the physical ailment was actually a demonic presence. It was in a boy of all people, right?

1:06:40 My son, all of a sudden, I don't know how old he was, probably 6th grade, all of a sudden just got a seizure out of nowhere. But I was just thinking the other day, I think maybe that's when a spirit went into him because after that he never was quite the same until just a couple years ago when the Lord changed him and he went through deliverance.

1:06:58 And so I think that's, I mean, that was a situation, of course, we didn't have any idea. We just thought it was a a medical problem. Yeah, Well, I just, I know where people are going with some of the thoughts on this. And this is this is you guys are getting caught up in this Uber, you know, charismatic Pentecostal system of theology where, you know, everything's a demon.

1:07:22 You can't say, well, if if Jesus didn't do it repeatedly, I mean over and over and over again throughout Scripture in the New Testament, it might be different. Paul did the same thing after the Ascension. It was just, it was just what they did and it was understood. And we still see it today. And I have just had too many experiences personally and had too many conversations with deliverance ministry partners that say, hey, look, I hear you, but you should see some of the things that we've seen and some of the the personal transformation that's taking place in people that didn't believe that didn't subscribe.

1:08:09 I had a friend of mine having lunch the other day comes from a traditional denominational backgrounds like, no, it's not real. And he knows that we have deliverance ministry partners now that do this. He said, hey, and and this guy has a faith filled. I mean he carries his faith well and is a representative of Christ, supports our ministry and just a long time friend.

1:08:34 He said, what do you think? You think I I could do that? I was like, I would recommend it. I was like, what do you got to lose? If nothing happens, then nothing happens. But he didn't go into it with this expectation of anything. But he got on a call, deliverance call and had a manifestation. And it wasn't a it wasn't throwing up and all that kind of say.

1:09:01 He said, Stacey, I was sitting in the chair and he, you know, the deliverance minister started and it was over Zoom, right, began commanding this thing. He said, I got there and I, I, my head started going backwards and I wasn't doing it and I couldn't control. And he said it got so pronounced that I was bent. Wow.

1:09:22 He's like, I'm looking up and he's talking and this thing comes out. And I said, he said I came back down. I looked at the guy and I said what is happening here? He didn't believe this, but he had it happened to him. And the guy said you just witnessed a miracle. It came out. Praise God. And it happened several more times. He's like, OK, I didn't subscribe to this. I'm not from this community and it's a super primitive sounding, but I can only tell you what happened and it's just story after story of Bible believing Holy Spirit filled Christians experiencing freedom from things that they didn't think they could experience.

1:10:07 And so spending a lot of time on deliverance. I really where I wanted to get is your transformation. I mean, how you would go from a person who believes they had experiences with God that brought them into a closer walk with him in your younger years, but then just completely falling away back into the desires of the world.

1:10:37 And you feel like that was demonic presence that remained in you even though you got saved. For sure. I don't know really. I mean, I was on fire as much as you could find somebody on fire 20. You were 25. When I was 25, I mean you, it was just the things that the Lord had me doing. But one day it was just on, it was off. But I always have knew the Lord was with me ever since I was 12. I mean, he always kind of guided me. I mean, I did a lot of crazy things, but I always knew the Lord was there.

1:11:12 You know, I'd get, I remember even yelling out at the Lord sometimes just like leave me alone. I mean, I just, but I just knew it's him. There was times where I couldn't get the drugs that I wanted to. And I just, I think back now, just him protecting me. Maybe if I never found the Lord when I was younger, I'd have went down the same road and been in prison where I where I should have been for the things that that I've done.

1:11:37 But the Lord just always kind of kept putting me on the right path and finally got me to there. And it all really started with my dad. He's always been a Christian man, a Deacon in a church. And probably when he was younger, he's probably more religious, you know, went to check the box and do the right thing. But he was praying for me and to come back before I had the cancer and kept praying and praying. And then I got cancer.

1:12:05 He's like, Lord, I didn't, I didn't want this. And the Lord said you prayed for to take anything it would take for him to come back. And dad said he even felt like he told him to shut up. He said shut up and keep praying until. God told your dad to shut up and just keep praying and. Just keep praying.

1:12:24 That's excellent parental advice, by the way. So, so he's just, I understand that. So when you pray for people, I mean pray that the Lord would do anything that it would take for that person to come back. You know, because a lot of times we get in the road of the Lord. I think, you know, we pray for this to happen, then it starts happening and all of a sudden we're in there feeling sorry for a person. Just let the Lord do his work.

1:12:48 I mean, who would ever thought I'd come back because I got cancer? But that's that's what it took. It took that situation to get to where I'm at today. For my life to change my my wife, my children for generations upon generations. It takes it Sometimes. It takes more than just what we want it to take.

1:13:11 That makes sense. Yeah, I can't tell you how many people when I dig and ask what they think, the secret ingredient to them, their addictions being broken or whatever pulled them off the street. And I, I've talked to people that have been in some like dark, dark, some of the darkest places that people don't come back from. I cannot tell you how many people said if they had to assign one thing to that eventual result, it was the prayers of their parents or their grandparents or their spouse or someone else.

1:13:58 It was the fervent prayers of loved ones for them that sealed them. If you want to call it, use that term. Yeah, my mom, she prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed for me. So I mean, without that, I even thought one time if I if my mom would pass away before I change because I knew that I didn't want to think about it, but I knew when I was 25, there was something there. I mean, that was a better life.

