Rebuking the Enemy & Speaking Life

In her early teens, Taylor had been an active healthy athlete. At age 15, she stopped playing soccer and her social circles changed. Out of boredom she began using marijuana, cocaine and Xanax. (Click to enlarge)There was a sense of panic in the air, as EMT's and hospital staff worked feverishly to revive a young woman. She had been dropped off at the hospital by unnamed friends. When EMT's approached her, she was unresponsive, not breathing and without a pulse. By all accounts she was dead. How long she had been that way was unknown, but it was evident that she had overdosed on drugs. The panic at the hospital spread as her friends and family were notified of the dire situation.

The young woman's uncle, a police officer and EMT, was the first family member to arrive at the hospital. He recognized the bleakness of his niece, Taylor's situation. Assuming all was lost, he chose to wait at the hospital to comfort his sister, Taylor's mom, when she arrived.

Taylor was totally unaware of the earthly chaos and severity of her circumstances. "I opened my eyes, and I was in a grassy meadow. It was beautiful with trees surrounding it, and I felt this overwhelming love—like nothing I've ever felt before. It [heaven] is indescribable. I looked in front of me and I saw my grandmother sitting in the field (she had died about six years prior to my overdose) and I walked up to her and sat beside her. I started to ask her Taylor was born again when she was very young and had been raised in a Christian home. Both her mother and her grandfather frequently listened to Andrew. Taylor's grandfather would call each day, when she was small, to let her know Andrew's TV program was about to start.
(Click to enlarge) why I was there with her, but she beat me to it. Her reply was in my mind, it wasn't auditory, 'You're in a hospital. You stopped breathing.' I was very confused by this, and I asked her, 'Well, do I have to go back?' She responded, "Yes, you do have to go back. It's not your time to be here yet," remembered Taylor.

Upon receiving notification of the situation, Lindie, Taylor's mom called her father, Frank, Taylor's grandfather, to share the tragic news. As she frantically told Frank, a longtime follower of Andrew's ministry, that Taylor was dead, he interrupted her. In a firm, but reserved tone he said, "Lindie, settle down. We're going to do exactly what Andrew and Jamie did when they got a call about their son being in the morgue. We're going to rebuke the spirit of death—command the spirit of death to take his hands off of Taylor, and we're going to call the life of Jesus back into her body. And, we're going to do that over and over and over until you get to the hospital and see what her condition is."

They both prayed on their journeys to the hospital. As Lindie prayed she heard the Lord say, "She will not die today." Shortly before Lindie and Frank arrived at the hospital, the medical team revived Taylor. Although she was still unconscious, she was breathing and her heart was beating. Once stabilized, Taylor was moved to the Intensive Care Unit where doctors induced a coma. They also Taylor and her sister Carly. Taylor's family prayed and stood on the Word, believeing that Taylor would live and not die—even as she "coded" for the third time. Her mother, Lindie, stressed, that it is important for people to believe God's report and not the doctor's reports. "I heard what they said, but I just chose to believe what God had told me when I prayed, which was, 'She will not die today.' (Click to enlarge) lowered her body temperature to protect what was left of her brain.

The hospital staff worked diligently with Taylor, but because of the quantity of drugs found in Taylor's system, they fully expected her to die. Though shaken, Lindie remained calm, prayed in the spirit and continued to rebuke the enemy's attempt to take her daughter.

Upon his arrival at the hospital, the medical team informed Frank of their concern for Taylor's brain. "Don't be concerned about her mind; it's as good as yours or mine," he said unmoved by the scene. Afraid Frank had not understood the severity of the situation, the doctors reiterated their worries. Frank, confident in the Lord's faithfulness, acknowledged what they had said and repeated his statement. The doctors stormed away in disbelief.

A few days later Taylor woke up and was completely unaware of her situation, but based on her family's reaction, she sensed that something terrible had happened. Later that day, she sent the ICU into a frenzy when she went into respiratory and cardiac arrest. The medical team was able to revive her temporarily, but she died for a Taylor and her daughter. Taylor was 22 when she overdosed, and her baby was only five months old. When Taylor took her daughter to school for the first time, Lindie saw that Taylor was crying. Lindie asked her why, and Taylor replied, "I'm just so happy to be here." (Click to enlarge)third time a little while later.

