Participants: Pr. Marquis Johns (Host), Cody Stewart
Series Code: TNJ
Program Code: TNJ000022
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00:09 Welcome to The New Journey, a program about real life people
00:12 with real life testimonies doing real life ministry for Jesus 00:16 Christ. I'm your host Pastor Marquis Johns. Join us on 00:20 The New Journey. 00:22 ¤ ¤ 00:52 On the way over to a place called the Gadara Jesus 00:58 encounters the man who for his life has been riddled with 01:02 demons and no one could do anything with him. From time to 01:05 time he's been bound with fetters and chains and he's 01:08 broken those asunder. As I've read that story I've always 01:12 wondered could that happen today where Jesus just steps into 01:15 someone's reality, someone who is professedly demon possessed 01:19 even, and free them from demons. On today's show we have one such 01:23 a person. Cody, how are you doing today? 01:25 Doing good. How are you doing? 01:26 Fantastic, fantastic. First of all tell us your name and where 01:29 you're from. Cody Stewart from Indianapolis. 01:32 OK, so now you heard my introduction. That might sound 01:38 to our viewers like a little bit much. Tell us about your 01:43 upbringing and start to lead us on your journey. 01:47 Well thinking back on where everything started out from a 01:52 young kid I watched a lot of drinking and craziness going on 01:59 in my household. You know, I was thinking back I used to go to 02:05 18 at Fountain Square and I'd walk home. You could walk to 02:10 school and when I'd walk home my mom would be there passed out 02:15 and pill bottles on the floor and alcohol. My dad wasn't 02:21 around a whole lot. I made straight F's in school even in 02:27 grade school. I was never there. I remember one time my wife 02:33 later on in life she found one of my report cards, like in 02:39 fourth grade, and I made straight F's and I missed more 02:45 days than I was there. 02:47 I had similar experiences where you look at your report 02:50 card and you wonder how is this possible, having just as many 02:55 absences or tardies as you do actual attendance. Remarkable. 03:00 I don't know how I was able to do that. But needless to say 03:04 so school is just not your bag. You're just not there. So, what 03:08 type of activities do you engage in to supplement you supposedly 03:12 being in school? 03:13 From a young age I started drinking. 03:17 OK, you say young. Tell us now. 03:21 Probably 14, 15. Drinking, doing drugs. Everybody was smoking 03:26 pot. I didn't like it. I wanted something harder, heavier. 03:31 That wasn't my thing. So, mine was LSD and whiskey. 03:37 So, let's frame this correctly. So at 14 you're dropping acid, 03:44 and drinking whiskey. 03:48 Yeah. You know it just seemed normal and it became every day. 03:52 You know at a young age I can recall back when I was 15, 16 03:56 years old it was nothing to get a... And my mom, she just didn't 04:02 know no better. Many time she got me liquor and we'd get 04:06 a bottle with a handle on it, half gallons of Jim Beam, and 04:11 I mean she'd say well don't leave the house. She just didn't 04:15 no better. But what happens, I started pulling a hate over 04:19 everything. Now most of our viewers may not 04:26 be familiar with the effects of LSD. I shared with one of our 04:31 previous guests, the LSD became my drug of choice. LSD, you have 04:35 this blackout 8 hours, 8 hours you got a blackout and 04:39 when you get skilled at it you realize you need to put in some 04:44 Vitamin C so that the hallucinogenic properties 04:46 really take root and feed on that Vitamin C. Now are you 04:51 doing LDS every day? 04:52 I was doing LSD a lot. I was on some form of a drug whether 04:57 anybody around me would even know, I was always on something. 05:04 But, LSD, yeah, me and it we grew to be together, a love/hate 05:10 relationship. LSD, it got to the point where I'd have to take 10 05:15 hits of acid just to even get me off because I was so immune to 05:20 it. Yikes! Like I said, as a young kid I could drink a half 05:24 gallon of whiskey and I'd have people... I remember one time I 05:29 got arrested. Some things went down, a police force showed up 05:34 on us. We was young, we was about 16 years old. We ended up 05:39 getting arrested by being at the wrong place at the wrong time. 05:43 Let's put it that way. I could have went away for a long time 05:46 right then. But I remember the cops kept saying you guys are awful 05:50 young to drink that many bottles of whiskey. There was all kinds 05:53 of half gallons bottle we'd drank there that night. 