Overcoming and Obeying

This is Robbie Dilmore from The Christian Car Guy and Kingdom Pursuit, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build a kingdom. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it and share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.

Welcome to If Not For God, stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick. All right. If not for God with Mike Zwick, I've got my good friends, Justin Neup, K-N-O-O-P, and Todd Jordan. And it's funny when I brought Todd up here and I started talking to Justin, I didn't realize that you guys actually had so much in common. Now, not everybody knows this, but Justin, you were you had kind of gotten into music or rap.

Is that right? Yeah, I did. Back in the day when I was in high school, me and my friends started freestyling our cars and stuff like that. And that led to a couple opportunities where I actually wrote and recorded the demo and went up to New York City and brought my demo to a couple of different different record labels and stuff like that. I actually got introduced to a guy, many people might not know who this is, but Mr. Magic. So I actually sat down in his office and went through my demo and freestyle with a couple of guys up there and stuff like that.

So I ended up getting invited to go to a block party and rap. And I kind of got cold feet and I backed out. And once I kind of saw what that was, this is before Christ, by the way, but once I saw that world and what you were stepping into, I was like, I don't even know about this.

Even for an unbeliever, I was like, yeah. And I kind of backed out of that. And so that's when that kind of. So when you say what you were stepping into, what do you mean? That world, that whole world of the music industry and drugs and alcohol and all that stuff.

It was a little bit beyond what I was ready for. Wow. And so maybe God did that for a reason. And then Todd, you've been into music as well. Is that right?

Yeah, so I'm a different avenue with that. So drum and bass music is electronic music, you know, and I've emceed for global talents for about 20 different years, all over the East Coast at least. And a bunch of names I could draw, but it doesn't matter anymore right now.

It's me and my friend. Who are some of the names? So Planet of the Drums, DJ Fress, Gridlock, we have Infiltrator, on and on and on.

It goes for years and years and years, man. But yeah, man, now my friend, I got to drop his name, Vega, DJ Vega, Dustin Blair. He'll love this. We just started making drum and bass music for the Lord.

So we just dropped a track called 174 for the King is the name of the track. And anyway, yeah, it's good stuff, man. Well, music was actually made to worship the Lord.

And so the devil always tries to pervert anything that men can do. But one of the things that you guys both have in common is you've both dealt with addictions. Is that right? And Justin, how old were you when you started? Mine was mainly alcohol. I started drinking at the age of 10. By the age of 13, I was partying on the weekends, funneling beers and drink until I threw up and pass out.

So it, it, it got pretty, pretty bad, pretty quick for me. Fun times. Fun times. By high school, by senior year in high school, I was actually taking shots of vodka before class. Would pass out drunk in school.

All kinds of stuff. Got into fights on my lunch break and brought into, got breathalyzers. And I've had a breathalyzer done by a police officer in the principal office. I had people coming in, um, officers coming into my classes and taking me out and stuff like that.

Somehow I never, never got arrested at that point, other than for some, you know, purchasing alcohol under age and some stuff like that. But then I went to college and all of that just, it just accelerated. What, you said you went to college. Where'd you go to school? In Wilmington. I went to Cape Fear Community College. Oh, really? Okay. You mean people party in college?

That's why I went to Wilmington. So you went with that intention. And, uh, and, uh, Todd, you, how old were you when you got? I'll say it's a first drink. It was, uh, uh, 12 years old and my dad's, uh, my dad is, uh, uh, not an alcoholic or anything, but yeah, alcohol is in the house.

But yeah, it was vodka. I, I, I drank, uh, 13 shots that first time I ever touched alcohol. Thirteen shots the first time?

First time. I got sick. I threw up in the, I threw up in the bed. Uh, yeah, but any, uh, from that, uh, I, I'm an alphabet soup of drugs, man, you know, and it took me to a point of, uh, uh, where I almost died here recently and everything. I got into methamphetamine and heroin and all, all these different things, uh, IV use, all this, uh, wicked stuff. And, uh, but recently, uh, uh, recently what happened is all this stuff happened and I, I was given a stroke. A stroke happened on February the 5th of this year and, uh, praise God for this stroke. Praise God for this stroke.

