Broken Broken

Speaker 1 (43s): I'd like to welcome you back to another Brevis talk. Our format will be a bit different. I'm in a hotel room and so if this microphone is not up to par, you can tell a difference. It is simply because I'm using a mobile mic. I do give the warning before every episode some of the material may be disturbing and so use discretion if you will.

Let's take a look at the word of God. Psalm 40 verse one and following says, I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined me and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the Miy clay, and he set my feet upon a rock and established my steps. He has put a new song in my heart, praised to our God.

Many will see it and fear and will trust in the Lord. Blessed it is that man who makes the Lord his trust and does not respect the proud nor such as turn aside to lies. Many old Lord my God are your wonderful works which you have done and your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted to you in order.

If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. Praise His holy name. Thank the Lord for his word. Thank the Lord for his guidance. Thank the Lord for his Holy Spirit and thank the Lord for Jesus Christ. The inmate and his family who I'll speak of today will be anonymous because of the nature of mental illness and the respect of their privacy.

This inmate was executed several years ago and it's a very sad, sad story on so, so many fronts. Let me give you the background concerning the family. The father is at least a regional regionally, well-known artist, and he has done some international work. I have, I've seen his work, very acquainted with his family. And let me tell you, this gentleman is a very, very talented man, very passive man, very quiet unless spoken directly to with a question.

He sort of stays in the background. His wife is also an artist, not to the degree of his talent. She's very, very mentally ill, remains mentally ill, and really not in touch with reality. The two oldest children are fine, fine people, and I have spoken to them at length many, many times and they are incredibly nice people.

The youngest son went to Texas death row many years ago. He and a couple of other youngsters broke into a home and as they were in that home stealing the homeowner, an elderly man came home and entered the house and then they shot and bludgeoned this man to death. Very horrible, horrible crime. An elderly man, from what I understand, just a pillar of the community, a very common man, a farmer, and he lost his life of no fault of his own.

These young men were arrested, two were underage, and I mean under age, under the age of 18. This youngest son of his family was 18 plus years old. I believe he was 19. And so he went on trial, was convicted and given a death sentence. His dad hired a very, very good attorney as a very good reputation, but he was not able to, to help them from the standpoint of keeping his son off of death row.

The fees this attorney required were in excess of $500,000, and to this day, this man has not retired. He continues to work a day job and then also his art. He sells it and and does quite well in that, but he will, according to what he's told me, he'll never retire, never be able to retire because he's paying that debt back. Well, the story really has revolved around the mother and the son who went to death row, extremely mentally ill.

The mother, well, let me see. Let me tell you this. This youngest child is a product or the offspring of an adulterous relationship and he doesn't look like the other two children. The stepdad, I guess you'd say, who's raised him, who's known, he's only known as a son. A father knew early on that that was not his child. Yet he has raised that child no different from his two biological children with this young man and his mother extremely mentally ill.

Let me tell you about the mother. She will go three to five days without sleep. Yes, three to five days, and she cycles in. She's an untreated bipolar person. She will have this gust of energy. Will she will clean house, be up at all hours, she will do yard work and then she will crash and sleep for several days. And that's been her lifestyle. She's a very domineering person, very strong personality, and again, the father is very passive and what she says goes, what she says is not challenged.

The family has just coming to this role playing, if you will, where they agree with her because of the, it's just peaceful. It's easier they say that way rather than the the explosion. So personally, my opinion is that they have for a number of years enabled her and she has never gotten the help that she needs. She's always been kind to me. This young man was on death row before he was executed, some 12 years.

They came to visit their son, four hour drive one way, eight hours round trip. They visited him every week. They would make that drive and have a two hour visit. The only exception would be if a holiday got in the way, if some bad weather. Occasionally in those times there was ice on the road. The travel was not safe. But with those exceptions, they visited him every week.

I don't know really any other inmate that received a visit every week. Very loyal to him, very strange visits. I was in on a visit or two with them and they would stare at one another and make small talk and really not make small talk. They were long moments, minutes of silence, and it was sort of unnerving as they would just sort of look at one another, stare at one another.

Then they would look off as if something else had gotten their attention. Very, very unusual. I I, I can't even begin to describe how strange these relationships were. I was asked to visit the son by a family friend and I did. He's very cautious, very suspicious of me. He suffered from being bipolar, also paranoid, paranoid side effects or para paranoia.

And he was suspicious of me. And there were days where he would be lighthearted and he would speak to me And. Then there were days where he would be tightlipped and believe that I was someone the government sent or someone to read his mind, and there are days when he would not receive me, would not visit with me, turn his back on me. And so I never know what I would get with him. I did visit him. My heart was tender toward him.