05:58 Wow! So, 15, 16-year-old kid has made a decision a long time ago 06:02 that school just wasn't for him. So he's given over to a life of 06:08 alcohol, drugs and violence. Walk us from about 15 let's say 06:13 to about 20 years of age. Walk us through that period of time 06:17 in your life. 06:18 Fifteen to about 20? Around 16 I found my dad dead and I 06:24 remember the last thing I'd done was cuss him out. I was playing 06:31 loud music up in my room, getting a tattoo, and I remember 06:37 he told me to turn it down and I cussed him out and he just left 06:42 me alone. Then my mom left and I either went with her or I 06:48 stayed home. I wasn't going with her, no way. We didn't have a 06:53 good relationship at all. So I stayed and just pretty much 07:00 lived and fended for myself. I ended up getting with my wife 07:06 at a young age. We'd been together since we was kids. 07:10 By the time we was 21, we had three kids. I wanted to do right 07:16 I worked a job. I wanted to do right. Everything in my wanted 07:20 to do right, but I still done drugs. When nobody knew it, I'd 07:25 be doing drugs. Drinking, I drank a lot. I drank and drove 07:31 a lot. I'd go out to the clubs. Just craziness. Packing pistols. 07:35 Running around, just in a mess. Not knowing how to get out of 07:39 it. In all of this, the truth of the 07:44 matter is, you saw very little jail time, very little prison 07:47 time. No prison at all but just a little jail time. 07:49 By the grace of God. 07:50 Come on now. That's all I can say, by the grace of God I never 07:56 seen prison until I started doing the prison ministry. 07:58 Some county, you know, county paper, house arrest, years, you 08:03 know, all that mess that comes with it. But by the grace of God 08:08 never went to prison. 08:10 OK, so, let's back up a little bit. Let's talk about finding 08:15 your dad dead. How old were you when this happened? 08:20 Sixteen. We already know the answer to this, but I want you 08:24 to take us into your mindset, into your emotions at this 08:28 moment where, you're 16 years old. Talk to us about what 08:31 happens. You walk in the room, he's lying on the floor. What 08:35 happened when you found your dad dead and then how you behaved 08:38 subsequently thereafter? Take us through that period of time. 08:41 I partied all night. I was getting a tattoo. Me and a 08:44 friend of mine was up in my room hanging out all night. The next 08:50 morning, still in bed, I'd hear a scream that I just never heard 08:56 before. And I take off running towards it and it was my mom 09:01 and she was standing over my dad and he was dead. I just went 09:05 into a fit of rage. The first thing I did, went and got a half 09:10 gallon of whiskey and went off. Then I just started drinking the 09:14 whiskey and just kind of roamed off. I didn't want to be around 09:19 nobody. Like I said, it wasn't' like we was the Griswold's. I 09:22 wasn't consoling my mom. Not holding hands and hugging around 09:26 him. No we was dysfunctional. 09:28 So, your dad died of natural causes. 09:30 He just had a heart attack in his sleep. 09:32 OK, OK, so dad died of a heart attack. Boom, you take off like 09:37 light. Get whiskey. Get tripped. 09:40 Well it got so bad shortly after my dad died, my mom said I'm 09:44 not going to hang with you. There was me and my brother. 09:47 He's older than me. I'm not staying here with you two. You 09:51 guys are off the hood. We partied every night just a mad 09:54 house, all the time. So she said I'm leaving. And like I said, I 10:02 didn't have a good relationship with her so I said, good 10:05 riddance, we'll see you. 10:06 Right. So you meet this young lady. You guys have been 10:08 together since you were kids. How does she cope with this 10:11 life style of yours? 10:15 (Sighs) You know, I don't understand that myself. 