1:14:29 So I just kept running from it. I would get mad at God. I didn't want to be around God. I didn't want to be around Christian people. But I knew it was real. I knew the power in it. And I just thought if I ever passed or my mom passes away before I change, I'm done for because I know that's who was praying for me.

1:14:47 So. So it all, it all happened in the Lord's time. Yeah. And those prayers are eternal. And so, you know, I think even if she had passed, those prayers are answered. And I, you know, I had someone the other day that had a situation where they were trying to share the gospel with the someone that was a good friend of theirs.

1:15:10 And, you know, the person's kind of distant in they went their separate ways. The person lives in another state and the person bothered to write back to to the guy and said, Hey, look, I know your God, your religion sort of commands you to go and convert people and and, and I appreciate that, but I would ask you to never bring it up to me again.

1:15:37 And he was like, So what do I do about that? And my response to him was, OK, well, the pressure is not on you. God is going to do what he is going to do. The most powerful thing that you can do is pray in alignment with God's will for your friend. So let me ask you this. Is it God's will for your friend to be separated from God for eternity as God's child?

1:16:12 Is it God's will for that person to go to hell or is it God's will for that person to know him and go to heaven? He's like, well, it's God's will for him to go to heaven. I said. So when you pray in alignment with God's will, there is so much power in that. We think prayer is sort of the cop out, right?

1:16:34 It's that's for people who don't really want to make change, right? And I would say just the opposite. When we understand what prayer is and how God tells us to pray and how Jesus repeatedly said, if you pray the will of God, if you pray in faith, it will be done for you. It's the most powerful thing we can do. So if you want to affect change, I'm not saying don't go on the mission trip.

1:17:03 I'm not saying don't share the gospel. I'm saying the most powerful thing you can do is earnest, deep prayer, especially in alignment with the known will of God. That's a done deal, man. Yep. And before you go to a mission trip or before you go out and share the gospel, you need to be in prayer. You need to know the Lord is telling you to do that. We do so many things because it's a good deed. Think of the Lord's going to pat us on the back. But maybe the Lord didn't tell us to witness to this person, maybe didn't tell us to go on the mission trip. We're just doing it a lot of times because we don't ask the Lord.

1:17:40 We just want to do what's right. Or maybe we don't want to do. There's been times where life where you do this over here, but the Lord told you to do this. We'll think, well, the Lord will think it's all right because I'm doing this. We need to know truly what the Lord wants us to do. And I'm going through a time now of kind of, we have different ministries and different things going on.

1:18:00 And Lord's just kind of pulling me away from that. And he's taking us into a new season to where because you get caught up in doing the right thing, but you get away from them different things is what he's having me do now to truly hear what mission that he wants me on instead of just keep doing what a voice did because it was a good thing.

1:18:19 I mean, we've helped a lot of people. I mean, I've prayed for a lot of people. We've really poured into, but if the Lord's not really wanting you to do it, it's not going to be. It's going to be a good thing, but it's not going to have the supernatural power is when the Lord tells you to do it. That's right. Yeah.

1:18:37 We, we, we want to write out the plan and have him sign it on the bottom right. I had Diana Bomber. Nope. This was Diane Brask actually came in and, and talked about this and she said, what happens if we flip that paper over and we sign the bottom and let him fill in the, the To Do List, right. And so, you know, I, I think about the work that we do here.

1:19:04 I mean, this wasn't a plan. This isn't a plan. We're not executing on a plan that we created. We are doing our best to follow in obedience where he is leading us. And and then in that it's like, OK, you're, you're taking us into this. Then our prayer will be extraordinary result results of this that you're calling us into.

1:19:29 So instead of saying, God, you know, bless the thing that we're doing, God bless the thing that you're calling us into. And it's a it's a difference there. And I told my friend, I said, Hey, you know, your friend's story is not over. Pray that he brings people into your friend's path that brings your friend into connection with him. Then have to be you, right?

1:19:57 God, if, if, if I can just love him and be his friend. Show me what role I am to play. But but God, ultimately, I just want you to bring your child home. And I think that pleases God and he's going to do it in ways that my friend doesn't expect. And so I'd like you, you don't need to feel like. You're not doing God's will if you don't race several states away and go, no, here's the gospel, right? God's kind of God's going to do this, right? So pray in his will.

1:20:28 You talked about hearing God's voice, but you also felt like you heard the enemy try to pull you away in different directions. Is it related to the healing part of that? Can you talk about discerning the voice of the enemy of God and the voice of God? Well, you know, when it's the the enemy, I mean, it's just mostly something that's you wouldn't really shouldn't be doing. But I just believe the enemy was what was putting so much doubt in my mind as I was going through the treatment, not to get the surgery.

1:21:10 Even he was even saying things that made a lot of sense, you know, like telling me that, you know, I didn't listen to going through the doctors. Like I just knew he was one who is putting all that doubt in me because he did not want me to get the obviously he wanted me to get the surgery, which would be really good common sense. And he wouldn't like tell me to go out and drink. He was telling me to listen to the doctors get the surgery. They're good people and different things like that to where?

