Sid: I just got a hold of a brand new book it’s called “How to Deal With the Cares of Life” by Pastor Charles Cowan. He is Pastor of Faith Is The Victory Church in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve got a copy of this book in my hand and let me read you a couple of excerpts from the introduction:
“We’re living in the greatest moment of the Body of Messiah we will know in the earth; for this is the day of the end-time harvest when millions of souls will be swept into the Kingdom of God. Signs, wonders and miracles of God’s power and might will be confirming the Holy Scriptures of God. And if you are in your place (Oh is that is an important statement let me read it again.) If you are in your place He is going to use you in a way that you never dreamed possible. We are the generation that will see the coming of the Lord. Today Satan is trying to overcharge you with the cares of this life so that God’s power can’t flow through you. He wants to keep you stressed out. My purpose in writing this book is to set forth spiritual principals that will help you resist the cares of life. By following these Biblical truths you will be strengthened and empowered to triumph, you can live above the pressures of life. And the truth of the matter is, whether you’re not a believer, whether you’re a believer, whether you’ve been a believer for a long time you know that you’re doing the opposite of what Jesus says ‘Worry for nothing.’”
I believe that there are keys like light bulbs going off that you’re going to hear this week. My guest as I said is Pastor Charles Cowan. I’m speaking to him at his office in Nashville, Tennessee. Charles, I have to tell you that when I started reading this book I said… well now I’ve been a believer now for a little over 30 years but there are keys that all of us have to start operating in because if there’s ever been a time of turning up the pressure so that we, the Body, will not be in our right place I think that’s what the devil’s doing right now.
Charles: Well, it sure is. And Sid let me say it’s really nice to be with you and on your program today and thank you for that. But you know today there has never been a day as I have seen as today where Satan is trying to displace the child of God. Get them out of their place and out of their position and to keep them from being you know where God wants them and needs them to be as He begins to bring in this great harvest of this end-time. And you know when you look across the world today and you see just in the world today a magnitude of stress. People are perplexed; they are operating in fear of what will happen; they are fearful of the political scene; they are fearful of the religious scene; they’re laden with care. And many of these people sit in churches Sunday after Sunday after Sunday so distracted with these cares, these worries, these fears that they can’t even give their attention to what is being administered from the pulpit; what is being taught or what’s being preached. And often times they will leave the services not even remembering, or knowing, or realizing what has been said that can help their lives because they are so focused in their thought life on what they are dealing with.
Sid: You know most doctors today when they don’t know the cause of a particular physical problem they say “It’s stress related.” Why don’t we define some terms; what do you mean by stress?
Charles: Stress is where some external thing, something from the outside; when I say from the outside not from within the spirit of man but from some circumstance outside comes to bare upon them and so squeezes them until that they, especially the Christian, until they cannot think straight as they ought to think. Pressure, it brings to them a feeling of helplessness, a feeling sometimes of hopelessness. Satan continues to screw that pressure down on them until they lose their senses of what God has to say in His word. In other words they lose their spiritual senses they’re looking at the circumstances. The external situations that have brought this pressure to them; which are saying to them there is no way for you to get out of this; there is no hope for you; there is nothing anyone can do for you and he just keeps tightening that pressure down. And they’re frightened out of their spiritual senses, or the senses of the word of God that they may have had through mediation in reading the word themselves. So that pressure is there to force them to think in line with that external circumstance.
Sid: You know I happen to believe that a great deal of sickness doctors say it’s stress related. And you know what, it is because you’re body gets so removed from the invisible laws of the universe; the word of God. That you’re blood pressure goes up; and a lot of New Age people advocate meditation in New Age principals it actually lowers blood pressure. But the Bible says that’s against God’s policy, however, I happen to believe it’s a counterfeit of something authentic.
Charles: Well it is Sid because you know that if you get a person of thinking just in the natural. If you get them to thinking about something else beside their worries, or the fear or the pressures that have come that in itself has a stimulus on the body and can affect you know like you say “A reduction or an increase of one’s blood pressure.” But just to think about it and reduce that does not eliminate the problem. It addresses the symptom momentarily and it’s only the word of God that has the life of God in it. Jesus said “The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are life.” And so God when He gave His word; all scriptures are given by inspiration of God. That means God breathed His life; His Spirit into His word. And when a person lifts that word off the pages of the Bible through meditation of the Holy Scriptures and reading of the Holy Scriptures they’re taking words into themselves that has the very life and the very power and the very ability of God in it. When they apply that type of thinking and those kinds of words against the external circumstances and forces that come against them, then the very life of God is at work in them now not only to address the symptom of the problem but to address the problem at its root cause. That is, that Satin has come to steal, to kill, and to destroy. And one of his major, major weapons or tools that he uses is fear of people or placing the thoughts in the minds of the people that this thing is going to take you down. You’re not going to be able to get over this; you’re not going to be able to win. And so the word of God will address not only the symptoms of the problem but it will go to the root cause of the problem and cause that person to be delivered from that particular situation. Whereas, in the medical world, and we thank God for all that the medical world does in helping people we certainly do not demean that in any sense of the word. But what they do so many times what they do is they medicate the problem, they give prescriptions. And what it does many times that medication instead of helping the person it puts them into a downward spiral or a stupor as it were. Many times brings them to the place that they’re not even able to function as they should, could, or would in life. You see, God He takes His word, you know the word of God is medicine and is health to all of our flesh. And the word of God then like a medicine goes beyond the systems and gets down into the very root of the problem and begins to eliminate it and not just medicate it; not just put a Band-Aid on it. But it actually helps to deliver us and set us free. And that’s what Jesus came to do.
Sid: Well you know one of the things that I’ve been pondering a lot lately is that there is some techniques in psychology that allow you to control your problem so it doesn’t get out of control. But there’s something better than control, it’s freedom.
Charles: Well see what people often do in my experience is that those types of things helps them to cope with the problem. Jesus didn’t come, nor did God give His word for us to cope with our problem. He came to give us deliverance from our problem and deliver us out of all of our troubles, or our problems. So we learn… people learn to cope or in other words to manage their problem; but they never get rid of what’s causing the problem. Many times they don’t even know what’s causing the problem. They just know that they have these emotions; they have these feeling and Satan just batters them then with things then in the natural world around them that just further causes those feelings and those emotions that they have just to run their thinking way out on the far edges of “There’s nothing I can do; there’s no hope for me; how am I going to get out of this.”
Sid: Charles, we’re out of time right now we’ll pick up here on tomorrows broadcast.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth