This is the Truth Network. Welcome to "If Not for God," stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwicky. If not for God, with Mike Zwicky, man, we've got some heavy hitters on the line today. I've got a pastor Todd Felkel out of Christ Freedom Fellowship out of McLeansville, North Carolina, and I've got my old friend Jason Hamlet, who is in the Prayer and Healing Ministry as well.
So, welcome to the show, guys. Thank you. Good to be here. Thanks, Wayne. Yeah, definitely.
And and and so it's funny how I met you, Pastor Todd. As I was praying about a place to go to worship, and I met your daughter at a, I think it was Olive Garden, and something told me it was just a suggestion. I said, "Is your is your last name Felkel?" And she said, "Yeah." And I said, "I just saw a friend's suggestion for Facebook." And she goes, "Oh, okay." And I said, "I don't know what it is." I said, "Did you guys have a church, a home church that you guys have?" And she said, "Yes." And it's funny. Shortly thereafter, she ended up going down to where is it in Florida, Todd? Yeah, Orlando, Florida.
Yeah, but Christ for all nations. Christ for all nations, and the Lord just brought me to your church, and so it's a little bit different than what most people do on Sunday mornings, Todd. But I mean, you you grew up in the, I guess, in the church, and and you were actually a pastor for many, many years. But you had an experience three and a half years ago. Is that right, Todd?
Yeah, I did. Yeah, God just changed my life in ministry, and what happened is that God spoke to me and said to break off the yoke of religion and yoke myself with Jesus. And just gave me a vision of like a double yoke of oxen, where one ox is broken, knows what he's doing; the other ox is not broken, and they just what happens is just go in a circle. And they both end up dying, and the Lord said that I was going to spiritually die if I didn't shake off the yoke of religion and yoke myself with Him.
So the following Sunday, I just immediately resigned and told my church, "God bless y'all, I love you, but I've got to move forward in what God wants for my life and." So I resigned and and said my farewell to all the folks at the church I was serving at the time, and then I started a new church the following Sunday. and and and During that week, God just met me in an amazing way, and Holy Spirit just came on me in power, and and it was life changing. It was absolutely life changing, and so I mean, the Bible does tell us, Pastor Todd, that if if if you are a Christian, that you will suffer persecution. But wanted to give you a shout out. If it's called Christ Freedom Fellowship, and you guys have a website, if people want to check it out, and and you guys do every Sunday morning at ten thirty a.m.
Is that right? Yeah, you can go to ChristFreedom dot org. And we meet in my home every Sunday at 10:30, and anybody's welcome. And we're excited about what God's doing, and we just have amazing time together.
Well, you know it's funny, and in Mark chapter sixteen, Jesus put it something like this. He says, "Preach the gospel to all creation." And there's a lot of Christians who don't even who don't want to do that at all. But then he says two other things, and I think there's many churches that ignore the next two things. He says to you know that we're going to do deliverance, that we're going to cast out demons, heal the sick, and raise the dead.
So casting out demons and healing the sick. That's something that you and Jason do as well, but I wonder why, Pastor Todd, a lot of churches ignore that.
Well, there's a teaching out there. It's called cessationism, where a lot of people believe that it stopped with the Bible, with the apostles, and that, and that. God just doesn't do that anymore. But you just don't find that anywhere in Scripture. They have have a hard time backing that up.
You're just not going to find anywhere in Scripture where it stopped. In fact, throughout the Book of Acts, you see many people delivered, healed, and Jesus preached the kingdom of God, cast out demons, healed the sick. He he gave authority to the twelve twelve apostles. They did the same. The seventy-two as well.
If you remember the seventy-two that went out, that's right. Preach the kingdom of God, cast out demons, heal the sick, and some churches do it. It should be it should be the norm to me. It's the norm in the New Testament, and that's what God's called us to do: is to preach the kingdom of God, cast out demons, heal the sick. But unfortunately, a lot of people.
You know, it's more about the money and position and people pleasing and and denominationalism and that sort of thing. And they choose to go that route rather than to follow Jesus. Yeah, and you said that.
Well, I actually, I think I did a one-day revival with Justin. It was about three and a half years ago. And you said you had your first encounter or experience yourself with casting out a demon. Is that right? Yeah, I did.
Yeah, that was amazing. It was like a Holy Spirit bomb went off in my life. That one day revival was that in Pinnacle, North Carolina. It was in Pinnacle, North Carolina, and our friends Tony Jackson and his wife Siyansi let let us use their property. Uh huh.
Okay, yeah, I remember. You had a Pilot Mountain, wasn't too far away. But we went back there middle of nowhere, and then at the end of the service, you know, there was invitation for people to come up, be prayed for if they needed to be saved, delivered, healed, anything, and and a friend of mine asked me to come forward and to go pray for a pastor that had actually spoken during the revival and shared a song as well, and I went up and started praying for him, and then. And I was just praying out loud, you know, good pastoral prayer. And my friend came alongside me and looked at him and said, "You need to be delivered from anything." And he said he was having some struggles in his church, and and he didn't know if he was the problem or if these other people were the issue that was causing the problems.
He just wanted to be done with it. And and and we were like, "Okay." We started praying for him again, and all of a sudden, this this pastor. I actually heard a demon speak out of him. It was obvious, and it shocked me really. And and then I got in front of him, and I said, "Come out in the name of Jesus." And the demon said, "No, no, I'm not coming out." And I said, "Yes, you will come out in the name of Jesus." And I said it with authority.
I probably sounded like I was eight foot tall, five hundred pounds, but. But after I said, "Come out in Jesus' name," that second time, he changed, gave me a hug, and said, "Thank you." Thank you. And then he went and sat down, and it was just amazing. I was just like, I've never had an experience like that before. First time ever.
First time ever. And and I think even you know, there's even some other Christians like John Piper. I think had one experience with a demon where he may have cast out a demon or whatever. But I think a lot of people say, well, it happened one time and that's it. But you didn't just leave it there.
I mean, you. This is you guys do regular like deliverance. You help people with deliverance regularly. Is that right? Well, you're going to hear people say a Christian can be possessed.
Yeah, it was.
Well, possessed means ownership. You know, either you're possessed by the Holy Spirit or possessed by demons. But, but Christians can be either you have a demon or you don't, and some are more influenced and oppressed than others. Um, and I call it demonized, and. It wasn't long after that experience that I had that my wife had some friends pray for her about some struggles that she had with fear, and you know the Bible says God didn't give us the spirit of fear, but a love, power, and sound mind.
He said that to Timothy, you know, in Second Timothy one seven, and. And when these ladies prayed for my wife, there was actually an unclean spirit, a demon of fear that came out of her. She actually said, "It leave her body." And and I've always known that my wife loves Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit. But man, I'm telling you, when she came back from that prayer time with her friends, and she got delivered from a spirit of fear, man, she was just on fire for Jesus.
So, Todd, in your expert opinion, what do you think opens up the door for this attack on a Christian? I think to be oppressed or possessed by an evil spirit. Sin. You know, when we sin against God, and we have unconfessed sins, sins that we don't deal with, you know, that can be a doorway. That can let the devil in to have legal right in your life.
Sometimes it can just be generational. There's generational curses and generational sins, and you know, the devil ain't fair. The devil doesn't play fair. He doesn't care, and you know, and if we if we don't if we don't have Jesus, if we don't if we're not close and clean with Jesus. Then it can our sins can open up the door for the devil to have influence in our life.
That's why Jesus taught us to pray. You know, Father, forgive us of our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us, and lead us not temptation, and deliver us from the evil one. It actually says that in the Book of Matthew. You know, a lot of people leave one word out of that verse. That's very important.