1:21:40 But the Lord was saying the exact opposite. And at that time, you know, it was, it was really hard to discern because you don't always hear from the Lord. Obviously I hadn't heard from him for 25 years that I knew of. I knew the Lord probably been kind of guiding me till I got to that point. So it's just that night, one night I woke up. You know, when he's just like you made a mistake. At first you're thinking, you know, it could be the Lord, the Lord's telling you because you're thinking when the devil speaking to you, it could be the Lord trying to because you knew his life and death not to get the surgery. So it was a hard 1 to discern, but you just got to keep asking. You got to keep praying to be

1:22:25 able to really be able to tell the difference. And another thing I was going to say a little bit earlier is like when the Lord speaks to you, it's something that you don't forget. We was building a I bought this building and we made it into the worship house. But the Lord come to me one time and said this young lady was going to teach there. And I get kind of excited, like, OK, But after that it was just like, well, I don't want to do it. I don't I don't want to do that.

1:22:55 I want to sell it. I want to do this. I wanted I don't want to do what that is. But I knew it was from the Lord because he could not shake it because every time I would think, well, I'll do this, I'll do what I want to. I mean, you knew it was going to be a complete disaster. So I finally just kind of kept even begrudgingly doing what the Lord had told me to do from just a small word of this young lady's going to teach her and she hasn't even taught at this place yet.

1:23:21 But I never could get away from that. I mean, anytime I would think of I'm going to do something else. You just had that feeling of that fear of the Lord again, that's something that's something very big people is missing is the fear of the Lord. But when you have the fear of the Lord, it helps you guide it helps you understand what he is telling to you too. Because when he's, when I think, well, I'll sell it, I'll do this, Just that fear comes upon you. So we finally got it built and it's turned out to be to be wonderful.

1:23:52 And that's happened to a lot in my life. But a lot of people don't have the fear of the Lord anymore. And if you don't have that, you don't really care which voice that maybe you're listening to. Yeah, what you're talking about, I feel a disturbance in my spirit when I'm stepping in the direction. That is not what God's calling me to do. I lose a piece inside of me, and sometimes if I'm uncertain about a path, I will ask him to confirm it. I think he does that.

1:24:28 You think of Gideon and the fleece, you know, make the fleece wet one day in the ground dry. OK, so maybe that's just how it works. So now make the ground wet and the fleece dry. And he did, and he confirmed it, I think. I don't know that that's God disappointing to God saying, hey, you know, you didn't trust my word.

1:24:51 I think it's asking for confirmation. And sometimes I'll do that. I'll say, hey, look, if this is not of you, I'm going to proceed as if this is your will because I feel like this is you telling me that it's not just take it away from me. Just just like end it somehow abruptly. And a couple of times that's happened and I've, you know, I had an idea in my head that wasn't what God wanted me to do, even though it was a good thing, I thought. And and that's interesting with the the doctor. I mean, she's like, hey, man, you need to get this. This is this is for you.

1:25:29 This is for your good. You know, this is I don't want to see you die. Here's what we know is documented. The best percentage of your survival. If you do this, this is for you. And how to how you got to a place where it was like, and Jill even I think she said it after being on the phone with her. I think the enemy is speaking through her. And how do you discern that?

1:25:55 Did you guys, you talk about having a little bit of this conspiracy theorist and and COVID and vaccine and governments doing this and that that was common in that time. I remember it well. You know, how do you know that that wasn't the enemy trying to keep you from life saving medicine and treatment? I mean, you're, are you just in this mindset of everything's a conspiracy and I'm, you know, leery of every, you know, organized governmental type thing. It's just how close you're walking with the Lord. I mean, if I wasn't walking with the Lord that close, I just kind of prayed a couple times at the church. But I mean, when you're really truly seeking the Lord, I mean daily and all day and everything

1:26:45 that you step into that you're, you got that close connection with God. I mean, you know, and it's something that's, and I'm sure I would like to be able to explain it better to you, but I mean, you have a knowing when the Lord tells you something and until you experience that, until you have that encounter, till you have that awakening, you maybe never would know it. I mean, you could debate here all day with somebody, but you know, when I have a knowing and I know the things that I've seen and I know when the Lord speaking to me, it doesn't matter what anybody else would say to me. I'm going to do what I believe the Lord has told me to do. And just like that Lady, I mean, she was in her her best effort. She was being as good to me as

1:27:29 she could. I mean, she was a nice lady, not wanting me to die, wanted me to do the right thing. She believed in her medical field. I'm sure she's done surgery on many people and had so a ton of success, but that wasn't the situation that I was in getting the surgery. Would it have killed me? I think so, but it's what the Lord wanted me to do.

1:27:50 He wanted me to be in complete faith with him. It nothing else matters than doing what I say. Then the Lord was obviously speaking through Jill to just like Brian. Don't don't listen to her. You need to keep going on the path that you're going. You know the Lord has spoken to you. He's spoken to you verbally. He's spoken to you in the car.

1:28:09 Remember them times. That's a lot of times of our problem. And my problem too is we know the Lord has spoken to us and maybe we haven't written it down and we'll forget it. The devil will come in and kind of confuse you and you can't remember them. Things that you know the Lord has spoken to. I've been prophesied over many times of all these great things, but you kind of get going along and you forget what the Lord had truly spoken to you. So you need to go back and and look at that stuff and read that stuff and keep remembering.