10:16 You know, and there toward the end we've had our bouts, we've 10:21 been on and off, and on and off and there toward the end I was 10:27 just running wild, just off the chains. But God's restoring it 10:33 today. The Lord's restoring it. Nothing else would be able to 10:38 restore that. The Lord's restoring my relationship with 10:42 my kids. I love my family today they mean everything to me. 10:47 I see that, I see that. So, OK, again let's frame this correctly 10:53 Fifteen year old kid, dysfunctional family, mom on 10:59 drugs and alcohol herself. Dad just found him dead sixteen. 11:03 Partying hard, you and your brother, police are coming out 11:07 wondering how you guys are knocking back this many 11:10 bottles of 11:11 whiskey with handles on them. Somehow you're making it 11:16 through life with little to no education, an alcohol habit, 11:23 and a drug habit. Cody, come on That sounds too fanciful. You 11:27 got to walk me through this. I don't understand that. I mean 11:32 our viewers may not understand and hindsight being 20/20 we can 11:36 say it was the grace of God. But come on man. From that time 11:40 until now. How were you surviving? 11:42 You know, I got locked up in juvenile when I was young, done 11:48 a little time in juvenile and then at 18 I caught my first 11:54 DUl. It just stayed steady, like I said, and then it would go 11:58 a while. So the charges wouldn't be much and stay in county. I 12:03 didn't even know how I was living myself. And on top of all 12:08 of this, there was so many demons on me that I couldn't 12:12 shake them. There's times that I've been wasted by myself with 12:16 tears coming down my eyes and I took my own 9 mm out of my 12:20 pocket and I put it to my own head and I thought man I can't 12:24 take this no more. But I didn't know no God. I didn't know where 12:27 to turn to. I didn't know there was anything that could help me. 12:29 'Cause I've been in front of psychiatrists, I've been to 12:33 places, I've seen things, I've heard people say things but 12:37 nothing was helping. There was nothing fixing it. I've had 12:39 psychiatrists tell me that I need to be put on meds. Well 12:42 meds wouldn't help me. I told them I was already medicated. 12:46 I've been medicated my whole life. No Jesus. But there's 12:50 people in my way that I see back now. I've had people try 12:55 to pray for me before. I came in one time to work and I was 12:59 methed out, I was methed out, still smelt like whiskey and I 13:04 come strolling into work and I remember a guy come up to me 13:07 wanting to pray for me. I said you don't need to pray for me 13:10 man, I'm going to hell. I don't know what you're talking about. 13:13 But this man continued to pray for me, he tells me later, for 13:17 two years solid as he looked over because he seen the bondage 13:21 that I was in and I don't understand myself how I 13:25 survived. I was on my way to this show and a good friend I've 13:29 known, he's been in and out of prison his whole life and we've 13:33 known each other a long time and I said did you ever think that 13:37 God will pull us out of what we've been in that no one else 13:41 could help us out of. Your mama wouldn't help you out, your dad 13:44 couldn't help you out. Your family can't get you out of the 13:48 mess that God can pull you out of. 13:51 So, LSD is the drug of choice. Tell us about when you get 13:54 introduced to crystal meth. Tell us about that. How do you... 13:58 Well, I've dabbled with cocaine my whole life too. I'd do 14:01 anything. My biggest thing was drinking. As soon as I drank it 14:07 was on. It didn't matter what you put in my face. But dabbled 14:13 in coke and coke just didn't give you what... That's what I 14:17 wanted for the money. It didn't give you the bang for the buck. 14:22 So, here comes meth. Well I liked it way too much. Another 14:27 one of them deals where... And what it done, I noticed when I 14:32 would do it, the demons would be on me even harder. I was trying 14:36 to escape. I wanted to escape. I couldn't get away from them. 14:40 I wanted to escape and I couldn't get away from myself. 