He just knowing he was terribly, terribly disturbed and broken of spirit. And I want you to know, in no way am I excusing what he did. I absolutely am not excusing that I'm simply the telling you the facts concerning the needs that he had. But we would sit sometimes without speaking, I would jump in as much as I could and make small talk and try to keep the conversation going.

Sometimes it seemed to be profitable, sometimes not. So I would read the Bible. He told me as I hear this quite often in our culture, now I'm not religious. I'm not a part of organized religion, but there is a spiritual side to me. I hear that all the time. People saying they're spiritual, they're just not religious. I don't really know what that means other than they believe something is supernatural, but they don't want to submit to the authority of God.

They want, they don't wanna humble themselves and those type things. That's at least that's what I have always understood and interpreted that by. But he, we had our visits and they were difficult and they were strange sometimes. And I visited him for a number of years. His ex execution date was set about 120 days out and his mother was in total denial.

He, he's not gonna be executed. That some of those words came from her mouth. There is no execution date. You are mistaken. My son has not received a date of execution. There were other thoughts that she came out with that he would die or if he would die three to three days later, he would rise from the dead. And so I tried to speak to her, to speak truth to her, to be patient and kind and gentle, but I never knew what I had.

And again, this is a strong, strong personality. One day she sort of got into my space. Well, she got up in my face and said, no, you listen. You listen, you, you don't tell me you listen. And she would go off on one of her tangents again, the passive husband, he never said anything. He never corrected her. There were a few occasions where he would pat her on the hand and she would calm down a bit. The children never corrected her.

They would sort of step back and just smile and hope that that would pass. And that seemed to be the roles that they played and terribly, terribly broken. The son was on medication. He was treated with some success as far as calming down his agitation and perhaps helping him a little bit with his depression and paranoia.

Doctors went through so so many medications trying to find something that would help him. And I would say at the very most, he was maybe 50% treated. And again, he had those breakthrough moods, if you will, where I was not able to make a connection. I will be honest with you. And there are times I was discouraged and I thought I was wasting my time.

I thought maybe I'm not helping him. Maybe I'm not helping them in any way. But it seemed to me when I would get discouraged that the, that the Lord would speak to me in my heart, within my soul and say, wait, I have never turn my back on anyone. And I am calling you to be a part of this family. I called you and your task, your effort, your ministry is not done here.

Again, I'll tell you, it was very difficult not knowing what I would encounter. And so we made a lot of small talk. This young man occasionally would write really strange letters to me. He would write pictures of a maze and tell me, this is a puzzle. If you can figure this out, you'll understand me. It was just a, a bizarre maze, a schematic.

And he said, when you understand this, you will understand my mind. And I would visit him After that, after receiving that, he would ask me, did you get my mail? I said, yes. Well, do you understand it? And I said, no, I, I don't. And he said, well, you're not trying hard enough and see if you don't begin to understand me, then I'm not gonna be able to visit with you. And so distract him, never was able to understand those things.

Interpret. But he, he didn't stay on point. He didn't stay on subject very long. And then he would send me another picture or send me some bizarre letter And. that was just the, that's just the way we communicated. His mother would call me out of the blue, strange hours sometimes again, I told you three to five days she would be up and bizarre things. I think one time she told me the governor had called her and, and told her some things and they were bizarre.

And sometimes the husband would call me behind her and say, look, she's, she's hadn't had sleep. She's been up for a long time. The execution day, as it got closer, I had more contact with them. The attorney told them that there was no possibility of a stay, that their son would be executed And, that they just needed to spend time with him.

He was okay with that. He said, I did the crime and I need to pay for that. There are consequences. I am happy in the midst of all of his confusion and craziness, that he began to listen to me as I would read verses of scripture. And occasionally he would ask a question and he said, You know there's something out there. There's something out there when you leave life.

This is when you die. That's not the end of it. And I said, absolutely. That's not the end of it. And I told him about heaven. I told him about hell. I told him about forgiveness. I told him about judgment and we talked about what Christ did and he died in our place on that cross. And by putting our faith in him, humbling ourself, calling upon him, believing in his sacrifice and what he did, that we had eternal life.

Passage of scripture I'm reminded of. I go and prepare place for you John 14, that where I am, you may be also. And he seemed to be comforted from time to time by scripture. And again, as the day came forward or we got closer to the date, he listened more and he seemed to focus a lot better. I had friends praying for him, praying with me. And I can't tell you, I know we say we believe it.

The Bible teaches us this. And we say we all believe in prayer. What sort of Christian would say they don't believe in prayer. But in a way I found in a way that I had known the power of prayer. Now folks, I can't distinguish the difference between mental illness and demonic oppression. I believe we had both with this family. I believe that there was a brokenness of the mind, just like the leg is broken, you have to put a cast on it.