"My sister, Carly, told me that there were ten to fifteen people in my room doing CPR and trying to keep me alive. She said that there was a pool of blood on the floor under my bed, and my eyes were empty like I was dead. She said, I was also bloated and swollen and my fingers were blue," Taylor recalled as she shared what her sister had seen.

Finally, the team stabilized Taylor again, but they told Lindie that if Taylor's blood pressure didn't rise, they would lose her for good. Taylor's family and Deuane Woodard, a close family friend and CBC-Colorado graduate, sat outside of Taylor's room and prayed for about six hours for her blood pressure to return to normal—by the following morning it had.

Taylor was in the hospital for nearly two weeks, and she flat-lined three different times. The actual time she had been dead, prior to her arrival at the hospital, is uncertain, yet she not only left the hospital, but she left without any sign of brain or organ damage.

Taylor is thankful that her grandfather was aware of what had happened to Andrew's son, and how he used Andrew's testimony, and applied it to Taylor's situation. Today, Taylor loves the Lord, attends church and listens to Andrew when she can. She is also attending classes at a local college. Taylor's future is bright.
(Click to enlarge)Lindie recalled the first time she and Taylor met with the neurologist, "Dr. Matthews said, 'Not only should you not have lived with all the drugs that were in your system, but if somehow you did live, you should have been a vegetable. I cannot believe I am sitting here talking to you. It is a miracle that you are here—you should not be here."

While Taylor was dead, she heard Jesus tell her that when she went back, she would be a different person, and that she would become the person he had planned for her to be. Her mother attests to this saying, "Taylor is a completely different person than she was before her overdose. Taylor had a bad temper, and she never gets mad now. She has patience and love beyond belief—that she never had before..."

Taylor said that her life before the overdose was very self-serving and hollow. Now, she enjoys the little things, like worshipping at church and watching her daughter do everyday activities. "Recently she started school, and I can't even tell you how grateful I was to have been there, to take her on her first day. She was only five months old when this happened, and to think that I would have missed out on all of this greatness freaks me out sometimes. So I enjoy the little things, the warm sun on my face, my daughter's laughter, singing at the top of my lungs in the car, my family and a good movie. At the end of the day, that's all that matters—the love between us all.

Wim "The Flier" Set Free to Soar

Wim (which means "The Flier") De Vlieghere spent more than two decades crippled by chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and religion.
(Click to enlarge)Wim De Vlieghere was just 15 years old when he was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia. The medical professionals in Belgium, Wim's homeland, said his ailments were incurable and they could not offer him the miracle he needed.

As the years passed after his diagnosis, Wim slid into a dire state of hopelessness. He said, in his Flemish accent, "I got really depressed. Life didn't make sense because it was hopeless. I became suicidal looking for a reason to live, looking for a reason to go on."

Although the weight of his sickness became a tremendous burden, Wim was initially able to use a variety of medication to make it manageable, and he was able to hold a job. The company for which he worked was managed by a Christian man who took a liking to Wim. His boss began sharing the gospel with him, and Wim was quick to receive Jesus as his Savior. He had found a reason to live.

Shortly after finding this new lease on life, religion quickly became an unwelcome source of strife. As Wim read his Bible, he realized that God heals the sick. This revelation was met with violent opposition from the religious people in his church. Their counter and errant doctrine pressured Wim to abandon what he had seen in Scripture. He said they did everything they could to talk him out of believing in healing. Eventually his unwillingness to let go of his revelation led to his expulsion from their church.

"At first it seemed that these people really believed in the full Gospel and all the works of God that go with it. But very soon they started to give me all sorts of reasons why I wasn't healed, like secret sins, or it wasn't God's time or that God wanted to teach me something through the sickness," Wim recalled.

