Sid: We want everyone everywhere to be Red Hot for the Messiah, but there is something separating us from these promises of God. And that something is sin, and it’s some of these sins are so subtle, I have Art Mathis on the telephone speaking to him at his office in Anchorage, Alaska. And Art I have a quote from you from your book, “Biblical Foundations of Freedom” in which you say that “We can consider our bodies to be excellent barometers for what is going on spiritually in our lives.”
Art: Yes.
Sid: Give me an example of what you mean.
Art: Well, we have lived in a certain thought process that we think as normal, and we don’t even recognize that thought process. But when we study what psychology and medicine and the Bible teach that, for example Proverbs says that “A good thoughts are health to our bones.” Well, the bones produces, the marrow in our bones produces all of our immune cells. So if we’re having a say an anxiety and stress disorder; let’s just take like asthma, asthma is listed as an anxiety and stress disorder and it’s caused by the bronchial tube and the ave liner, the lungs becoming rigid and trapping carbon dioxide and not releasing it. Well, if someone’s got asthma I know without a doubt that their dealing with fear, rejection and abandonment issues in their life.
Sid: I find it fascinating that if someone tells you their disease you know what the toxic emotions are that are blocking that person from being healed.
Art: In most cases that’s true because Satan repeats the same activities over and over again and psychology Medicine and the Bible the all teach the same things. There is not a disagreement. The most easy people in the world to teach this to are medical professionals because they see it every day in their practice. And most of what I teach I’ve learned from them, because they see it. So in the asthma we have a 100% healing success in asthma if people are willing to pray and forgive those that abandoned them and rejected them and that the fear of more rejection that comes in their lives. We see constantly little babies healed of the asthma or the colic or the weak immune systems that they are born with if parents are willing to deal with the ways that the abandonment came into their life. I was just in India teaching a Pastor’s conference in January and as I was teaching about the asthma and fear two pastors came to me talking about their little children; one a five year old and one a four year old that had severe cases of asthma. One was so severe that the child was having total analectic shock almost daily where he couldn’t breathe for five to seven minutes and would turn blue. I was scared for that child; now this child was 300 miles away at their home. I asked Mom, “What was going on, this was all through an interpreter, and she said that “We were so poor that the last thing we wanted was a baby; we didn’t know how to feed ourselves let alone feed this baby.” And that fear of the future affected that child. And as I lead the Mom and repenting for not trusting God to take care of her and the baby that God had given them, commanding that spirit of fear to go and commanding the lungs to open and heal the baby was healed instantly. The five year old was healed instantly as we prayed for the baby in this meeting, I had Mom call on the cell phone and talk to her son and he was totally healed. And I’ve heard reports since then by email by this family in India. This is normal, healings happen constantly in this way.
Sid: You know there is a big word that most doctors use when they can’t figure out what’s wrong with someone and I use to make fun of it until I read your book, and that word is called stress. I thought that that was just something that doctors came up with when they couldn’t come up with anything else.
Art: Well, stress is anything that causes a “fight flight” response. Anything that makes us get, our stomach get a little tight or eyes to get focused and we get that extra strength we start to feel in our arms and our legs. That’s a stressor and it starts that “fight flight response” that starts that fourteen hundred different chemical neurological reactions. But the biggest stressors in our lives are anxieties, worries, fears, resentments towards others, self hatred towards ourselves, the way we don’t like ourselves. Those are the biggest stressor that there are and every one of those emotions will produce its fruit of a disease in our lives.
Sid: And what’s the best way to get rid of stress?
Art: Well, trusting our Lord Jesus. When we understand that being afraid or worried or anxious is really saying Lord I don’t trust you.
Sid: Which is another way of saying sin.
Art: Yes, see most of us don’t understand it that way, but when we start to look at it in those stark black and white terms yes that is a sin. Then hallelujah we’ve found the answer, see we searched for sin because it is not in any form of shame or guilt, but because God’s provided and answer to the sin. There’s always provided a way of escape, so when I find a sin in my life my response is, hallelujah I’ve found another sin, all alike? No God’s got a way for me to get rid of this, so I start to pray and the Lord delivers me from that sin. But he can’t deliver me from the sin until I take responsibility for; until I confess, until I repent, until I command it to leave. I’m not going to live in this part of my old nature any longer, until I declare myself dead to that sin and that prayer process. So we teach people to shout hallelujah when we have a sin. The Bible tells us when we recognize a sin that we should repent. Only repentance is required, we should never go into a worldly sorrow for our sins which would be more shame and more guilt. So we need to overcome.