Praise God for this stroke. Because, uh, everything, uh, from that, uh, I had, I had a vision. I saw the Lord. I, I saw visions of heaven. I just, just a piece of, of this.

I mean, it's bright light. It's so beautiful what I have in my memory. Some of it's gone away, but, uh, that's just... So you had basically what we would call a near death experience. Is that right? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Amen.

But anyway, what's happened is a testimony, uh, about this. What I had, it was a complete right side, uh, all the way down to my upper shoulder, to my feet, was dead on my right side. And that's my strong hand and, uh, everything is back now. I can walk, talk, uh, my little bit, little bit of stiffness in my right hand.

That's all that's left. But from that, even my home therapist, every time I would have home therapy come in, every time it'd be 24 hours, uh, I couldn't speak. Next day, I could speak. Uh, 24 hours, I couldn't use my hand. Next day, I could use my hand. And so on and so on.

It kept going faster and faster and faster. All of these therapists have told me, you are a miracle. And every time I talk to people about this, I said, it's not me. This is all Jesus Christ. And on the other side of this, my family as well, you know, when you get into addiction and all those things, it affects not only yourself, but your family and everybody, your friends and everything. Addiction is a demon. All of them, all of it is.

And it has to be cast out. But, um, this, this, uh, our, our, our, Jesus Christ has revolutionized not only myself, but my family, my friends. Uh, I'm not even sitting here with you right now just because of Jesus Christ. This is such a testimony for all of this.

Uh, uh, you know, uh, forever. He is my King. I just got recently baptized another time and I will follow him for the rest of my life and praise him, praise him, praise him as loud as I can. And you said when you had your near death experience, the Lord actually told you something about starting a rehab. So with all of this, uh, so there's a, uh, my dad is in Isaiah. I will get an inheritance.

Praise God for all that. Um, but I'll have a touch of land in him. Did I tell you how much I like you?

I like you too, Michael. But, uh, but yeah, so I have a touch of land, uh, when everything's passing, you know, uh, praise God is, uh, pray for God that my dad has a much more longer life. But anyway, long story short, uh, I want to, the vision in my, my mind is to open a rehab for drugs and alcohol, uh, men and women if possible.

Um, with that touch of land, I also have a friend, uh, Matthew that I think he's down in Aiken, but he's actually doing the same thing right now. Um, and, uh, yeah, so I don't know how it's all going to come together, but this is what I saw and this vision, this is what I heard, all this sort of thing. So, uh, the Lord is the, the Lord will put it together one way, one way or another.

Amen. And Todd and Sandy Hightower is here, uh, but Todd Jordan is here and they are putting together a, uh, it's going to be a huge revival that's going to be taking place. I hope everybody shows up. It's going to be on May the 25th in Hanahan, South Carolina, and it's spelled H-A-N-I, no, H-A-N-A, H-A-N, Hanahan, South Carolina. It's on a Thursday night. And what time does it start?

Starts at 6 PM. And it's on the outskirts of Charleston for reference. And it's on the outskirts of Charleston. Uh, and we're going to be interviewing, uh, Greg Locke here in a little bit, but Justin, you've actually met Greg, Greg Locke.

Is that right? Yeah, I met him actually in Pelham, North Carolina back in December, early December, had a little event there. I got to chat with him a little bit, um, which was kind of before all this movie stuff came out and, uh, on the topic of deliverance.

My wife and I have been doing deliverance since late 2016 and have seen just immense, uh, testimonies, probably somewhere between 700 and a thousand people delivered just in our, in our county, in our area, uh, since then. And so we got to chat about that and just what the Lord has in store, uh, for now in the future. So that was cool. And you're going to be headed down to the revival as well. Is that right? I'll be there.