I believe there was a brokenness of mine. I believe there was a genetic component that what problem she had, he had is her offspring. But I also believe that there was a demonic component. I believe the inability to listen to focus. I could talk to him one day when he was, he was all there and I would began to share the word, the truth of the word, maybe read a passage of scripture.

And he checked out. And I believe that block, that wall that jumped up, I believe it was demonic. I believe it was demons trying to keep him held captive. Well, inter Cary prayer, intercession is God is in heaven. We are upon earth and there are individuals who have not touched God. And so we stand in the gap.

We stand between God and man. We call on God in their behalf and behalf of them. And that's what intercessory prayer is standing in the gap. Now, it gets difficult when you pray and you don't see any results. It is trying to the soul, it's challenging to the faith. But I have prayer warriors who I am tremendously indebted to.

I lost a couple a few years ago that went on to heaven. And there is a bit of a void. I'll, I promise you that there's a I need them. I needed them. I understand the sovereignty of God. God called them home. But these were people of prayer who called upon God and they didn't pray. Little nice prayers. You know you'll ask someone to pray for you. And they say, yes, I'll pray for you. And You know it's so they won't, you couldn't say they're lying. They'll say, dear Lord, help brother Whiteside.

But I'm talking about people who were warriors, prayer warriors who get down in the trench with a sweat and the the filthiness, the baseness of it, just get down in the trenches and hold ground and pray. You know the Bible says in Matthew that you must bind up the strong man before you can plunder his house.

Now that interpretation, I don't know that I know all of it, but I do know that the enemy has bound many people. And the way we overcome the enemy is through intercessory prayer. Prayer's a mighty thing. The Lord said that his house would be a house of prayer. He did not say that his house would be a house of preaching.

His house would be a house of singing. And absolutely we believe in the preached word of God. We believe in singing praise to Jesus Christ. I absolutely am not against that. and don, don't minimize the, but the Lord said his house will be a house of prayer. And quite often in our local fellowships, the Assemblies, the New Testament, churches are not houses of prayer. I've heard people say, well, let's pray so we can get onto the business.

Well, the truth of the matter is prayer is the business. I saw the power of prayer and what it did in this young man's life. As I solicited people and I asked people to pray for this young man, pray for his salvation, pray that light would break forth and it would shine into darkness. I watched the conviction of the Holy Spirit overshadow him and come into his life.

And I saw him able to focus, listen to the truth, and understand and comprehend the truth. Folks, he came to the Lord Jesus. I am convinced outside of ancestry prayer that this young man would be in hell today. And I thank the people who pray. I praise the Lord. I think maybe if we get to heaven, and God says, let me show you the mightiest saint who lived upon the earth.

It won't be Billy Graham. It won't be anyone with a pulpit ministry or a public singing ministry. But it may be a person out in the middle of nowhere with a broken, twisted body who could do nothing but pray. And by doing prayer, by praying and interceding, they did more than you and I were ever, ever able to do. That's just my opinion.

If I could help you and stir you up and challenge you and ask the Lord to convict you in your heart, it would be in this area of prayer. Folks, prayer is hard work. You could probably watch a two hour movie. And yet when you begin to pray, your mind goes everywhere. Maybe even unholy thoughts come. I believe that is demonic activity. Quite often the devil is resisting you.

He's coming against you. He's trying to get you off of this powerful thing called intercessory prayer. I wanna challenge you, some of your parents, some of your grandparents, great-grands. Do you pray for your family? Do you intercede that the Holy Spirit would touch their life, those who are outside of Christ? Do you pray that the little ones in your family would be convicted and come to know Christ early in life?

Not only does Jesus save us from hell, but he saves us from a hellish life When someone repents and comes to him early in life so he can save you and he will save you from hell, but he'll save you from a lot of hell on the way to heaven. Well, this young man asked me one day, what do I need to do?

What do I need to do? And I know what he was asking was asking What? How do I find God? So I began to read scripture, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That if you believe in your heart that God raised Christ from the dead and you confess with your mouth, you shall be saved. We look to scripture after scripture after scripture, and I asked him, is that something that you feel led to do?

He said, yes, please. And I was in right there. I had a front row seat to that. He bowed his head and just very sincere prayer. He confessed his sin. He asked the Lord to save him to come into his life, and I absolutely believe that he did. Now, someone's going to say, well, he was looking at a death date. And You know he had that 120 days and they were counting down.

And so that may have not been a genuine salvation. Well, let me tell you that he had a lot more time than the thief on the cross who called out to the Lord. The thief on the cross had a matter of hours. And yet he said to Jesus, be please remember me when you come into your kingdom. Jesus didn't stutter. He didn't stagger. Jesus said, today you'll be with me in paradise. You talk about a man running outta time.