1:28:41 And obviously you need to read the word and have that for yourself. But when people prophecy over you and people speaking these things, you've got to be able to remember that because the devil is going to just confuse you so much that you almost forget sometimes who you truly are and what truly the Lord wants you to be.

1:28:58 So at that time we was walking so close with the Lord. I wouldn't, it was really good. It was just awesome because now, you know, when you're not going through that, I mean, you're closer to the Lord than I was at that time. But it was such a wonderful time for myself and my wife and family as we was praying and just seeking and searching of what he wanted us to do at the highest level.

1:29:21 And I need to do that every day of my life. But you know, you just kind of you get kind of casual, you know, you know, you know, the Lord's there, you know, he's always there. I can always speak to him, but at that time we was seeking so hard because it was life and death. And that's where I and all Christian people, you, we all need to be at every second of our life, just seeking his voice constantly for every step that we take. And there wouldn't be any of the worries, wouldn't be in the stress.

1:29:51 I mean, it would be. It'd be awesome, but it's hard to do it. Yeah, my sheep know my voice, and it comes from time together, right? It's it's the familiarity of a voice that somebody of somebody who you spend a lot of time with. And if you're not spend a lot of time with him, it's going to be difficult for you to recognize his voice.

1:30:14 Yeah, that's powerful spiritual truth. And so the answer to that, how you know it's God. Well, I was spending a lot of time with him. And so was there a time, I know that you felt like you heard in your spirit of voice that says, I would not want to be you if you get that surgery. Was there a time though, that he defended that you felt like he definitively said, don't get the surgery? I mean, because you did, the time that you heard the audible voice was she's praying for you.

1:30:43 That's when you knew that the healing was coming. When was there a time where it was pretty clear that you were not supposed to get the surgery? That that was what God spoke? What all started with, I'm didn't believe I should get the surgery after I was in the MRI deal and just start out of the blue I'm healed. I just started, thank you Lord, I'm healed. Thank you Lord, I'm healed.

1:31:06 And after I said that is just like knowing enough about, you know, what I was going into is just like, why would I say that? I never thought that. I didn't even know if I even really believed it. You know, I'm just kind of going really, cuz my wife and her sister told me to do it to get anointed with the oil and get prayed for at church.

1:31:25 And I'm kind of like, that happens. It happens. I don't really, I don't really care. I'm still, I'm just kind of still caught in religion. I'm caught in church. If I do get healed, I'm still just going to be going to church. I'm just, this stinks and I don't like this any better than where I was at.

1:31:41 But after I thank the Lord for healing me, it was just like if I would thank the Lord for healing me, that has to be the Holy Spirit speaking through me. I've never said that out of my mouth. I have to be healed. What what do you mean or why? Why would I say that? Why would you have the Holy Spirit speak through me if I'm not healed? So that's where it put in the hesitation of of, you know, ask telling anybody else of ever getting the surgery is just like I thank the Lord for healing me.

1:32:10 I know that he's healed. I want to be healed. Obviously I don't want to get the surgery and they just all come around. You feel like God told you that day that you were healed. Yes, he spoke through me. I said thank you for healing me out of nowhere. I'm sitting there. I mean, in fear. I mean, just felt like that tube was just filled with spirits.

1:32:36 I mean, as I said before, I don't have claustrophobia. I've done what in one of them machines before with a knee problem. And I was terrified, absolutely terrified. And reciting James 47, then all of a sudden it was just thank you, Lord for healing me. And I mean, just, it was like, I just believe it's the Holy Spirit speaking, speaking through me that the Lord saying you're healed, but you're going to have, you're going to go through some trials. Devil's going to test you.

1:33:07 The world's going to test you. These doctors are going to test you. You've got to stick with my word that you said you're healed and just keep moving forward. And it was just a process. So here's where we get into faith in my view. This is where I am right now with with this conversation. What is faith Is faith really hoping something's going to happen?

1:33:38 You know, I've I put my name in the hat for the prize. Maybe I'll I'm really hope I'm going to win. I'm have faith I'm going to win 700 other ones in there, But is that faith? I don't think so. I'm going to try to ask you first what you think faith is, but I think I heard it in what you just said.

1:34:04 You had cancer. It wasn't good. In a moment, you shifted from a person with cancer to a person who believes they were healed. What is faith? What was faith for you? How did faith change from whatever you thought it was and what you were experiencing then? Faith is just truly giving it all to the Lord.

1:34:36 It's full surrender that the Lord will take care of it without anything of you, anything you have to do to help it along to happen. So at that time, I just, that's what really truly grew my faith. And when you're praying over people now is you've seen it happen, so you know it can't happen. So faith for me was just knowing that the Lord had done it and I'd surrendered it all to Him.

1:35:04 That the Lord had done it, not that He was going to do it. What happened for you? And I hear you, and that's good. It's a lot of people that need healing right now listening to this or they know somebody that needs healing. There's a lot of people listening to this that their loved one got the cancer and they did not make it and their life was cut short. They weren't 90, they were 40.

1:35:31 What you said was you believe that God spoke it. And when when God speaks a thing, The thing is done, right? God said let there be light. There was nothing that was going to stop that from happening, right? Jesus said Lazarus come forth, that was it. He spoke it and it was done. It sounds like you heard him speak it and it's like, well, that settles that.

