THE LORD JESUS CHRIST IS STILL THE ONLY SAVIOUR, HEALER AND DELIVERER THROUGHOUT THE WORLD WHERE 1 IN EVERY 100 PEOPLE IN EVERY NATION SUFFER FROM SCHIZOPHRENIA!
"I will proclaim your mighty acts, O sovereign Lord." Psalm 71:16
Before deliverance and healing
WEEKLY ENCOURAGER 19 SEPTEMBER 2021
After deliverance and healing
SCRIPTURAL ADVICE, HELP AND INSIGHT ON HOW TO TRUST THE LORD JESUS CHRIST TO DEFEAT SCHIZOPHRENIA FROM JAMES STACEY NOW CELEBRATING 31 YEARS OF FREEDOM FROM THE DEMONIC BONDAGE AND OVER 33 YEARS OFF ALL ANTI-PSYCHOTIC MEDICATION
CLICK BELOW TO SEE AND HEAR HOW THE LORD JESUS CHRIST SET JAMES FREE AFTER 26 LONG YEARS OF SCHIZOPHRENIA When God heals and sets free it lasts For Part 1 click the left image below: 13,620 views Part 2 click the right image below: 8,894 views
KEEP ON EXERCISING FAITH WHEN YOU DO NOT FEEL THE PRESENCE OF GOD
SEEKING AND DWELLING IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD INCREASES IN DESIRE AFTER FREEDOM FROM SCHIZOPHRENIA
THIS WEEK’S SELECTED BIBLE READING IS EXODUS CHAPTER 33: Key Verses 12-23: Moses and the Glory of the LORD: Moses said to the LORD: “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favour with me. If you are pleased with me, teach me your way so I may know you and continue to find favour with you. Remember that this nation is your people.” The LORD replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all other people on the face of the earth?” And the LORD said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.” Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.” And the LORD said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no-one may see me and live.” Then the LORD said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back, but my face must not be seen.”
The spiritual bondage of schizophrenia in the life of a born-again Christian constantly thwarts the enjoyment of the presence of God.
Since the dawning of the psychotic disturbance, you will have been aware of an interference affecting the quality of your communion with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I speak from experience and can accurately detail the dilemma. Because “another presence”, namely a demonic one, has surfaced in your life, your whole fellowship with God is now being challenged.
Before the evil spirit “appeared”, you were enjoying the wonderful freedom bought by Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, on the cross for you. Now, that same quality of fellowship feels permanently lost at times as “another presence” hinders your enjoyment.
The urgent issue on hand now is to defeat this uninvited opposing presence by challenging its legal right in your life and taking steps to drive it permanently from you.
Until it is exorcised, the precious full enjoyment of the presence of God and the total spiritual freedom of your entire life, will not be complete.
Because you love God, you must have His Presence. His Presence “makes your paradise and where you are ‘tis heaven.” You cannot live without His Presence. It is more than life itself.
Some of you reading this Encourager can identify with a sense of having been robbed of the enjoyment of the Presence of God. You know your life has changed and you are not the same person you were before schizophrenia dawned.
How are you to continue living when you neither sense the Presence of God or the joy of His Presence? Drugged up to the eyeballs with medication, steered into a cul-de-sac of passivity, you long for the enjoyment of the Presence of God to deliver you from what seems a mere existence!
It may bring you little comfort but all you can do during the times you don’t feel the presence of God is to hang on to Christ in faith. He is holding on to you more than you realise. I have been at the place many times of feeling no emotion - and instead battling with a heaviness in my head. To persevere and quietly lean solely on the Lord in faith and prayer – in however a feeble way you do it – is all you can do, but do it you must.
Medication may stabilise and calm you, but it absolutely kills your mind and affects your spiritual life. It minimises the enjoyment of the Presence of God. If you were a Christian walking with Christ before schizophrenia dawned, you may have faced the question of whether you live by “faith or by feelings.”
Feelings, remember, are located in the emotions whereas faith involves an act of the will and the whole weight of your personality. It was during my time inside the “schizophrenic prison” that God began to teach me the truth of being properly related to him. I missed feeling His Presence. But Christ was still my Saviour no matter what I felt like – and that was fact. Bowed down with medication, shut up in a mental hospital, unable to be granted week-end leave and all alone, this was not sufficient to destroy what I knew was true about Jesus no matter what kind of feelings were present.