Because it says, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we also, as we also." People leave out the word "also." As we also forgive those who trespass against us. When you say it that way, that's asking God the Father, "You forgive me, and I'll also forgive those." When people leave out that word "also" and say, "Father, forgive us of our sins, as we forgive." Our debtors, then that saying, "Forgive me, like I forgive others," and I don't want God to forgive me like I forgive others. Does that make sense? Yeah, unforgiveness is a biggie. It really opens up the door for the enemy to cause all kind of bitterness and resentment and anger and hurt and rejection and inadequacies and insecurities in our life.
Trauma too. Yeah, bad things that happen to people. Yeah. Yeah, and and it can get real bad. You know, some people go to a dark place, and some people, you know, go to new age and occult practices, and and look to other people and other things to for help.
Crystals, stones, Ouija boards, metals, and different people. It's it's wild how people go to To other things other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, to find the the comfort and the help and the and the deliverance that they need, and a lot of times it just gets even darker until you surrender everything to Jesus. That's what we do first: make sure the person's fully surrendered to Jesus, and we deal with unforgiveness, and and then we. If they need to be delivered, someone needs to be delivered for something. We just say, "Come out in Jesus' name," and it can be a battle sometimes because this is a fight.
It is a battle, just like the Word of God says that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers of this dark world. And and and if we don't give up, it comes out, and there's freedom, and people are. Delivered a lot of time. It involves healing as well, so it's amazing what God can do. Amen.
And and Jason, you he was talking about cessationism. You actually grew up in a church like that, Jason. Is that right? Well, I don't think they said it out loud, but it was. I was under the impression that you know it's all about grace.
You say this prayer, you're going to go to heaven. You know, you can pretty much do whatever you want to do, but as long as you said this prayer and be baptized, you're going to go to heaven. And you know that's where the race ends when you get saved. And I didn't see any power and authority in the church. I didn't see any signs and wonders.
And you know, I think a lot of people go to these other things that you were talking about, Todd, whether it be Ouija boards or, you know, whatever it may be, because they're not finding what they need and what they want in the church, which is to be set free, to be healed, to be delivered. They're not experiencing the power of Jesus Christ because it's watered down. It's this little ritual where you go in, you sing some songs, you feel the Holy Spirit. Then they then they do announcements just to just cut off the Holy Spirit. And you've got announcements, and then they pass the offering plate around where everybody can see who gives.
And then there'll be a service where the preacher he'll he'll give a little scripture verse, tell a ten minute story, and give one more scripture verse. And throughout this whole sermon, I've seen nothing and I've heard two scripture verses. And they're starving. His people are starving, and this is done purposely.
Well, so you grew up in that, Jason, but then you actually kind of apologize. No, you are good. You actually, you actually kind of turned away from the Lord for a while, wanted nothing to do with him, and you got into drugs. Is that right? No, I didn't turn away from God.
I always believed in Jesus, but I grew up in a Christian home, went to Christian school, and then when I got in public schools, got a taste of the world. And man, I went crazy, and I became a complete drug addict for twenty years.
Now, throughout the course of that twenty years, I believed I was saved because I had been baptized and said the sinner's prayer when I was like five years old. But you know, I guess I was in my thirties when I got I got really bad off. I, yeah, skin and bones, and and every molecule in my body knew that either I was going to die or I was going to die and go to hell, and something had to change. And I couldn't do it. You know, I was broke.
I was wondering why God created me that way. And luckily, you know. I sold everything I had, put myself in Teen Challenge, but that worked for a few months. You know, got back on the drugs. But luckily, I went to.
I was playing a poker tournament online, and I said, "God, if I win this poker tournament, I'll go that stupid revival with mom tomorrow." And sure enough, couldn't lose a hand, won, and went to that stupid revival. It was out um somewhere near Charlotte. About twenty years ago, and this joker with sweatpants and a t-shirt and open-toed shoes is like, God, anybody praying for me? But him. Sure enough, he comes over and he prays for me.
And you know, I didn't. I see people that get slain in the spirit and this stuff on TV. None of that happened. I didn't feel anything, you know. But he, but he didn't pray a normal prayer.