1:36:23 God spoke it. It's done. It's not like I hope he still does it. It's like it's over already. I'm walking in my healing because he's have I seen evidence of it yet? No, I haven't, but he just spoke it. God spoke it and so it's done. And So what I think happens is we pray for healing God. If it's your will, heal my loved one. But we don't realize that he's spoken it already. So when we look in Scripture at by his stripes you are healed and and realize it doesn't say by his stripes there's a chance she might get healed.

1:37:14 Right, right. He healed them all. He goes into the places and everybody and and they brought them to Jesus and he healed them all. What is it about that that doesn't register with us when we pray the will of God, His will to heal them all, His. It is not His will that our life be cut short from our assigned ears. It's you had an assurance the guy that writes the check on the bank account was standing next to you when you bought the car, right?

1:37:55 If you walk into a Tesla dealership with me and say, hey, this guy says I can get a Tesla, they'll say, well, this guy needs to come over here to the finance department. We need to see if he's got any money or anything like that. You walk into a Tesla, Tesla dealership with Elon Musk and Elon Musk says this guy's getting a car right now.

1:38:13 They're going to, they're going to, you're going to have the keys in five seconds, right? It's done. He spoke it, he has the authority, it's done. I think that's where we have an opportunity to recognize what faith is. And when I hear your story, it's great. I, I was like, what, what, what is? When did, when did healing happen? Was it your submission to him?

1:38:40 Maybe right. Was it the anointing? That's probably a part of it. And there's, there's faith and hope and all that stuff that goes with that. But what I just heard was that I was in the machine and I said something that my natural pessimistic self who never saw the bright side, who was always critical, would not have said, right? And I knew that God the Holy Spirit just spoke truth, the word of God through me and that the game was over. Am I, am I making up something there? Or do you think that's true what I just said? I think it's true.

1:39:22 I've never even really thought of it like that, but I believe you know when the Lord spoke through me that you are, you're healed. Thank you for healing me that that's when it was, that was over. Now you just got to walk it out. And there's probably more people other than myself not say anything.

1:39:39 It's medical. It's probably been in the same situation, but maybe kind of went along with the world and missed, missed on their healing, missed on the blessing, because not only did the Lord heal my cancer, but more importantly, He healed the heart. He healed the family, which has been able in the Lord's been able to use me to do different things through me coming because the Lord's really we're just walking around as Jesus. He's just wearing our skin.

1:40:07 You know, your faith is you know that the Lord can do it. Your identities know that the Lord can do it through you. So it's a but that's I mean that was that's very, very good. I mean, that's. When did the When did the thing fall off your neck? It took like, you know, this all happened, started in July and all fell off by Thanksgiving.

1:40:39 So August, September, October, November. So for four months you still got this thing on you. For four months you had the opportunity to believe that you still had cancer and you were not healed. He says by his stripes, we are healed. He says pray over the sick and they will recover. He doesn't say it's going to happen in the next 30 minutes.

1:41:13 And a lot of times I believe, I think in my view, I think that we stay in agreement with the sickness after the healing has taken place that we haven't seen evidence of yet. And another thing I think some people don't do is as I was talking to my Uncle Ron, another preacher, he said if that's true, you need to testify, you need to start telling people that the Lord has healed you. He said one other time in a situation where he knew the Lord had told another guy to that to go out and testify the Lord had healed him.

1:41:53 He wouldn't do it. And he passed away so instantly that next Sunday, I'm sitting there in my seat. I've never hardly talked to him in front of anybody before. And I just run up to the front and I just like the Lord has healed me and kind of gave a short testimony, then just kept kept testifying and kept testifying and kept testifying as it was falling off with it. Yeah, no.

1:42:15 So I'm in the crowd that day. It's like, yeah, so what's that thing on the side of your face? Still doesn't look like you're healed. Didn't matter. But you proclaimed it anyway. You stepped into the healing. You stepped out of agreement with the diagnosis. You didn't have cancer anymore. It's just a matter of time for this thing's going to fall off because God spoke it, not because it's not like a birthday wish right with no authority behind. It's not AI hope.

1:42:45 It's going to come true when you realize God has spoken your healing and it's done. It doesn't matter what it looks like. Right. Don't come into agreement with what it looks like. Have faith in the Word of God that you've already heard. When the Lord speaks to you, you just need to start doing it, just like with the little church we build and just, you know, other times in your life the Lord has spoke to me.

1:43:16 And just like after I go through the healing, the Lord has a start. A men's revival and we live in pretty small area and it was just a word of like get people to get on this Bible app. And so I'm just starting. He said when you get to 30, have a get everybody together like live instead of just doing on your telephone.

1:43:35 And we did that. 30 people got on there, 60 people got on there. Then we had our first revival all from that small word of get when you get 30, open it up to where people can come. And it turned out to be a something that's been going on for two or three years. So it doesn't take a long word. It don't take a, a book of instructions. All he's got to do is you just got to hear the Lord's Lord's voice.

1:44:00 Do this, believe it, and just start doing it and he'll fill in the rest. He's not going to give you the end of it because if he gave us the end of it, we screw it up. If I knew the end of things, you know, then you start kind of doing your own thing. And so you just got to go along, keep walking in faith and the Lord will keep kind of giving you what you need as as you go along.