Coming to know Jesus as Lord and Saviour introduced you to the Divine Presence of God. Your whole life changed when such a life-changing encounter of the power and Presence of God became real for you. You realised Jesus Christ died on the cross for you and rose from the dead. How dare any demonic spirit seek to rob you of life’s most precious enjoyment and mess with the sanctity of your God-created life?
Your whole being must engage in spiritual warfare and regain spiritual freedom and the presence of God, and drive out the intruder. Notice, in the gospels, this is what is recorded of the action Jesus took in people’s lives – he drove out demonic intruders. They were around in his day, and they are still around today (even though parts of the church do not want to talk about them!)
If your experience of the “dawning of schizophrenia” was anything like mine, in a given moment your whole mind was “taken over” and everything hitherto enjoyed went out of sight. (The only thing uppermost in my mind was a strange feeling, or presence in my head, which brought wrong thinking and disrupted the entire course of life.)
For those born-again Christians reading this who are going through a similar experience, you will need a life-line to hold onto in your confusion. The entrance of God’s words in your heart will shed light on your pathway. Turn to it and feed on God through His word.
You may not feel the Presence of God like before, but you have to continue fighting and addressing this strange foe with a personality of its own which has descended on your life uninvited. Like someone who walks into your lounge, you can’t ignore them. This presence – aptly referred by an author as “pigs in the parlour” – has got to be shown the door.
Yes, that is what schizophrenia is. It is another presence, a demonic one, living in your life with intentions of taking you over the limit. THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT JESUS CHRIST HAS DEFEATED the DARK PRESENCE AND HE IS ALWAYS OFFERING HIMSELF TO YOU TO STRENGTHEN YOU TO FIGHT ON AND WIN THROUGH.
FINAL WORDS: A quote from Watchman Nee: “We should inquire once again as to what the life of faith is. It is one lived by believing God under any circumstance: “If he slay me,” says Job, “yet would I trust in Him” (13:15 Darby translation). That is faith. Because I once believed, loved and trusted God I shall believe, love and trust Him wherever He may put me and however my heart and body may suffer.” The Spiritual Man page 245
Psalm 91: He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.
Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge, his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.
If you make the Most High your dwelling - even the LORD, who is my refuge - then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent.
"Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.
1. In Your presence That's where I am strong In Your presence O Lord my God In Your presence That's where I belong Seeking Your face Touching Your grace In the cleft of the Rock In Your presence O God
2. I want to go Where the rivers Cannot overflow me Where my feet are On the rock I want to hide Where the blazing Fire cannot burn me In Your presence O God
3. I want to hide Where the flood of Evil cannot reach me Where I'm covered by the blood I want to be where The schemes of darkness Cannot touch me In Your presence O God
4. You are my firm foundation I trust in You all day long I am Your child And Your servant And You are my Strength and my song You're my song Seeking Your face Touching Your grace In the cleft of the Rock In Your presence O God In Your presence
IF YOU HAVE NEVER INVITED JESUS CHRIST INTO YOUR LIFE, AND WISH TO, DO PRAY THE FOLLOWING PRAYER WITH ALL YOUR HEART: “Lord God Almighty, I approach you in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ. I know I have sinned in my thoughts, words and actions. There are so many good things I have not done. There are so many sinful things I have done. I am truly sorry for the sinfulness in my life, but most of all I acknowledge the sin that separates me from you. I accept the death of Jesus on the Cross to redeem me and extend the gift of eternal life. Gratefully, I give my life back to you as I now ask you to come into my life. Come in as my Saviour and Lord and cleanse me. Come in as my Lord to control me. Come with the strength of your grace and the power of your Spirit to defeat the evil spirit of schizophrenia that troubles me. Now you have set my spirit free, pour your delivering and healing power into my life as I take authority in the name of Jesus through the power of his blood over the intruding force. I assert your ownership of my life and resist any legal right that the devil seeks to hold over my life and bind up and expel any evil presence. I believe that my mind can be completely set free and my whole life enjoy the total freedom of Jesus. Amen".