He didn't say, "Dear Heavenly Father, please heal this man. Please set this man free." You know, he's on drugs. God, please set him free. He he used the power and authority that we have as Christians, and he commanded the bands to be broken from around my mind. He spoke freedom into my life.
He he he canceled and rebuked any any attack of the enemy, any any sorcery, any witchcraft, any curses, and and he he used power and authority when he spoke. See, there's a huge difference between telling the mountain to move and asking God to move it for you. See, when Jesus said it is finished on the cross, He wasn't kidding. His job's finished here on this earth until He comes back. It's up to us now.
See, the reason that you may that some people don't see people raised from the dead is because they hadn't tried it. The reason that people have never healed the sick is because they hadn't tried to heal the sick. That makes sense. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. And so you—you actually you did you went to a after that you started praying for the sick, but I think you went to something.
What was it? The Hunters, Happy Hunters. Yeah, I started reading the Bible on my own, and it was very, very uncomfortable because a lot of the things that either I was taught or I was under the impression of had been misleading. And so I just started reading it myself because I wouldn't get what I needed in church, and you know I got those verses that you were talking about where Jesus said, "Look, fellas," and this last thing He told Him, He said, "Go out to all the world and preach the gospel to all, you know, every creature." Go baptize them, and when you baptize them, use my name, use my Father's name, and use the Holy Spirit's name. And I said, like God, I don't even see preachers in church and using the name of You and Your Father and the Holy Spirit, Yeshua, the Rock, Hodosh, and Yahweh.
They they just say in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. I said that's not actually using their names; they're powering your names.
So everything I was looking at was just it was different. And I got to where I said, "Go heal the sick." I mean, oh! And I started looking. I said, "Let me look for some scripture verses where people prayed and asked God to heal someone, and it happened." I tell you what, you're going to do some research in the Bible. I found two two stories, and I said, "Hmm, maybe there's something to this.
Maybe I need to go try to heal the sick." And I went to. Charles and Francis Hunter, the Happy Hunters, in Texas, and and I studied with them for a while. It's like three or four day seminar. Got baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire, just like the Bible says. John says I'll baptize you with water, but Jesus, He'll baptize you with the fire and the Holy Ghost.
And so, you know, I wanted that too. And then I started actually. Speaking to the disease and telling it to leave, telling the muscles, ligaments, joints, tendons what to do, using the mighty name of Jesus. You know, because all power in heaven and earth is given to Him, and you use His name, and it has to obey, it has to submit, and it worked. And it worked, and you guys have both seen some amazing things, Pastor Todd.
You, you, there was a lady. We'll just call her E. I don't want to even give her first name out for privacy reasons. But she came. I think it was two Sundays ago, and she had been diagnosed with cancer.
And I think it was the Sunday that I was there speaking. You allowed me to speak at your church, but she came forward and she said she needed some prayer. Do you remember that? Yeah, yes, I do. Yeah.
So what? Yeah, she. Go ahead. Yeah, she was experiencing just some fears and concerns about how to follow up with treatment and that sort of thing, and and. And we and she came forward for prayer.
We always invite people, you know, if they want prayer to be saved, delivered, or healed in Jesus' name, or filled with the Holy Spirit, or any prayer for anything, come forward and we'll pray with you. And unfortunately, you know, a lot of pastors and churches they don't even do that anymore, and because they got to get done at twelve o'clock. You know, they start at eleven o'clock sharp, get done at twelve o'clock dull, and A lot of people don't give a chance for the Holy Spirit to work, but it. But we just we don't ever know when we're going to get done. We start at ten thirty.
We don't know when we're going to get done. But when she came forward and asked for prayer, we were able to discern that the devil was using a lot of fear in her life about the future, about her health, and about all kinds of things. And we were casting out fear in the name of Jesus. And and the devil said, "You remember how it spoke out of her, and it said, 'I own her.'" And then I said, "No, you don't. She belongs to Jesus." The devil is a liar.
Come out in the name of Jesus. Yeah. And it left. She started coughing, and it came up and out, and she felt relief. She said, "I I felt something leave.