14:45 Now tell me about this. You reference the demons that 14:50 attack you, the demons that you're being assailed by. Tell 14:51 us about when you started realizing, OK, wait a minute, 14:53 this is something... Because early on in this interview, you 14:57 said you know I didn't know nothing about any God. You know. 15:02 What was that? You had a keen awareness, it seems, of demons. 15:06 Where did this awareness come from? How did these demons 15:09 manifest themselves. When did they begin and how did they 15:11 manifest themselves over time? 15:13 It started as a young kid and it just got worse and got worse and 15:16 worse. The more baggage that was picked up and the more things 15:20 that was picked up, the more chains it seemed like was on me. 15:24 The more addiction. The more that I tried to feel something, 15:28 it seemed like the harder they were on me. And like I said, I 15:31 didn't know what the Bible said. I didn't know nothing about it. 15:35 So I remember when I picked up afterwards. I read in Mark 5. It 15:39 talked about a man that roamed around in the wilderness. He's 15:42 roaming around and chains can't hold him or nothing. And when 15:47 Jesus comes upon him he says, whew, what's your name. He said 15:52 my name is legion for many live in me. Well when I read that I 15:56 knew it was real. 15:58 You know, interestingly enough, the reason why the Bible uses 16:03 the word legion is because a legion was 1000 Roman soldiers 16:08 in the army. An army of Romans that numbered 1000 were called a 16:13 legion so this man was completely and fully possessed. 16:16 He had been picking these demons up over time. You know the way 16:20 you get fully demon possessed is one demon at a time. But then 16:24 when you look at Matthew, Matthew talks about how if you 16:27 expel a demon, it comes back with seven more demons and so, 16:30 that tells us that the demons, that you get rid of one, they 16:33 don't multiply by one. After a while they begin to multiply 16:37 by seven and seven leave, 49 come back and you can keep 16:42 multiplying by sevens and you can reach a thousand demons in 16:45 one person and so what you're telling me is you had gotten to 16:48 the point you resonated with a legion of demons who were now 16:52 controlling you. That's what I felt like at all 16:56 times. You know and I thank God that he sees inside of us. 17:00 Because nobody sees what we're going through, the pain, the 17:03 anger, the hurt. Nobody sees your insides. I don't care if 17:06 they know you your whole life. I don't care if it was your mama 17:11 that gave birth to you, they don't know what's going on 17:14 inside you. Only God knows that. 17:16 So, let's paint the picture here. Kid, again, grows up, 17:21 dysfunctional family. Gets exposed to alcohol very early. 17:26 Gets exposed to LSD. Finds dad dead. Mom says hey listen I 17:31 think that you guys are too wild for me; the same lady who would 17:34 pass out sometimes with pill bottles in her hand, tells her 17:37 16-year-old son and his older brother, you guys are too wild 17:40 for me. I'm out of here. You say good riddance. School is 17:44 nonexistent, who needs school. But all the while you're feeling 17:48 these demons and you transition from LSD to coke, from coke to 17:51 crystal meth. And you're just out of control. You're wild. 17:56 In and out of jail. That's who you were, that's where you've 18:00 been. So one day you find yourself in a jail cell. 18:04 That's right. Walk us through that Cody. 18:05 What happened? I catch a case. 18:07 What kind of case? I catch a case. I'm driving 18:12 drunk. It's four in the morning. I'm wasted. About hit a sheriff 18:17 car and I get pulled over. I get released. I catch another case. 18:23 Back to back. I'm sitting in a jail cell. You know, sitting 18:29 there full of hate, anger, pain. I've got murder on my mind. 18:35 I'm out of my head and the demons are getting worse and 18:39 worse. I don't know to cry out to nothing. There is nothing. 18:43 In my mind, there is nothing. There is no God, that ain't real 18:47 That's all a joke. That's phony I don't know what's in that 18:51 Bible but that ain't what I need You know. I'm thinking that. 18:55 I'm not thinking nothing about God at this time, but that's the 18:59 way I thought about God and the Bible. Didn't know who Jesus 19:04 Christ was. Have I heard his name? Yeah, of course. But it 19:08 says in II Corinthians 4:4, the devil's the God of this world 19:11 who blinds those who don't believe. I didn't believe a lick 19:15 of it. So, I was blind. 