CLICK HERE TO READ THE WHOLE OF THE WEEKLY ENCOURAGER IN PDF VERSION TOGETHER WITH A PROCLAMATION OF GOD'S PROTECTION, LEARN SCRIPTURES CHOSEN TO HELP YOU IN YOUR PRAYER BATTLE AND RELEASE PRAYERS OF HOPE IF YOU SUFFER WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA OR NEED TO RECEIVE JESUS CHRIST AS YOUR PERSONAL SAVIOUR
FOR THE FULL RANGE OF WEEKLY ENCOURAGERS BETWEEN 2010-2021 CLICK HERE TO SURVEY THE MESSAGES OF HOPE, GUIDANCE, AND ENCOURAGEMENT CENTERED IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.
Article appearing in New Life Christian Newspaper - May 2021
Listen to 'Delivered And Healed From Schizophrenia After 26 Years'
James's amazing story of the faithfulness of God and the power of prayer
(after you have clicked the button, the audio will play on your device as an mp3 file)
WEEKLY ENCOURAGER 26 SEPTEMBER 2021
HOW FASTING ADDED TO PRAYER AIDS THE BREAKTHROUGH TO FREEDOM FROM SCHIZOPHRENIA
THIS WEEK’S SELECTED BIBLE READING IS MATTHEW CHAPTER 9 Key Verses:14-17
Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast. No-one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
Fasting can intensify your power to prevail in prayer. Many Christians who do not suffer with schizophrenia may never or seldom carry out this act of blessing and deepening their regular prayer life. So what hope is there of a believer in Jesus with the deepest psychotic disorder of all moving forward in this spiritual discipline? Every hope! - though it may be a long time in coming before reaching the place of desperation in God in your daily fight to become free through allowing the Holy Spirit to teach you about prayer and praying through you.
As more light and revelation is received from the Holy Spirit leading you into all truth, more power is given to challenge the darkness of the demonic condition of schizophrenia. This is in spite of prayer being an uphill battle in your struggle to reach the freedom in Jesus. You have a spiritual fight on maintaining your sanity.
Even though you may be unable to fast at the moment that is not to say that it will be always out of your reach. In response to moving into a living, active and conscious faith in Jesus, you are already qualified to ask, seek and knock at Heaven’s door. If ever fasting was added to your prayer life, it would release a power supply of God’s spirit your way which would accelerate your freedom out of schizophrenia.
Notice, there is a School of Prayer. Ruth Graham, the wife of world-renowned evangelist Billy Graham used to say: "There is no way to learn to pray but to pray." How true! There IS no way of advancing in the School of Prayer but by praying. The more you move into God's presence and meet with Him, the more you grow in the ways of prayer. It's a lifetime pursuit!
Wesley L. Duewel says in his book "Mighty Prevailing Prayer": "Fasting can intensify your power to prevail in prayer. For those occasions when Satan is long-entrenched and needs to be driven back and expelled, fasting added to prevailing prayer may be imperative. For those battles where Satan has resisted thus far much militant intercession, add fasting to your prayer. If possible, add collective fasting and prayer". page 187.
A PRAYER OF HOPE FOR THOSE SUFFERING WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA: “Lord God Almighty, will you hear my prayer and make the sacrifice of your Son, Jesus Christ real to me. Wipe away my sins that were atoned for on the Cross of Calvary by Jesus in order that I might not have to die eternally. I believe that Jesus took all my sins and my sorrows and made them His very own and after three days He rose again from the dead and now makes intercession for me. By the power of His shed blood, I believe I am now set free and opened up to all the resources of His grace and power. I am looking forward to the day – why not today – when the evil bondage of schizophrenia surrounding my mind is totally defeated. I ask You, Heavenly Father, to help me drive out the dark, spiritual presence by the light and power of your conquering Holy Spirit’s presence. I want to know the reality of the promise Jesus made that whoever follows him will not walk in darkness but will have the Light of Life. Make it happen for me, as I pray in the Mighty Name of Jesus, Amen.
TO CELEBRATE GOD'S GOODNESS AND FAITHFULNESS SINCE 1990 WE ARE MAKING THE BOOK "SCHIZOPHRENIA DEFEATED" OBTAINABLE AT HALF THE USUAL COST OF £7.50, NAMELY £3.75. Normal postage rates for the country of origin of orders will remain the same.
"A thorough and honest look at both the illness and the healing. Helpful both for sufferers and those trying to help them. A strong Christian book which I would recommend". Gillian 2/10/2015
"A road map to victory for every person diagnosed with schizophrenia - every psychiatrist and counsellor needs to read it." Peter Laue, of Stretcher Bearers For Christ, USA
WHEN I'M BACK ON MY FEET AGAIN!!