I feel relief." Yeah. Yeah, and I remember somebody—I think it was you—who said to her, "Fear, come out in Jesus' name." And and you know, she was her mouth or whatever, but it felt like it was a demon speaking out of her, and it said, "No, I will not." And then, of course, Jesus wins. But but Jason, you just prayed for a woman, and I think it was at a church in Wake Forest, and she had cancer. Is that right? Yeah, she did.
Tumors—they were supposed to go into surgery and have all the tumors removed. What happened? She went in for surgery, and the doctors couldn't find any tumors. They ran six tests, and they couldn't find nothing to take out. But I want to tell you a little bit about that.
Is that about? I don't know about thirteen, fourteen years ago. I was over my mother, and she had cancer. I was praying for when she died. And I kept praying for people with cancer.
Didn't see any results until that one. Twelve years later, took twelve years before I saw results. The point of my story, two points: don't give up. Keep doing it. Keep believing.
Yes. And what Satan has meant for bad, you know, God's going to turn around for good.
So if He attacked you in that area, you're going to be good at it. If He attacked you with drugs, you're going to be good at helping people set free from drugs, and you're going to relate to them, and you're going to be able to give them the grace that God gave you. That's why He allows us to go through some of these things, so that we can comfort others with the comfort that we receive from God. Yes. Yes.
Yeah, that's good. And so you know, I was looking at it's Proverbs twenty four sixteen, and this is what it says. It says that. For though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again. But the wicked stumble, and calamity strikes.
And so we never give up. But the second thing that I'm thinking about is this: is Isaiah 40:31 says this. It says, "Ah." That those who wait upon the Lord, they shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint.
And it's funny. There's a a place called the Source of Alamance. It's over in Burlington, North Carolina. And the these people who are homeless or can't can't don't have enough money to get food, they will come there, and not only will they Feed them food, but in addition to that, you guys share the gospel. You guys pray for the sick.
You guys heal the sick. You guys do what Jesus has called you to do. And Todd, you've been out there many times, and I think people have kind of wondered, you know, well, somebody asked you, what What are you doing out here, right? Yeah, it's called the Source of Alamance County. You can look it up at hisource dot org.
And started by our friends Mitch and Jennifer Mann. Right at a year ago, God just gave Mitch a dream, and then God just gave him a blueprint of how to start this food pantry in downtown Alamance County. And every Wednesday, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., we give out food and to anybody that's food insecure in any way. And and every person that comes through there, we we offered to pray for them, and it's amazing what God has done in and through the source of Alamance County, and helping the those that are homeless or hurting or whatever might be be going on in their life.
That's that's awesome. And and Jason, you came there one time, and and you saw the Lord. You prayed for people, and you saw the Lord heal some people. Is that right? Oh yeah, it was a great.
It was a great time. It's the first time I met Todd. I tell you, he's full of faith. Great fella. I hope one day I'll be able to make it and visit his church.
Yeah, absolutely. Great experience, loved it. Great, great. Love you too, man. And as we're going on out here, Jason, I want to thank you for coming on today, Jason.
We were actually out; we were on the phone last night. You prayed for a guy over the phone, Ralph, and he Ralph his wife, I believe, had what was her issue, Jason. She had pneumonia, and they had diagnosed her with Legionnaire's disease. Those were the two things that she specified that she wanted, and for her not to be afraid. and And she said immediately, it went from feeling not so great to she said, "I feel great now," and she praised the Lord.
And so, I tell you what: if you are not praying for anybody, just start praying for people. You know, if you're not praying for anybody, I remember a lady named Nanette told me to pray for one person each day. And so, Sundays at ten thirty, Todd, if people want to come visit your church, it's Christ Freedom Fellowship in McLeansville, and once again, the website is what ChristFreedom dot org. Christ ChristFreedom dot org. I want to thank you guys for coming on today.
Thank you. If not for God. All right, for my YouTube channel, if not for God with Mike Zwicky, just like, subscribe and hit that notification bell, so you'll be alerted when we have our next video.