19:16 So, you were blinded to the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ 19:19 by that time. So you're sitting in that jail cell. What happens? 19:24 I'm sitting in the jail cell and I'm hearing voices, crazy voices 19:29 Their all over me. I'm feeling a lot of chains on me. I'm bound 19:34 up. And then all of a sudden from nowhere it was almost like 19:39 something grabbed ahold of me and I felt chills from the top 19:42 of my head to the bottom of my toes. Something I've never felt 19:46 in my life. I went from hate, anger and pain; it was almost 19:51 like my heart done a flip and then the next thing I know I 19:55 feel at peace. I feel a love in my soul that I ain't never felt 20:01 before. I've never talked to God So at this time I remember 20:05 saying is this, is this you God. I started to talk to him. 20:10 I'd never prayed, nothing. And he said I'm going to take you 20:15 out of darkness and you're going to walk in the light. I didn't 20:19 understand it, I didn't know what the Bible said. I wasn't 20:24 sitting in a church service. So what happened is I started to 20:27 seek him. I didn't have a bunch of friends that was guiding me 20:31 in the right place when I come out trying to do what I needed 20:36 to do. But I knew what I knew. As I opened that Bible it said 20:41 the sheep know the shepherd's voice. I read things like that. 20:44 It said even though your mother and father will forsake you I 20:50 will take you in as my own. From then on I felt the Lord. He 20:55 said he'd never leave me nor forsake me. I felt him walk with 20:59 me and carry me through things I could've never got through. 21:04 I've been to psychiatrists. They've tried to put me on meds. 21:08 Jesus was the answer. Nobody said Jesus was the answer and I 21:11 don't know if I would have heard it if they would have said 21:15 it but I'm here to tell you that Jesus Christ is the way, the 21:18 truth and the life. There's no other way. I didn't hear that. 21:23 I know that. It's not maybe to me, its' a fact. Because from 21:28 what was going on I figured that I'd be dead or in the penitentiary 21:32 for life. Something would go down. That's just the way I 21:36 figured. Instead Jesus chose to come take me out of the pit and 21:42 put me in the palace. And today, oh hallelujah, he's a restorer. 21:47 That's right. Not only that he's given me life. 21:50 I didn't have no life. I was walking around as a dead man 21:54 for 30 something years and Jesus Christ cared enough about me to 21:58 come love me in a jail cell. He didn't say this is what you've 22:03 done bad, I'm going to go ahead and condemn you. He just 22:05 straight come and loved me. And he said I got you now son and he 22:10 protected me from the demonic forces that's been on me my 22:13 whole life, built up over time. 22:17 So, Cody, God overwhelms you with love and light and brings 22:24 you joy. I can't even imagine the person you were before now, 22:29 but when you walked in I said you just have the gentle giant. 22:35 Your soft-spoken demeanor. From what you're telling me now about 22:41 your upbringing, only Christ could have done that, only 22:44 Christ could have done that. But here's what I need you to 22:46 to. I'm going to be taking the next couple of minutes. Now you 22:48 did a little bit of that as you we're talking, but right over my 22:52 shoulder there's a camera. There are some people out there, 22:55 they're drinking, feel forsaken by their parents, they feel 22:58 bound, they feel in chains, they feel like there's no way out, 23:01 no way out of the jail cell, no way out of the alcohol addiction 23:05 no way out of the meth addiction There is no mother to gather 23:09 them. There's no father to lead them. I want you to look into 23:13 this camera right now. I want you to speak, speak to their 23:17 spirits, speak to their hearts, speak to their minds, 23:21 speak from your experience having been where somebody 23:24 out there is. Just take the next few moments and speak into this 23:28 camera. Today the Lord has placed me 