God is always working to get us "back on our feet again." He is well able to do it for YOU.
This video by Canton Junction from Godtube is sent out to all our website visitors who long for freedom over schizophrenia.
Receive sure and certain HOPE from Jesus Christ that He is moved with compassion to bring you through your present struggles and establish you "back on your feet again" in His victorious life and freedom.
"If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free," said Jesus (John 8:31-32).
ORDER SCHIZOPHRENIA DEFEATED BOOK & DVD ONLINE NOW
To the Jews who had believed him Jesus said: "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:31
A warm welcome to our world ministry of offering real hope to schizophrenics and anyone mentally assailed.
Our website Pray Until Schizophrenia Heals exists to proclaim with a trumpet voice that the love and victory of Jesus Christ is today’s only answer out of mental bondage into lasting joyous freedom.
For 26 long years, I was enslaved in a schizophrenic mental prison house until in 1990 Jesus Christ delivered me and two minutes later healed my mind. It took a further 12 years to return to life as I knew it before the illness dawned in 1964.
In 2004, I released my life story, Schizophrenia Defeated, detailing a long, hard prayer battle into freedom in order to give hope, new understanding of the disease and a new strategy to unlock the gates of insanity of this invisible enemy.
It is our prayer that as you view our site, you will sense something of the compassion of Jesus which fills our hearts and lives to spread the message that His love and power can still bring His glorious freedom TODAY no matter how helpless and hopeless you may feel life has become.
With our love and prayers
James and Tina Stacey
We are told in the book of Acts, chapter 2, verse 17, that “... your old men shall dream dreams.” The painting by the artist Rebekah Laue is a portrayal of her husband’s prophetic dream. She pondered the dream for many years before she was able to capture it’s essence on canvas.
In his dream, Peter saw a rock wall with an ordinary stick lying nearby. He was prompted to pick it up and beat vigorously on the wall. Nothing happened! Then he saw a lion’s paw at his feet. He dropped the stick, picked up the paw and barely touched the wall. As he did, the wall began to crumble.
Peter awoke weeping and trembling as he experienced new authority, purpose, power, and confidence streaming into every fiber of his being. In lieu of a lion’s paw he has acquired a real sword, which he now uses in spiritual combat.
The stick is symbolic of man using his own strength and wisdom to tear down strongholds. The rock wall is symbolic of those walls around our hearts that imprison us and cause us to be isolated from God and one another.
The Hebrew letters on the rocks represent strongholds such as hate, anger, revenge, rebellion, witchcraft, bitterness, pride, fear, unbelief, unforgiveness, lust, idolatry, greed, gluttony, jealousy, self-pity, legalism, and man’s traditions.
The sword issuing from the lion’s mouth is the Sword of the Lord, which is the Word of God. The lion portrays Jesus Christ as revealed in the book of Revelation, chapter 5: “... Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed...”
The truth in the painting shall march throughout the land like a banner and confront the strongholds that imprison us. Has God singled you out to carry that banner and address those strongholds? Before saying YES or NO, count the cost or the opportunity lost! TAKE A STAND! TAKE BACK THE LAND!
Listen in to a service in Armenia, Colombia where James speaks about the joy of being free after 26 years of bondage to schizophrenia - supported by his wife Tina who prayed him through. (Length 1 hour 45 mins with translation. Our translator, Anita Keith-Gillon is pictured right)
A letter has been received from a Christian in Papatoetoe, New Zealand stating: "I am a fan of your Weekly Encourager for it exposes the underlying causes of schizophrenia whereas most other websites on the subject matter do not".
All Things Are Possible Through Believing Prayer
CELEBRATING 31 YEARS OF DELIVERANCE AND HEALING FROM SCHIZOPHRENIA ON MAY DAY 2021 THROUGH THE AMAZING POWER OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.
Not only has the Saviour of the world defeated Satan and the demonic bondage but He continues to impart His power to maintain and enlarge the freedom He brings.
When God sets free His freedom BRINGS LASTING VICTORY!
Click the video clip - right
SCHIZOPHRENIA DEFEATED by JAMES STACEY
CLICK ON THE BOOK COVER to read the WHOLE of the book "Schizophrenia Defeated" and celebrate the gift of God's Son, Jesus Christ, who permanently delivered and healed me after 26 years of suffering the schizophrenia bondage. Click on the image - right - to read the book in its Spanish version.
Author's Information:
The book is an autobiography of an amazing deliverance and healing from the evil of schizophrenia after 26 years. It is an inspiring human interest story of triumph and hope over the worst kind of psychotic illness for which there is no present-day medical answer.
The strengths and appeals of the 16 Chapters embrace several thrilling themes:
1. The power of the faithfulness and love of God is supreme 2. The remarkable perseverance and endurance of my first wife Pamela, who died in 1981, and of my present wife, Tina, who were both inspired by God's love in helping me to freedom 3. The relevance of the power of prayer to cast out the demonic bondage, and revelations about the illness which throw light on the burning question - "Is it in the genes or is it demonic?" 4. Here is the answer for the medical world impotent to bring a lasting solution to the illness of schizophrenia 5. There is clear evidence for the church who can't make up its mind whether genuine born-again Christians, like myself, can still have evil spirits enslaving their lives
The account charts my "history" of schizophrenia and how I was affected by rejection in my mother's life from the time of conception. It details life up to teenage years, starting work as a journalist and the outbreak of the illness shortly after leaving Bible College. Visits to psychiatric hospitals, struggles with a growing nest of evil spirits taking up residence in my life and eager to destroy me, the inability of Christians to help me, are all recorded from a memory amazingly preserved by the Holy Spirit despite perpetual onslaught. Self-deliverance and healing by the power of the Holy Spirit within a matter of minutes are graphically described, as is the return to normal life after more than a third of a lifetime in bondage. James
"A road map to victory for every person diagnosed with schizophrenia – every psychiatrist and counsellor needs to read it.” Peter Laue of Stretcher Bearers for Christ USA
11 Year-Old Proclaims Jesus Through the Bible - POWERFUL! Josiah Willis is an 11 year-old with a heart on fire for Christ! Listen to this AMAZING proclamation of Jesus throughout the entire Bible. It will leave you in awe and speechless!
READING THROUGH THE BOOK GOD WROTE
Jesus replied: “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.” John’s Gospel 14: 23-24
The One Year Bible Plan - Appearing Week by Week September 16 - 25, 2021
Well-known Baptist preacher, Charles H. Spurgeon, commenting on Psalm 119 verse 15 says: “Hearing, reading, marking, and learning, all require inwardly digesting to complete their usefulness, and the inward digesting of the truth lies for the most part in meditating upon it. Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make but slow advances in the divine life? Because they neglect their closets, and do not thoughtfully meditate on God’s Word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they would have the corn, but they will not go forth into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it. From such folly deliver us, O Lord, and be this our resolve this morning, “I will meditate onyour precepts.”
In his book, Prayer Life, Andrew Murray teaches: “Little of the Word with little prayer is death to the spiritual life. Much of the Word with little prayer gives a sickly life. Much prayer with little of the Word gives more life, but without steadfastness. A full measure of the Word and prayer each day gives a healthy and powerful life.”
THE MESSAGE OF HOPE FOR 2021 “WITHOUT THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD THERE IS NO FORGIVENESS” - Hebrews 9:22
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
This is the voice of unalterable truth. In none of the Jewish ceremonies were sins, even typically, removed without blood-shedding. In no case, by no means can sin be pardoned without atonement. It is clear, then, that there is no hope for me out of Christ; for there is no other blood-shedding which is worth a thought as an atonement for sin. Am I, then, believing in Him? All men are on a level as to their need of Him. If we be never so moral, generous, amiable, or patriotic, the rule will not be altered to make an exception for us. Sin will yield to nothing less potent than the blood of Him whom God hath set forth as a propitiation. What a blessing that there is the one way of pardon! Why should we seek another?
Persons of merely formal religion cannot understand how we can rejoice that all our sins are forgiven us for Christ’s sake. Their works, and prayers, and ceremonies, give them very poor comfort; and well may they be uneasy for they are neglecting the one great salvation, and endeavouring to get remission without blood. My soul, sit down, and behold the justice of God as bound to punish sin; see that punishment al executed upon your Lord Jesus, and fall down in humble joy, and kiss the dear feet of Him whose blood has made atonement for you. It is in vain when conscience is aroused to fly to feelings and evidences for comfort; this is a habit which we learned in the Egypt of our legal bondage. The only restorative for a guilty conscience is a sight of Jesus suffering on the cross. “The blood is the life thereof,” says the Levitical law, and let us rest assured that it is the life of faith and joy and every other holy grace.