I'll be there. Um, well, you know, we were talking about deliverance and stuff like that, but I, I hear, I'm hearing a lot now and a local pastor in Alamance County said that Christians can't have demons. Oh yeah. Yeah.

You gonna leave that there? Yeah, it's a popular view, a view that I like to challenge, um, because there's nowhere in the Bible that says that. And so a lot of people, I think, I think are uncomfortable with that fact. What I've heard recently is, is, is when you, when you say a Christian can't have demons, what you're saying is I don't want to find out I have demons, right?

That's the underlying thing that you're addressing. Um, but we didn't believe that in the first place either, either until we started doing deliverance. So I usually say anybody that's done any amount of deliverance, maybe if you've seen more than one or two of these, you know, instances happen, doesn't have that belief, doesn't have that theology because you'll find that this is a gift to the church. Deliverance is a gift to the body of Christ. It should be happening at conversion, right? Like it did in the New Testament, in the early church, when you see Philip come in and the first thing they did was preach the gospel, heal the sick and cast out demons.

It was all together. We have removed that from the church. And now we just preach a message, which salvation in itself is a miracle.

It's fantastic. But what we're doing is we're allowing people to keep that company of the devil when they enter into Christ and then five years, 10 years, 15 years down the road, many of us have passed where we've dealt with drugs, addiction, you name it, all of this sin. And we've opened up all these doors and we're not willing to address those things.

We tell people, people come to us all the time because they've gone to their churches and they're like, listen, I've prayed, I've read my Bible. I've done everything I could possibly do. I can't get rid of these intrusive thoughts. I can't get rid of this addiction to whatever it is.

I can't get rid of it. That's when we need to humble ourselves and recognize maybe this person needs deliverance. You know what? People say a Christian can't have a demon. I've heard before a Christian can have whatever they want.

What's next? We say a Christian can't have a donut. They can't have McDonald's.

They can have whatever they want. You open the door, you don't get to determine what comes in. And so you did not go out seeking this.

No, I did not. It kind of fell on our laps. The funny thing was people argue. They're like, don't go around seeking. Like Jesus literally sent his disciples out two by two and said, go do this. So he said, go after this stuff. Why?

Because nobody else is doing it. So sometimes that's why it needs an emphasis. But my story goes back to, like I said, 2016, praying for my mother in her kitchen, not knowing anything about what was about to happen. Just knowing that my wife said, hey, I'm feeling really uneasy about what's going on with your mom right now.

She was sharing some instances of some attack she was receiving in the night to where something was covering her mouth, laying on her. Just really, really demonic stuff. And so we're like, we're going to pray for you. And so I lay my hands on her and I do the good little Christian prayer that is, you know, we just bless you in the name of Jesus. We pray protection over the home, you know, all that good stuff. And then the Holy Spirit breaks in and I hear this deposited in my spirit, spirit of fear.

That's all I heard. But I knew what I had to do, that that was that was something for me to obey. So I literally just spoke that out. And sometimes in the beginning, the grace of the Lord is there to where stuff just happens, like he's like, I'm going to I'm going to give you a little kickstart right now.

It might be a little more difficult, but he did that. And so I said, spirit of fear, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. She collapsed to the ground and immediately started manifesting a demon. Yeah. And so we and of course, and of course, you knew exactly what to do. Oh, yeah. Pulled out my manual.

Step one. No, I really did. I didn't know who Derek Prince was.

I had never read a book on deliverance, like a few verses in the Bible that I skimmed over because they made me uncomfortable. And that's all that I had. So literally I did, though, I pulled out my phone and was thinking of the most spiritual people I know. I was phoning pastors and I look like who wants to be a millionaire?

I was like, can I phone a friend? You know, I look at my wife and I'm like, what do I do? And she's like, what do you mean?