And yet outta the sincerity of his heart, he cried out to Jesus and Jesus promised him that he would be with him in paradise today. Well, this young man was executed. I remember his final words. He asked the family or the victim to forgive him for what he had done and how he had hurt them.

He gestured toward his family, thanked them for their support. He mentioned me by name. He thanked me for being a friend. And then a few minutes later, he was deceased. Now, my story doesn't end with the mother. A couple of weeks after he had been executed, I received a phone call from her and she asked me for my mailing address.

I said, well, sure. And I gave her my mailing address. She said, I'm gonna send my son's glasses to you. His reading glass or his, well, not reading glasses, he, he wore 'em all the time, his glasses. And I thought that was a, some sort of gesture that I would have something that he owned. I said, no, ma'am, I I don't need that. And she said, well, you don't understand. My son can't see a thing without his glasses.

He needs his glasses. And then she began to tell me, she said, he can't come back to Texas because they'll find him and they'll put him back in prison. But he was your friend. You were his friend and he loved you and he trusts you. And so my son is gonna make contact with you and I need for you to give him his glasses. He can't see anything without his glasses.

I began to understand, I was talking to someone that was delusional and I said, no, ma'am, he doesn't need his glasses. He's in heaven. You were there that night when he died. And she said, no, he died, but he didn't stay dead. My son is alive. He just can't make contact with us because we live in Texas and the crime was done in Texas, but he will be making contact with you shortly.

And so what do you do? I didn't just passively agree with her like her family. I just said, well, ma'am, you hang onto those classes. I I I don't need him. And your son doesn't need them. Well, she got angry and she hung up with me. She called me a few war times later, didn't bring the glasses up anymore. She talked about some more bizarre things.

Long story short, myself and a, actually a newspaper reporter befriended her, tried to keep contact with her and tried to get her to get some help and to no effect. She got angry and she, she cut us off. As far as I know, if she still living today, her family is still playing. Their role is agreeing with her and she's still a broken person and she's delusional.

I don't think she's dangerous, but what a tragedy. What a tragedy that this lady was so seriously not in touch with reality and so broken in her mind. It's a sad story. I don't have a happy ending where she's concerned, but I am gloriously happy, rejoicing and praising the Lord that her son met Jesus Christ, And, that he was sincere And, that today he is in heaven, he is healed, and he is whole You.

know the Lord Jesus. He doesn't just fix broken lives. He gives us new lives. If we are in Christ, we are new creations. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. Now, I'm not suggesting that if you're a Christian, all your problems are gonna go away. I am not suggesting that you won't fight depression. Many will fight depression, it seems like until the end of their days.

But I am suggesting that there is power in the name of Jesus Christ and You know today you and I are as close to God as we want to be. You Think about that. I see Peter, James and John of the 12 disciples, Peter, James, and John. There are occasions in the Bible where Jesus called upon those three to go with him, mountain of transfiguration. But quite often it wasn't the Lord calling them and them alone to be with him.

I believe that Peter, James, and John were with Jesus because they wanted to be with Jesus. I look at my life, you take a look at your life. You are as close to God right now as you want to be. You can't blame your preacher. You can't blame your parents. You cannot blame your spouse or your situation or perhaps a, a lack of reading skills or whatever you wanna blame.

You can't blame anything or anyone concerning your walk or your relationship with Jesus Christ. You're, you're right where you choose to be. If you want to know the Lord greater, if you wanna be closer to the Lord, if you wanna comprehend his word greater, if you want more of the power of the Holy Spirit within your life upon you, you move closer to God. James four says, draw eye to God and he will draw eye to you.

So we quit the blame game. We move closer to the Lord and oh, praise his holy name. Isn't Jesus good? Isn't he wonderful? Thank the Lord for sending his precious son. Well, if you hadn't already figured this out, ministering with people, prisoners, whether they're free world people or incarcerated, it's messy business.

Humans are not so good. Jeremiah says, the heart is desperately wicked who can comprehend it, but the Lord is a life changer. The Lord is a destiny changer. The Lord and the Lord along changes lives. If someone may be listening here and you may be a religious person, let me tell you, religion will not get you to heaven.

A personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That's what you need and you're gonna be empty. You go down any path you want to in this life. You try every religion, every type of meditation you get into yoga. I wish. Now, I'm not suggesting you do, but you get into all those things and you will not find peace and fulfillment. Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone will give you fulfillment and peace in this life.

You may not know it, but he, it is he that you are looking for. Well, this story is tragic. There is a victim. There is brokenness in a family, but I praise to the Lord that light shined in a dark heart. God bless you. Thank you for stopping by