Extract from "There is hope for the schizophrenic"
Chapter 16 of Schizophrenia Defeated:
As my testimony has shown, I had the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life before my illness went into full bloom in my early twenties. Without that power I would have been unable to fight the evil presence of schizophrenia.
I also had a tremendously long period after healing and deliverance had taken place to allow myself to "catch up" on 26 years in which I had not developed and grown normally.
BUT GOD DID IT! The years after healing and deliverance were times of slow but definite progress, requiring most of all a dependency on the Holy Spirit to teach, correct, inspire and show those things I needed to know. I needed Tina's help too, and the prayers of friends, to get me there.
“WHEN I FOUND FREEDOM FROM SCHIZOPHRENIA, I GAINED CHRIST HIMSELF” Bethany Behney
I suffered for a very long time from severe schizophrenia. I recently turned 28. My world began to unravel in college. With an incapacitated mind I was forced to quit. From the age of nineteen to twenty-four off and on I would lose and regain my life fighting for my sanity. I fought for two-and-a-half years until I was finally delivered by Jesus Christ our Messiah on July 25, 2009.
The hell I endured to freedom was no easy road. Everyone forsook me. Everyone. Including the church. There was only one that never deserted me. And that was Jesus. He held me all the way through. Even when I was hospitalized and the demons put me in a coma and was left for dead!! When I didn’t want to live anymore, God wanted me to live and refused to let me go.
Schizophrenia is a hellish thing. Only those of us who have been in its grip can truly understand one another. It cost me my livelihood and relationships. As I was searching and crying out to God for help, close friends ultimately gave up on me, of whom were “believers”. I dealt with constant misunderstandings. I faced character defamation, gossip from an entire congregation, abandonment and false judgements by those who claim they understood but were dead wrong. But I kept crying out to God. I kept pleading with Him to reveal what was happening. It is surreal to practically lose your mind overnight and now know why.
Despite the disturbance I grew close to the Lord. This of course stirred up spirits that had rights tied to my generational line. You see, schizophrenia is usually passed down the line from the sins of the father. It takes a fiery persistence to continue offering up prayers and banging on the doors of heaven until the angel tips the bowls. If you ask the Father, shall He give you a stone? Absolutely not.
I kept banging and asking, and banging and asking until He answered and opened the door. The inferno of psyche was so unbelievably torturous it was uncanny. Quite honestly, I did not want to make it through. To be martyred would have been sweet. And I do not say that lightly.
I was on a run for my very life from Satan and his hordes. The battle to get free was so intense, medically speaking I should not be alive. But Hallelujah! We who have been adopted by the precious blood of Jesus do no not belong to the medical field – we belong to Jesus Christ of Nazareth! I am a walking miracle, dear ones!! I searched high and low for someone who cared enough to fight for me and with me. Brethren of three years deserted me and left me for dead. Literally. Then Brethren took me and prayed for me in their home the first time I met them.
For two-and-a-half-years, I stared hell in the face. I had to bite the bullet in many crippling situations and go from place to place receiving deliverance here and there because I was such a mess; people who were practising deliverance thought I must have done something so bad that they didn’t want to touch me.
I was tortured in the psychiatric units by physicians of whom I am certain were Satanists. I was locked into solitary confinement in a cold square space with nothing but a flimsy hospital frock on. However, angels were assigned from heaven and I was supernaturally delivered out of the hands of the wicked.
What got me through all of this? It’s a simple answer. I held on tightly to the robe of Jesus. Though I wanted to go to heaven, I couldn’t. It wasn’t my time. I was given a promise from God that gave me the will to live. He promised if I would just hold on He would give me a family, that which I never had – and wanted. So I refused to give up and give in to Satan and fought for it.
This is the point, dear friends. The blood of Jesus Christ is alive and powerful. It is sufficient and doesn’t need any medical tweaking. It is your only hope. Don’t give up. You know why? Because of this glorious truth and one of my favorite passages... “And having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it!” Colossians 2:15. Oh, hallelujah! All glory to the Lamb of God who overcame the enemy and bought us back! How sweet is His victory! He is always steps ahead of our enemies plans and there is nothing He does not see. He is in total control. He sees you and your pain. He has not forgotten you.