1:44:22 But some people want the whole thing or they don't or they won't get started. That's not that's not always going to happen with the Lord. Your faith made you well, I think. It takes faith. I mean, even the Lord went back to his hometown, he said I, I couldn't even heal me by there because they did not have faith.

1:44:42 That's Jesus. So you got to have faith. In the Centurion, I go back to that story often. There's a couple of times that Jesus marvelled at the faith of others in the Centurion. They met him on the road. It was his servant that was sick back at the house miles away and Jesus like I, I'll come with you.

1:45:08 He's like you can say the word and Jesus said never seen faith like this. He believed the word of the Lord that his word would end it at that moment. He didn't have to come and be in his presence and lay on hands and do a thing in it was his word that that did it. And he was just like, just say the word and he's like, you get it. And he just said the word and you counted it as true. It's just incredible.

1:45:57 Hey, there is a lesson of faith for the listeners of this that has surfaced in this conversation. I was expecting to say, you know, I think it was that anointing of the oil or it was, you know, me coming down off of my high horse and submitting myself. All those things I think are critical or crucial.

1:46:21 But if I had to look at this, it was when you believe he spoke your healing and you counted it as true, not as a birthday wish. And I hope that's going to happen. Right. And you and you stepped into you broke agreement with what you saw with your eyes, the words, the news you had from the doctor.

1:46:42 He's like, that's all done. Hey, you need to Brian, you got to get in here for that surgery. Man, I appreciate that. No, I don't. He spoke. It's over. It's done. Yep, and just overwhelmingly desire to do whatever the Lord wanted me to do. If that was death, it was OK. If it was be healed, it's it's whatever you want me to do.

1:47:07 I've done what I've wanted to do my whole life and it's been a disaster. I want to do what you want me to do, Lord, without. I wanted nothing else. Somebody is walking with the diagnosis now and it's not good and they're listening to this or they're listening to this and it's their best friend, or it's their daughter or some loved one. What do you say to that person?

1:47:53 It's tough, you know, really comes down to you. Do you want to be healed? You know, the Lord asked that Lady that do you even want to be healed? You know, and you got to want to be healed. You got to have the faith the Lord can heal. And you've got to ask the Lord to speak, to speak to you and then just put all your faith and whatever he says, even if it's something you maybe don't want to do, maybe it's you not get the surgery. Maybe it's stopped going to the doctor. Maybe it's get off the medicines. You have to truly be able to hear the Lord and do that. Then after you start doing what the Lord wants you to do without a shadow of a doubt, then the outcome will become if you'll, you know, if you'll heal, You're

1:48:35 not, but you can't. The Lord told me to quit taking medicine, so I quit taking one of them, but I take this one. When you've got to completely do what the Lord says, you got to completely surrender yourself as you prayed early. Completely open yourself up and do what the Lord tells you to do. Not doctors, not your friends.

1:48:55 Listen for the Lord's voice. And what your fate is, is that's up to the Lord. But you got to have faith that he will. We'll heal you. And some people, you know, he does take home, I mean, we're going to pass away at some time or another. But if your fate is to not get the surgery, or your fate is, you know you have to do it and stick and stick to it and testify and give all the glory to the Lord.

1:49:20 That's excellent. Say that I'm listening to this a friend pass it along or just showed up in my YouTube feed and I'm like, O'Brien, you know, I go to church every now and then, but I, I don't, I, I could use a transformation, but I'm not sure I really want that. What what do you say to somebody who has some parts of their life that they wish they didn't have and, and and doesn't know God the way you know God now, But maybe that doesn't sound half bad, but just doesn't think they could ever like make that transformation.

1:50:13 What do you say to them? I. Mean I've I've been there. Just like I don't, I don't want to be AI, don't want to be a Christian. I know what they are, but it's all starts off with surrendering and really it starts off with forgiving because most people that out there that's in that situation, they're holding a lot of unforgiveness. They're holding a lot of anger.

1:50:31 They have a lot of unrepentant sin. And you're going to have to really go to the Lord. And a lot of times you have to go to another brother or sister and be able to just kind of vomit all that stuff out and get it all out and open. This is who I am. There's so many people that have been like things have happened to them in their life. They maybe been molested and maybe this or that and they buried it and the devil's told them, don't you tell anybody or everybody will think this of you. But soon as they let that out and know that people's not going to judge them and just truly love on them, they finally forgive their dad, their mom.

1:51:05 A lot of people have unforgiveness against their parents when you finally just forgive them. Speak that stuff out. All that stuff comes out of you. I mean, that's going to be a part of deliverance. Then you're then you're going to be completely changed. But you can't go back to church and hide a little bit of your, your life. If you have trouble with drinking or drugs, you need to be able to express that, be able to pour that stuff out. Then when you come completely clean, then the Lord's got where he can fill you back with the Holy Spirit. Your life will be completely changed, but you can't live a AA double life.

1:51:38 But they're living a double life and they, they, they want freedom from that and. Freedom comes from confessing, repenting, I guess. John first. John one night. Yeah, I feel like pride really is the enemy in a lot of the unforgiveness. You know, I got ground to stand on here with my unforgiveness.