What do you do? You cast it out. And I was like, we're arguing. My mom's on the ground manifesting. I'm like, how? How do I cast it out?

What's going on? Get the mark. Hold on, Bob.

Stay on the ground for a few hours. I'm going to watch a few videos. Sometimes, sometimes I wish it was on film and then other ways.

I don't, I don't. But she encouraged me and she was like, just cast it out in the name of Jesus. So I was like, in the name of Jesus, I command you to come out in the name of Jesus. And I tell people, I look down and nothing happened. So what do you do in that point?

Do you be like, oh, well, that didn't work. Like the Bible tells me. No, you keep pressing in because Jesus says, he says things like the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. There was a tenacity about Jesus and his disciples. There is even an instance in the Bible to where literally the chapter before Jesus gives his disciples authority to cast out all demons and heal all sickness and disease. And what happens in the next chapter? They bring them a boy and say, Jesus, we couldn't get this boy free.

Well, what do you mean? Jesus gave them all authority. So he rebukes their unbelief. And then he talks about prayer and fasting, this type.

So they were dealing with a more difficult, a more stubborn, maybe a more higher ranking demon that they needed a little bit of strategy for. And that's okay. Jesus taught us that. And so what did we do?

We just came in with tenacity. I prayed for 45 minutes straight, which was probably longer than I've ever prayed in my life. I'll tell you what deliverance will do two things. It'll humble you and it will teach you persistence. It will teach you how to go after the things of God. Because when you have a person sit, it's easy to stop praying for a lost family member when they're not in front of you every day.

Right, right. When a person is manifesting a demon right in front of you and they're in pain and torment, you don't stop until that thing comes out. And so we prayed for about 45 minutes, 45 minutes or so, and then boom, that thing released. The demon came out. My mom gasped for air. We knelt down and prayed with her. And then came six months of processing what in the world just happened.

What in the world just happened? When I was in high school, I had tried out for the basketball team, and it was right before I found out if I was going to make the team. And I ended up making the team. But my mother took a little poem by Langston Hughes, and she placed it up on my door. And I never forgot this. And this is the poem. It says, Well, son, I'll tell you, life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

It's had tacks in it and splinters and boards torn up and places with no carpet on the floor bare. But all the time I've been a climbing on and reaching landings and turning corners and sometimes going in the dark where there ain't been no light. So, boy, don't you turn back. Don't you set down on the steps because you find it's kind of hard. Don't you fall now for I still going, honey. I still climbing and life for me ain't been no crystal stair. And, Todd, life for you ain't been no crystal stair.

Is that right? It has not, man. Listen, I carried that demon for since I was 13, you know, over. And there's always there's all kinds of different aspects of this. That's my story, man.

I could go on for hours, for hours, for hours. But now the freedom from Jesus Christ through I've been through deliverance recently. I had a deliverance on two Saturdays ago.

I think your wife is about to show me the video. So just like we're discussing, man, the fear of the church today to me is, one, the personal you look at yourself. I'm a Christian. I'm saved. I have the Holy Spirit. Well, that doesn't mean you don't have thoughts, will and emotions. Why are you have depression still?

Why are you taking this pill every day? Jesus came to set the captives free. Totally, totally free them. And so I pray every single day, like Ephesians 4, 11, 2, 20, I believe, is talking about the unity, the five-fold ministry, the apostles, the teachers, the prophets, all that. It's still in effect. But it won't stop until the maturity of the church comes together. So come on, wake up, church. We've got to be out here teaching apostleship. Don't let the pastor's talking, Oh, I'm going home after Sunday and that's good.

I'm back to the football game. No, that pastor should wake up. I want to teach this guy, this guy, this girl, this girl, how to be an apostle, how to be a teacher.

Give them the gifts. Grow in that. And we can do it. We have the text.

We have the power. You know, it just makes me like the unity that is not in a church. So they call them denominations. An anagram of denomination has the word demon in it. You know what I mean? So 48,000 different denominations inside Christendom.