Listen! I can honestly say, I have suffered the loss of all things. In every area. There are moments I can’t bear to think of all that’s happened to me. Time being the most invaluable. I never got to be 18,20,21,22,23,24. Formidable years. Time froze and stood still and many years I don’t remember. But one thing I do and will continue to set before me. This world is not my home and I must press forward with what remains and fight for others. I have resolved to forget what lies behind and press onward.
“I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own yet; but one thing I do it is my one aspiration; forgetting what lies behind and straining to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the supreme and heavenly prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward. Philippians 3:13-14.
I trust the Lord with the entirety of my life. Whether I live or whether I die, I am His. He has delivered me from the power of darkness and translated me into His glorious kingdom of light. I am forever indebted to Him and tears well up as I write to you because I know that what He has done for me He can do for you. He is no respecter of persons and loves his children all the same.
Bethany jumping for joy after being set free by Jesus from schizophrenia.
I thank our Father for everything. I would not want to do it again, but what I have gained from the vestibules of heaven can never compare to any earthly thing. For what have I gained? Christ Himself! I have been set free from death and sin! GLORY.. GLORY..GLORY!!! I could never have gained such intimacy with Jesus - wisdom, knowledge, and understanding I now possess. Such are the acquired gems which only suffering can buy.
Jesus came to destroy the works of the enemy. I will fight against Satan in the strength of Jesus with all I have until my last breath for what he did to me - and because I have pledged myself to heaven. Keep your head up and look up for our redemption is drawing nigh and is closer than it has ever been. If I can do it, you can do it. I had no money, no support. And I am alive and free ... completely free! “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony”, Revelation 12:11. Jesus Christ alone is your source and He is never empty. He will never let you go. I send you my love. Even so come Lord Jesus! Amen. In Jesus Bethany Behney
At the age of 22 Nick Griemsmann was led astray by a cult. The downward spiral that followed led to a battle with mental illness, but his deliverance from "incurable" schizophrenia stands to testify of the power of being God's friend.
The interview is available to view at Sid Roth's web site Used with permission.
SID: Welcome, welcome to my world where it's naturally supernatural. My next guest had incurable "schizophrenia." He was touched by the power of God, set free and then became an administrator in the institution he was hospitalized in, 50 employees under him. Now I asked my personal doctor, Dr. Dietry, last night a question on the phone. "He went off all medicine, all medication, Doctor. To your knowledge, what happens to a schizophrenic that takes no medicine?"
DOCTOR: That's a good question. It's an unbelievable phenomenon, schizophrenia. When you come off medication, provided the medication was helping in the first place, you get an extra [unintelligible] a spike of hallucinations, ideations and delusions. It's not a very pretty sight.
SID: Have you ever heard of someone that's diagnosed with schizophrenia? Oh, I forgot one more thing. In a few years, he was supposed to be catatonic. That was the diagnosis. A thousand pages of diagnosis, Doctor. Have you ever heard of such a thing?
DOCTOR: Personally, I have never seen anybody come off of medication and be normal.
SID: Well but I have to tell you, Doctor, he is not normal according to the world. He is normal according to the Word of God. So Nick Griemsmann was raised in a secular home. His father left at age, when he was age eight. He got addicted to pornography at 10. At 21, he was a full-blown alcoholic and he was a bartender. But at age 23, you know, we take a lot of things for granted, at age 23, he's an alcoholic, he's a drug addict, he's a mess. I'm just saying it, Nick. And he gets a little tract about the Messiah, and he calls the person on the phone, because there was a phone number on this tract. And what happened?
NICK: The woman on the phone, she was really nice, and she asked me a question, she said something about, "Are you, have you received Jesus?" And I asked her, "What does that actually mean because so many people tell me different things about Christianity and I was studying different religions like Islam and Judaism, different sects in Christianity, and things like that. And so, "What does it really mean to receive Jesus?" And she said, "It's easy. The Bible says you can confess Jesus as Lord and he will come into your life." And so I said this simple prayer and he came into my heart, and totally changed me.
SID: What happened to your drug addiction, your alcoholism?