Andrew listens to Wim as he joyfully shares a little of his testimony at a conference in the UK.
(Click to enlarge)Unfortunately, Wim spent the next 12 years bound by religious legalism, manipulation and intimidation from within the Church. Finally, he stopped attending church altogether. He continued to pursue the Lord and His healing through ministerial streams outside the Church—all the while his health continued to deteriorate.

Wim became so sick that at one time he spent five years confined to his bed. "I had no life. I was a prisoner of my bed," he said. Through all those years he clung to what he had seen in the Word and the belief that God could heal him.

In 2011, Wim met with a friend he had not seen in a decade. The two had a short conversation about Wim's health, during which the friend asked, "Do you know you are already healed through the stripes of Jesus Christ?" The question sparked a heated debate that ended with Wim extremely angry.

"I thought he was mocking me. I asked, 'How can you say that I am healed, when I am sick as a dog?' I threw all the religious mumbo-jumbo at him that I had learned in the 22 years I had been in church, and he killed every one of them with the Word of God—he slapped me in the face with the Truth," said Wim.Wim at a Gospel Truth Seminar in the UK in 2011. (Click to enlarge)

Though the conversation with his friend was unpleasant, something changed in Wim's heart. The truth of the Scriptures his friend had shared stirred in him. A short time later Wim's brother gave him a CD about healing. The disk included various minister's teachings, including one by Andrew. Wim listened to the CD for months and studied the Word until he realized that healing was, in fact, for today. Wim wanted more than ever to be healed.

Needing a change in his spiritual surroundings, Wim went to Germany to visit some friends. While he was with them, he had access to a computer and the internet, something he did not have at home. Immediately, Wim went to Andrew's website to see the man to whom he had been listening. Once on the site, he began to watch archived videos of Andrew's Gospel Truth Seminars. He watched God Wants You Well and was energized. Then he watched You've Already Got It and the teachings pushed his energy and expectancy for healing into another gear.

Wim shares a teaching on his youtube channel. (Click to enlarge)"All of a sudden I realized that God had already healed me 2000 years ago...I had to stand up and take the power and authority He had invested in me and command these things to get out of my body," Wim said excitedly.

As Wim finished watching the You've Already Got It series, he stood in agreement with Andrew's prayer for healing at the end of the final session. He didn't feel anything, but believed in his heart that something had happened. Wim recalled that Andrew had said when a person has had a sickness like Wim's (one that had been around for a long time) that the person should attempt to do something they were previously unable to do. Wim decided to go out to dinner. As Wim ate, he prayed in the Spirit, and he had an overwhelming desire to go running—not something someone with chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia is likely to desire. In his mind he wondered if he was goingcrazy, but the desire to run intensified.

After dinner Wim went for a run. He said, "As soon as I started running, I prayed in tongues and there was an explosion of power on the inside. I started racing! I raced all the way up to the bridge on the other side of the city and back (2.5 miles) at high speed, shouting, 'Halleluja, I am healed!'"

When he went back to his friend's house, he declared that he would not be sick another day, and he promptly took his shoebox full of pills and threw them in the garbage. More than a year has passed since Wim received his healing, and he hasn't taken another pill. In fact, he left sickness behind and has gone into ministry sharing the truth of the Gospel with all who will listen.

Francesca's Road to Freedom

Anxiety disorders with names such as: Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Panic Disorder, Agoraphobia, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Emetophobia, which is the debilitating fear of vomiting, can be crippling, and all sound extremely unpleasant. To be diagnosed with any one of these disorders would indicate the severity of some form of trauma in one's life. But to be diagnosed with all of them, as Francesca was, would indicate that life had gone terribly wrong. Francesca had been struggling with these conditions for 27 years. Numerous medications, therapists, and every other kind of treatment available, all failed to help her overcome her vicious and obscenely abusive childhood. In fact, as Francesca Francesca spent her childhood unaware of true affection, and sustained constant physical and psychological abuse at the hands of those with whom she should have been safest. neared age 50, the trauma of her youth was compounded by the severe mistakes of her adult years, and she was getting progressively worse.