23:30 where I am for a reason. I could have never called this 23:34 journey out but today he wants me to speak to a lost and dying 23:38 world. There's somebody bound in chains. There's somebody 23:40 right now that's got a pistol up to their head. There's somebody 23:44 right now that's suicidal, depressed, angry, aggravated, 23:49 frustrated and they got no hope. There's somebody right now 23:52 sitting in a jail cell think I'm sitting here in orange or I'm 23:56 sitting here in stripes. Can the Lord set me free? The Lord will 24:01 set you free right where you're at. It's not a destination, it's 24:05 God's revelation that sets us free and puts us up on a rock 24:09 and gives us solid foundation that we ain't ever going to get 24:13 from anything else in this world I didn't even know how to pray 24:18 before the Lord stepped in. Today I know that my prayers 24:22 are just speaking with the Lord. Today I have a relationship with 24:26 Jesus Christ. Hallelujah. Today I do ministry in jails and 24:32 prisons and I would have never called that out. Today, whew, 24:37 I'm drug and alcohol free. Only by God's grace can that go down. 24:42 I'm here to tell you right now God ain't coming to look for 24:45 you to judge you. He's coming to look for you to love you. 24:49 He's coming to give the hopeless a hope. He coming to get the 24:54 unsavable saved. He's coming to give the weary rest. You know 24:59 one of my favorite scriptures is Matthew 11:28: Come to me all 25:03 who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke 25:07 upon you for my yoke is easy and my burdens is light. You're not 25:10 going to get that from nowhere in the world. You're not going 25:13 to get it from another drug addiction. You're not going to 25:16 get it from another person or a soul mate you're looking for. 25:21 Christ and Christ alone came and died on the cross for our sins 25:26 so that we may be made whole and so we can. Freedom. Today 25:30 I walk around, it feels like a house come up off me. Today I 25:34 got love in my heart. I may not be where I need to be but I'm 25:40 way better than I used to be and today my worst day today is 25:46 better than my best day before I knew Jesus Christ. This is for 25:50 real or I wouldn't be sitting here saying it. I wouldn't have 25:54 just drove all this way to tell you that Jesus Christ is the 25:59 way and the truth and the life. All's I ask you today is just 26:03 grab a hold of him. Start to talk to him. Tell him what's 26:07 going on with you. Just ask him to comfort you in a storm. Just 26:11 test him and he'll be there. That's all you need to do is 26:15 just test him 'cause Jesus Christ came and died so we could 26:19 live. And I thank him for that and I give him all glory and 26:24 honor. This ain't nothing to do with me. The Lord is a demon 26:28 slaying, chain breaking, way making Lord and he is the 26:32 King of kings and I give him glory and honor today. 26:36 Cody, so this is the message that you're taking to the prison 26:42 Yes. This is the joy you're 26:44 to us. This is what you walk into prisons and you're able to 26:47 interact with people who are hopeless, not just via the 26:51 television screen but you're doing this on a one-on-one basis 26:56 now in the prisons. Yes. 26:57 Praise the Lord man. I mean that is an exceptional story, that is 27:01 an exceptional testimony. The thing I wanted to key in on is 27:07 that you made it very, very clear that you were bound, that 27:12 you were in chains, that you were trying not necessarily to 27:17 cut yourself, you tried putting guns to your head, you put 27:22 alcohol in your body. You put LSD, cocaine, crystal meth, 27:27 felt abandoned. All of these things and yet Jesus still 27:31 stepped into your reality, altered it and brought you to 27:35 where you are now and has now commissioned you to go to the 27:38 prisons and preach liberty to the captives. Brothers and 27:42 sisters, here is the reality of what Cody just said to us. There 27:47 once was a man roaming around Gadara, out of his mind and then 27:54 in stepped Jesus and when Jesus stepped in, the Bible records 28:00 that he left that man clothed and in his right mind. Jesus 28:06 can do it for you. Dare to Dream |
Revised 2017-04-04