NICK: When I said this prayer, it was so incredible. I still remember it like it was yesterday. I was on the phone with her and I prayed this simple prayer of faith. I had just faith in God at the time. I said the name of Jesus. And the moment I said the name of Jesus this liquid love came upon me, and for the first time, I knew I was completely free from all my sin, alcoholism, drugs. I had a sexuality immorality I was into, you know the lifestyle of a bartender, and God completely set me free from that.
SID: You know, only God could do something like that. But then right behind the devil came up to him when that seed was planted, immediately, he came up to him because Nick now wants to live for God. And he goes on the Internet and he finds out there's a place where the guy says he's one of the End Time prophets and they'll give him food, they'll give him shelter, they'll train him. It sounded pretty good.
NICK: Absolutely. I was trying to find a good church and I found this online. And I thought, wow, I can leave all my old friends and leave my family, and all the troubles I used to have, and I can serve Jesus with my whole heart, because I really loved God.
SID: But it turned out to be a cult. The first crack that you saw in this cult was two of the senior members having a disagreement.
NICK: Yeah. One thing that the cult would preach, that they were sinless. They would say that they never sin or anything like that. And I was there and the men, one night they started arguing over something and they were like almost like throwing blows at each other and swearing. And I thought, they're preaching that they're sinless, but it doesn't look like they are sinless. And my heart started going, well maybe this really, maybe what they're telling me isn't all the truth.
SID: But you were so scared because they had this, was it a cassette, that you would have to listen to? And what was the warning it gave you?
NICK: In the cassettes, the prophet, the false prophet, he would say that if we left the church, because they said that they are the one true church, if we left the church it meant that we lost our salvation, blaspheming the Holy Spirit. So as you know, if you're a young person in God and you don't really know anything, I believed it and I was very afraid that if I left or talked to my family, they said my family was of the devil, I couldn't talk to them. And they said that I would go to Hell if I did anything wrong or if I left the church, or said anything about the person in charge there.
SID: But he had such a heart for God. He was crying out and crying out. And one day, he takes off. He ends up in the Nashville Airport. What happened, Nick?
NICK: Well I entered the Nashville Airport and at this time, I started hearing voices in my mind. Before I left the cult, I actually started getting voices in my mind and I thought they were angels, and I thought God was speaking directly to my mind. And so I would listen to these voices. And I was, they would say things and they'd say bad things. And when I was in the Nashville Airport I was going to go to a phone to call my family to pick me up. And the voices came to me and said, "You need to go and you need to make a scene and yell, and scream, and praise God in the middle of the baggage claim area in Nashville Airport." But I really loved God and I thought God—
SID: So you were willing to do anything for God. I wish, even though it was the wrong voice, I wish more Christians would be willing to do whatever God said. So they picked him up obviously. He's diagnosed schizophrenic. He's told in a few years he'll be in a catatonic state. He goes home to be with his family and his mother insists he go to a little Assembly of God Church.
SID: So my guest, Nick Griemsmann, had incurable schizophrenia. Nick, what is like to have schizophrenia?
NICK: Sid, if you could imagine, if you take a vice, a metal vice with spikes in it, and if you take this vice and you put it on your head like a helmet and then you start screaming in your head evil profane things, blaspheming God, you know, different things like that, the blasphemy, the yelling in the head to kill yourself, that there's no hope, and this cap would be on your head, and they tell you that it will never leave.
SID: So you go to this Assembly of God Church, you go up to the altar and someone begins to pray for you. What happened?
NICK: A nice man and his wife, they were praying over me and this spiritual force, I felt it, it lifted out of my head that night. It just lifted out of my head and at that moment I knew, I knew—
SID: What did you actually know? When this spiritual force lifted, what were, did you know?
NICK: Well I knew two things. One, that I was completely healed of schizophrenia at that moment. But two, I knew that there was some sort of evil nest of some type of spiritual force that some of it actually left, and I had hoped that I could pursue Jesus to receive my complete deliverance.
SID: So that was your first hope after all the stuff you went through. Okay. So you, step by step, the Holy Spirit directed you to do different things. I'm going to take you to your parents' swimming pool. What, tell me what the Holy Spirit was teaching you and what you were doing?
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour”. Luke 4 verse 18
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age of 22 Nick Griemsmann was led astray by a cult. The downward spiral that followed led to a battle with mental illness, but his deliverance from "incurable" schizophrenia stands to testify of the power of being God's friend. 