Recently Francesca stumbled upon Andrew's Gospel Truth program. At first she thought he was the most boring preacher on television, and she would change the channel when he would come on. "He wasn't the flashy, screaming, slapping-people-on-the-foreheads, selling-prayer-cloths-and-healing-water kind of guy. He just sat there and talked—like he was having a conversation with a friend in his living room," Francesca shared. Andrew's calm demeanor was too boring to keep her anxious mind interested for very long. Then, one morning, after a horrible night of not sleeping, struggling with panic attacks, flashbacks, and every other symptom that comes with PTSD, Francesca turned the TV on and there was Andrew teaching about hope. Hope—something Francesca had lost a As a child, Francesca misunderstood inappropriate contact as affection.long time ago. She had prayed to God for years to be healed, delivered, rescued and restored from the trauma she had suffered at the hands of those with whom she should have been safest. She begged, pleaded desperately and tried to make deals with God, all to no avail.

Something was different about that morning as she listened to Andrew. Suddenly, Francesca was filled with hope and she craved, in her own words, "literally, physically craved more of his teachings." She visited Andrew's website in search of more materials and was shocked and pleased to find all of his teachings downloadable and free. "I started downloading and listening day and night until I got so tired, I'd fall asleep listening," said Francesca.

After soaking in the revelation of Jesus found throughout Andrew's messages, Francesca decided to rededicate her life to Jesus. She called Andrew's Help Line and a prayer The trauma sustained during childhood, negatively affected Francesca's judgment as an adult. minister helped her receive Salvation. Since that day, Francesca has been devouring Andrew's teachings. "I have given up watching TV. I'm just not interested anymore and yet, before that, TV was my constant companion, the one thing that served as a distraction from my situation. Now, all I want to listen to is Andrew's teachings, and I have set my alarm for 7:20 a.m. every morning, so I can start my day by watching him on TV every weekday at 7:30 a.m., which is when The Gospel Truth airs here in Toronto," said Francesca enthusiastically.

What modern medicine and psychiatry couldn't do in 27 years, Andrew's Christ-centered teachings accomplished in a few short days. Francesca is now completely free of all PTSD-related symptoms and she says she has a peace that surpasses all understanding. "I was so mad at God for not answering my prayers, so much so that I had become suicidal. I didn't care if I went to hell because I was already living in hell here The crushing weight of her youth coupled with multiple abortions and two failed marriages left Francesca suicidal. on earth. I was also at a point where I was seriously considering turning to the devil for help because I saw "bad" people living wonderful, healthy, free lives, and I was a prisoner in my own body and God wasn't helping me. I wanted the pain to stop so badly that if it meant turning to the devil for help, I was going to do it," said Francesca.

Finally, after being tortured for 27 painful years, Francesca has been delivered from the spirit of debilitating fear, and all her other debilitating, physical and psychological, symptoms are gone as well. Francesca is excited about life now. She feels good, and she has hope. Francesca said, "It wasn't God who wasn't doing anything, it was me who was doing all the wrong things. Now that I have finally been healed, I have to rebuild a life from scratch because everything I had and worked hard After hearing Andrew teach about the Hope found in Jesus, Francesca found true freedom! The revelation of Jesus set her free from a lifetime of torture.for, this debilitating fear took away: My career, my finances, my house, my marriage, my peace, my joy...and almost my faith in God."

While Francesca rebuilds her life free from the torment of anxiety, she has new-found desires in her heart. Besides having the desire to acquire and complete CBC's correspondence program, Francesca has hope-filled dreams of one day becoming a counselor. She also wants to be able to give back to Andrew's ministry. While her current financial situation prevents her from giving as generously as she would like, she has found another way to be a blessing; she has offered her time as a volunteer at the ministry's offices in Toronto.

Francesca is grateful for Andrew's ministry and his teaching of the Gospel Truth. She said, "You may very well have saved my life because while I did not want to kill myself (I'm a mom and therefore don't have the luxury of suicide) it certainly was something that entered my mind on a daily basis. I would say to myself, 'If this gets to a point where I really can't handle any more, I can always kill myself to make the pain and the fear stop.' Well, the pain and fear have stopped—thanks to God and to Andrew."