Sid: How do you overcome, let’s suppose you’re with a critical boss, a critical spouse and this is ongoing; how do you overcome that?
Art: We teach people that they can forgive right now for what we know is going to repeat with that boss or that critical spouse tomorrow. So we just take on the clothing, the attitude of forgiveness. Lord I choose in my heart to forgive right now what I know that is going to repeat at work tomorrow.
Sid: You’re talking basically humility.
Art: Well yes, and were talking about the power of God and we’re also talking about God’s love for us, because He’s always made a way of escape if we will do what He’s teaches. But we’ve often been taught that we don’t have to obey, that we are just going back under the works or under the law if we teach people to obey and we’ve left out God’s freedom when we teach that. We have to obey what the Lord tells us to do and there’s always a blessing found in obedience to Him because He’s a good God.
Sid: Tell me some diseases that are triggered by stress.
Art: Well, medical text books list over sixty diseases that they classify as anxiety and stress disorders. So we can put in that category all heart disease, all stomach issues, all ulcers, chronic fatigue, allergies are really rooted in the stress. Any anxiety or stress style disorder, all your blood issues, anemia, anorexia, eczema we’ve seen healings in all these things.
Sid: Now doctors talk about “You want to get rid of stress you should do deep breathing,” that just seems like a temporary fix to me.
Art: It is and it’s a manmade answer to the problem.
Sid: Or if you want to get rid of anger, anger is really energy so you get a doll and you pound it on its head and you get rid of your anger.
Art: Well, that again doesn’t put closure on it brings the anger to the surface, the only way to actually put closure on any anger or resentment or stressor is to truly forgive and then God’s power comes in. As Hebrew 9:14 says “It comes in and purges our conscience, it cleanses and renews our mind” and removes all the pain out that memory. Just rehearsing the pain or regurgitating the pain doesn’t help.
Sid: You know I hear reports of many great healing evangelists that get tremendous results, but then twenty-four hours later a number of the people that were healed all the symptoms come back. I think this is the reason they haven’t dealt with the toxic emotions.
Art: Absolutely, Karen would be an example. Karen attends our church here; she attended a healing meeting that I was part of in our church a year and a half ago. She had her blind eye healed; she had had a hemorrhage in here eye and all she could see was a big black spot. And in that meeting God supernaturally healed that hemorrhage, the black spot went away, she had total clear vision. On her way home that night she went back into her thoughts of fear, this healing is not going to last, and she got into a place in the road where there were no street lights and she lost that healing. The next day she had the same old black eye, all she could see was the black spot. And as we continued to minister to her two months later she received the full healing back as she got rid of that fear and that worry and that anxiety. That’s been two years ago.
Sid: You know I remember as a young believer I had a believer that was even younger than me came to me one day and he didn’t need his glasses anymore, he was healed. And he was so happy and twenty-four hours later he needed his glasses and he came to me and he said, “Why?” I didn’t know why.
Art: He had his anxiety, fears and worries; my optometrist teaches me that one of the biggest issues with eyes and how eye diseases and how we need continual stronger glasses is stress. The anxiety, the fears the worries, the resentments of life. And as we deal with those resentments then we find that that stress goes away. As we deal with those fears we find that stress goes away and God’s peace floods in us and then our bodies function in homeostasis and peace as God intended them. And those feedback loops and all those chemical reactions stop and there’s a supernatural peace that floods us and our bodies heal and operate as God intended them. And they don’t age as quickly, they don’t self medicate with the food or drugs or alcohol to reach some level of peace because we found the true peace through Jesus.
Sid: And your book teaches what we’re talking about right now and then has the specific prayers for all of these areas. How long has this book been out “Biblical Foundations of Freedom” it’s so wonderful?
Art: Well, we published it in 2000.
Sid: I know the reports you’re getting.