1:52:01 I have a right to this unforgiveness and my God, I'm going to. I'm going to keep this and I choose that. And I think pride is the peace. It's like I'm not going to let them off the hook. I know what they did and the hell with them, right? And pride blocks us from the position of that we need for forgiveness and, and there's a process of forgiveness.

1:52:34 And I'm going to speak to this at some point. It's not going to be here right now, but forgiveness is, is releasing someone of a debt. So we need to know what the debt is. We need to calculate that debt. What does this person owe me for what they've done? If it's the abuser or if it's the person who was unfaithful or broke up our family or whatever else it is, what do they owe me?

1:52:59 And calculate the true cost of that, not the financial cost, but you know, my, my internal peace, my, my family dynamic, whatever else it is. And then say, I, you know what? I, I choose to say, you don't owe me that anymore. And it, it's hard, but it's a critical thing that we need to do. And one of the things that I find that makes it easier is when we realize that we've been forgiven and of what we've been forgiven for, and that not only where we're forgiven, but the one who we offended didn't just forgive us, but he paid for it with his life.

1:53:42 It's, it's extraordinary to think about. But no, I think pride blocks us. I've seen it just too many times for sure where people just dig their heels and it's like, no, I'm never forgiven. Never, never, never. And I think that's a thing that is real dangerous territory. I always say like Jesus hung on the cross, they they beat him, they whipped him, they spit on him.

1:54:05 They did all the stuff to an innocent man and he forgived him. He set the bar too high for you to hold a grudge in your situation. It's not good, but this is what Jesus did. You're going to have to forgive him if you don't want to forgive him. You're just your life is not going to be to be changed. You're just never going to really truly know the joy of the Lord and the joy of the Lord is just something that only comes from surrender in your life to the Lord and having that relationship with him.

1:54:36 But you got to forgive, you got to repent, you got to give it. You got to give it all to him. You can't hold these grudges because he was mistreated. It's just like in the churches. You know how many if church would just what would make such a difference in church and start a revival in Church of everybody would just have a Sunday. Let's all repent and forgive and start over. Wouldn't that be something and just all we should have services once every six months.

1:54:59 That is just a of forgiveness, repentance service for sure. I think that's legit. You know, and Jesus also says, and he taught us in the Lord's Prayer when teaching us how to pray, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And of course he double S down on that after teaching that prayer. And he says if you don't forgive your debtors, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you.

1:55:24 It's like, wait a minute, what does that mean? What happens if God doesn't doesn't forgive me? Is that what he just said? I'm afraid so. So we should evaluate those implications as well. How? How badly do we want to hold on to that unforgiveness in that light? And you got to do it many times. I mean, my wife said to forgive me many times. My children be kind of like, well, I forgive you again, Dad, I forgive you didn't.

1:55:50 I've had to call my dad two or three times, he said. I thought we already went through it. So just like, well, I just felt the Lord nudging me that I needed to call you again and tell you that I forgive you. Yeah, Well, I tell you on that, I would say that this is people don't do this. The thing that I mentioned earlier is we don't calculate the debt.

1:56:09 We just say, oh, you're forgiven. And and for some reason that doesn't we can't digest that because we have we don't we haven't calculated the debt, right. I would, I always encourage people who have had some egregious offenses against them. When I've sat down with them, I was like, hey, look at I need you to go get a piece of paper and a pen and spend a couple of days in this calculating the debt.

1:56:34 I want the whole thing out. I don't want you to come back later and say, oh, and another thing, you owe me. I want everything. You stole you. You took my trust. I can never trust you. You took this you, you stole. This is what you and and like the whole thing. List the whole thing out and, and, and and. Sit in it for a minute and feel what they owe you. And then take the authority and the power that you have to say. I see it all.

1:57:09 And I declare that from top to bottom, you no longer owe me any of this. You are free to go and I will not bring the piece of paper back out because if you've done that, you actually haven't forgiven them. And I, I, I would say, you know, if, if, if other things need forgiveness after that, Thankfully, thankfully, God doesn't require us to be forgiven of the things he's already forgiven us for, because when we do that, we're putting Jesus back on the cross. And I don't think that's what we need to be doing there. Lord, he forgives and forgets.

1:57:49 We have a hard time forgetting. Yeah. That's why I think calculating the debt is important. He calculated the debt and it was our life, and then he paid with his life, so he knew the debt. If you look at the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18, both the king and the servant who didn't forgive the lesser debt, they knew the exact amount they were owed, 10,000 talents. It wasn't a lot of money.

1:58:13 There's a lot of money, but he knew exactly the amount, you know, 100 an area I think it was. He knew this. It wasn't 200, wasn't 50, it was 100. He knew exactly what the debt was and he knew what he had to forgive. And 1 did, 1 didn't. But I think that's a biblical truth that we miss sometimes. We talk about how it's important to forgive, but we don't talk about how to do it.

1:58:37 And yeah, I think that's a critical thing. We always feel like we just let them off the hook and and you're not right. You're you're forgiving. Specific. A specific debt that you need to know what the debt is. And I think that's the part we miss so much good in this. Is there anything about this process of transformation and healing for you that that we didn't touch on that you want to mention?