And I'm getting excited right now. But man, we have such authority. How can we not go see the greater things that Jesus told us about without walking into the authority that he gave us?

That is absolutely correct. You know, one of the stories that I've actually heard of and one of the things that I've talked about was there was somebody named John Wimber, who was an evangelical pastor and a teacher on church growth, founded a Calvary Chapel in Linda, California, and his teaching on healing and the ministry of the Holy Spirit actually led to conflict. It's funny, the guy, the other movie that just came out that was kind of associated with Calvary Chapel, but also there was a guy named Lonnie. And he would have these experiences with the Holy Spirit. But see, sometimes people look at us as charismatics and they say, oh, that's all just emotionalism. But when I read the Bible, I don't just see Jesus speaking to us intellectually. I see him speaking to our hearts. And many times that when we're in a church or when we're in a setting and when we do see speaking in tongues, when we do see deliverance, I really see Jesus getting into people's hearts and the emotions is not necessarily a bad thing.

And I'll give you an example. When we go to a football game and we go to a basketball game, people are excited. They're jumping up and down.

They're running around. They're doing all these things that we want to do the same thing in the form of worshipping God. People have a problem with that. I don't see a problem.

But what do you think, Justin? I was just talking about this with my wife the other day, because when we recently had a gathering a couple of weeks ago, so where we had over 100 people gather and we preach the gospel, I spoke on Mark 1, we had some people share testimony and we do what we always do. We open it up for ministry. And when a person came up, this is how it happened, I actually got a word of knowledge, just like I did, remember at the revival?

At the revival, yes. So the Lord spoke to me and said, there's a woman here with pain in the back, center of the back of her neck for six years. So I spoke that out thinking I was praying for healing. The woman says, this is me. She comes up. I lay my hands on the back of her neck and I'm starting to pray for healing. And she starts manifesting a demon, collapses to the ground.

This is all on video. And so then deliverance broke out. And then we started then then it was funny because people see that. And then all of a sudden they're like, I need that.

I need prayer. Right. Right. And so I'm like, no, nobody was like, I need this person or I nobody was depending on me or the people speaking. They saw the power of God meet one person and then immediately they're like, that's for me. That's for me.

I want that. So that's the purpose of these signs, wonders and miracles and God showing up powerfully is not so that we can neglect the word so that we can neglect study and proper theology and things like that. Those things are there to keep us keep us in line and keep us on the standard.

But if it's missing that, you're going to miss out on opportunities for people to connect with God in that way. And what I was going to say is that after we posted that video, immediately the critics are coming up and they're like, show me. It's funny how specific they get.

Show me one instance in the New Testament, in the letters where something like this happened. You know, they want they've got all these hoops to jump. Right. Right. And if I say like, well, look at the gospels or the book of Acts, they're like, no, I want to see it in the letters. And it's like, well, listen, it's there to also it is like, I'm not going to jump through your hoops because you want me.

And I posted this on Facebook this morning. I said, lukewarm people want you to be lukewarm because it makes them comfortable. Right. I am not I am not going to turn lukewarm so that you're you become comfortable and I don't bother you anymore. I'm going after Jesus. Right.

I'm going to be on fire. Right. I'm passionate because I've seen him and what he's done in my life and I want others to experience that.

That's right. I'm not going to tone it down for you. If God tells me to tone it down, then I'll tone it down. If the people that God has placed in my life that I trust right to that I'm accountable to spiritually tell me something, then I will heed that.

But random Joe on Facebook that tells me I can't do this because of his restrictions. I'm sorry. Go back to your crusty church and your dry pastor and continue and continue. Like, have a nice day. But God is doing something amazing.

And it's basically either get on the train or get off, get out of the way. Right. Yeah. Because there's revival coming. God is moving. Things are happening. Things are happening.

People are getting saved. Right. You want to be a part of that. Have a nice day. Have a nice day.

Todd. It's just it's just amazing, man. You know, the Holy Spirit, the interactions where I have been baptized fully after these deliverances. When you see somebody hit this, like, give me more, Lord. Give me more. Let's do it more and more and more.

Because the freedom, again, there's so much more. And there's so many different things that people deal with. I mean, sexual things, drugs, alcohol, spirit of religion, spirit of doubt.

It's all over. Everything that we deal with in a negative nature. I'll say this and you can call it my opinion, but I believe it fully. Everything we deal with in a negative nature could could be followed by a demonic spirit.

It really could. I mean, listen, it's not flesh that we fight against. It's prince of polities and rulers of a dark place, of the spiritual world. We have to fight. We have to fight. You know, look at the world right now. Look at the world right now and what we're going through. Look at our children right now, what they're putting their children through. And that's how the world does. They start with the youngest. They indoctrinate and let Satan grow larger and larger and larger. And we are the ones, we are the workers, we are the laborers. It says there's not, there needs to be more laborers in the field. Luke 10, too.

Yeah, man, you guys go. That's beautiful. Because what he's saying is basically, I had another comment come on because they saw kids in the background, right? My children, our friends' children, walking around while deliverances were taking place. And they're like, those poor kids. And I'm like, those poor kids. I'm like, but you'll see your kids in front of a horror movie, in front of Disney's demonic agenda, in front of all these other things. You'll buy them witchcraft toys, but when they can't see the power of God move in a place, that's going to traumatize them. But none of the kids were scared.

None of them were crying. None of them had any issues with that because when we see stuff in Hollywood, the demonic and the devil is accentuated. He's like made to look super powerful. That's why any movies you see made by Hollywood when it talks about exorcism, it's the people's heads spinning and they're turning green and they're vomiting, right? Because they want to make the demons look powerful.

But real deliverance, when that takes place, yes, there's heavy manifestations, but ultimately God triumphs. And what happens is when kids see that and experience that at a young age, they have a proper perspective of good and evil. And they know that Jesus is greater than the enemy. The enemy doesn't want that. So he's going to be speaking things like, protect your kids, put them in a room. Don't let them witness this. No, let them witness it so that they can see the power of God so that when they get older, they'll have to turn and make a decision to reject Christ.

It won't be because they don't believe in him and haven't seen his works. That's right. I'll say this. If you choose to wake up to this, any spirit, anything out there, you are the alpha in the name of Jesus Christ. Everything.

Anything. Don't be afraid of any of this. You are the alpha when you walk with Jesus Christ. But at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And so you said something one time, Justin, you said that this is Jesus didn't do a private ministry. He said his ministry was public because it was a public spectacle. That's right.

That he had won the victory over the enemy. Is that right? Yeah. I think there was two reasons he did things in public. One, because it would cause people to have to humble themselves and lose their dignity. Right.

Yeah. In order to receive, because he knew that pride could be a hindrance. A lot of times we'll see this when people ask for private prayer, private deliverance. They don't want to. I understand that and we respect people's privacy, but a lot of times when we, especially when it's like pastors, leaders, worship, you know, stuff like that, they're like, we don't want this getting out.

But I'm like, it ends up a lot of times being a hindrance. So there's two things. I think he did it so that people would have to come to him humbly. Like think about the woman that had to rush through the woman with the issue of blood. Had to run through the crowd openly showing that she was unclean and then grab onto his garment.

And, and number two, like you said, he was, he was making a public spectacle of the enemy. And so people were actually seeing the power of God and witnessing that, that the devil had no power of them. So it was creating faith in people. Amen. Well guys, thanks for coming on. Todd, you did great.

The Lord worked through your voice, man. And Justin, Justin, you did great as always, but we're used to that. So thanks for coming on guys.

And if not for God. We'll be right back. All right for my YouTube channel, if not for God with Mike Zwick, just like subscribe and hit that notification bell. So you'll be alerted when we have our next video.