1:59:07 I was just kind of thinking like deliverance ministry kind of gets a bad rap of they're just, and some people all there. You're just kind of seeking for demons, maybe seeking for this or that, whatever they're doing. But it's really such a loving ministry to be able to set there because it's not all telling demons to leave. I mean, it's like going through this forgiveness, going back into their lives and helping them and loving on them. So I mean, it's really anybody that would look down on it. I don't think they're seeing how much love that it takes to set there for somebody with an hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, four hours, and just keep pouring into them, doing inner healing, going back in their childhood and healing

1:59:47 up different wounds and stuff. I mean, it's such a loving, loving ministry that the other brothers and sisters need to to realize that instead of trying to go against it. I mean, it's something that the Lord is doing and praise God for because it is changing so many. People's lives, that it's sad that there's division among, among Christian people, the people that believe in this. I mean, if it's something God wants, people are getting healed from it.

2:00:18 People's lives are getting changed. Then they're checking the boxes as a lot of our religious friends. Like, why would you? Why go against it? If you don't want to do it, don't do it. That that's it's your own problem. It's just like don't tell me not to do it. Don't tell other people that it's not true that needs it. Quit doing the devil's work and let deliverance happen. Let people be set free.

2:00:41 Let lives be changed because we need to build up our army for what is coming. I think one of the biggest lies of the devil is that Christians don't need deliverance. Right. And the work of the enemy is to separate us from God. And and you know, if we continue in the things that these impulsive things that we wish weren't us, but I just haven't been able to lick it yet.

2:01:09 And we just continue in these things. This these are little separations between US and God that there's a there's a thing totally scriptural that can be done about that. I think you're right. And, and in my own deliverance times when I've gone and others that I talked to and I have lots of conversations with deliverance ministers, these things are, can be very lengthy and they, they give their time to do it.

2:01:37 They're, they're seeking freedom for the person with, with like nothing worldly in return for it. They just, it is, it is a very loving thing. And it's like, hey, let's, let's see if we can dig into this a little bit more. Let's, let's, let's talk about fear and, and what may be some issues that you may be having that you don't realize around that.

2:02:03 And it's not that they're projecting something on to you or making you think you got something you don't have. They're just like, hey, let's, let's, let's pull this curtain back a little bit and let's see what we can find here. And I can't tell you how many people have said, you know what? I remembered something that happened to me in the eighth grade that I'd totally forgotten about.

2:02:23 And we went through it. And sure enough, that fear is gone. I don't know what happened. Like, well, I do. So, you know, I think that's a really important insight around Deliverance Ministry. It's not always this Hollywood drama scene. It's, it's compassion, it's, it's love. It's, it's going into the hospital room to let's, let's see what we can do to, to fix this thing and it's loving them.

2:02:55 That's really good. That's really good. We try. You know you you you believe God told you you were healed and your cancer went away. But He didn't, in true God fashion, only heal your cancer. He healed your heart. He healed your mindset, your attitude, your response to challenging circumstances in life, your interactions with people, your impatience if it was that or your sort of critical disposition at times and negative disposition at times.

2:03:45 I think of my own self, right? I, I have had those times where I was, have been just super critical and in my own home and I like, I don't want to be that way. And I have gone through this process and, and experienced that freedom and God has healed my heart in so many ways and that I am not the same person that I was.

2:04:12 And I know there's other things to to address and it's an ongoing process, but He healed you. Amen. I mean, he healed you, and it began when you believed him when he said it. Yep. And I think that's incredible. That's incredible. Brian Ward, thanks for sharing this and thanks for opening up about deliverance and healing and faith and transformation. It's available.

2:04:51 Amen. Thanks for coming, Brian. Yep, glad to be here. It's been an honor. This is a really even opened my eyes on of what you said and when I heard it, you know, I mean, I obviously I've spoke that out a lot, but to really gave me a real even a more of an understanding of it today. If I get to speak to someone else of really hearing the Lord's voice and just sticking with it, never forgetting it, just staying on that path.

2:05:17 I just really appreciate the opportunity of getting to be on here with you. That is fantastic. We we pray for that. We pray that God speaks through the conversation to reveal things about the thing that you're coming to tell us about that, that maybe you didn't even realize it at the time or articulate it in a way.

2:05:36 And our prayer is that he takes these words between us, that he's speaking through us that we ask him to, and takes it down the world and creates an awakening in whatever way he's going to do in all the places he does. And he did that today. That's awesome. Thanks, Brian. Thank you. Brian's story is a powerful reminder that God heals, He speaks, and He is setting people free today.

2:06:04 Brian's healing came as he chose to trust God's voice and obey Him, even when it went against common sense and medical advice. Whether you're wrestling with fear, sickness, or cycles you can't break, remember that God's power is real and His guidance is trustworthy. Believe in Him. Thank you for joining us today on a stronger faith.

2:06:29 If you feel like you need prayer or deliverance, I want to encourage you to visit astrongerfaith.org/prayer and reach out to one of our prayer partners. And if this conversation has impacted you and someone you know has come to mind who needs hope, share it with them today. You never know whose life could be changed by hearing it.

2:06:54 If you feel like God may be prompting you to Share your story of experiencing Him by being a guest with us, please visit astrongerfaith.org/contact and follow the guest recommendation instructions there. And if you'd like to support this ministry by joining our community of donors, please visit astrongerfaith.org/give for options. Until next time, we pray that you learn to hear God's voice and that He builds a stronger faith in you and in those you love.