Sid Roth - He Literally Grew Up IN HELL
If you've ever struggled with shame, guilt or abuse, no more. When my guest shares, people are supernaturally set free.
Sid Roth: Stan, you grew up in what is becoming more and more occurring, what is known as a sexually abusive home, and you knew nothing about Jesus, yet God knew you, and at 2 years of age He started reaching out to you. What happened?
Stan Lovins: Well, at the age of 2, I was in my bedroom, and I remember seeing literally demons all around that room, and in the midst of that I heard a bunch of screaming and crying and hurting coming from my sisters who were being violated behind locked doors from my dad, their dad, and in the midst of that I was scared as a little child would be. That's... I grabbed the covers, and the only thing I knew to do is to cover, get covered, and so I pulled the covers up over my head. Literally in the midst of that bedroom there was an aura of glory that came, and I felt this presence of peace, and so I pulled down the covers as I heard an audible voice speaking to me, and it was a Father's voice. It was not subtle and simple. It was very much direct with love and compassion, and it began to speak into my life, and as it did, I had peace, and the rest came on me, and I fell asleep, and all the demons were scattered as soon as I uncovered myself and looked around. All I could see is the aura of glory and the audible voice of God speaking.
Sid Roth: Let's fast-forward now, and when he says abusive, he's just not being real graphic. It's about the move abusive situation I've ever heard of, Stan. Fast-forward 2 decades, you're playing professional baseball, but then your career got cut short, why?
Stan Lovins: Well, I was scheduled there with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and I believe that God wanted to get the Devil out of my life to get the real light in, and so as the accident happened, all I can recall that morning is, I was scheduled 11 days later to be in spring training, and so as the car accident happened, I went through rehab for 6 months and messed up my back, my shoulder, my right shoulder, my throwing arm as well as my neck and my left knee, and so as I went through rehab for 6 months, I was, as you can imagine, devastated because in professional sports, you're a product to the system, and if you're not producing and producing finances for them, you're expendable, so I felt worthless on the inside, and I felt literally lost on the inside out. I didn't know where to go, and so it was in June of that year. I laid before the Lord, and I didn't know Him, and so I laid on the hood of my car, and I said, "God, if this is life, if this is life, all the misery, all the shame, all the betrayal, all the hurt and pain, if this is it, I don't want it, take me out". I said, "But, God". I cried out from, and I believe it was my spirit man and I cried out. I said to God, "I want to know the truth," and that's when God began to reveal to me, and I began to weep on the hood of my car on that starlit night in June of 1997. And then, interesting enough, 3 days later I was at a widow woman's house. Her name was Margaret Rose Cox. She was 81 years old, precious woman. She loved the Lord, and she wanted to serve me, and as I sat before her, she said something, and I said something. She thought it was funny, and all I heard was her gasp for air, and she didn't do the universal sign. She didn't grab her throat and didn't hit her chest. She literally just sat there, and our conversation went to silence, and I sat there for the next 35, 40 seconds, I asked her. I said, "Mrs. Cox, are you okay"? And she couldn't say anything, of course, because she had just literally taken in a bite of a piece of chicken that got lodged in her throat. And so she gets up, and as she feebly begins to turn around and walk away to the restroom that was seated right off her kitchen, I asked her, "Mrs. Cox, are you okay"? And she kind of shrugged her hands like, yeah, I'm fine, but she didn't say anything, and she went inside to that half-bathroom, and for a myriad of a next 8 to 10 minutes God unveiled a vision, and it gave me this open vision, and He showed me the moment when I was a child at the age of 2 when my sisters were being violated, and He revealed that love that He showed me at that time and the comfort that He gave me and then at the age of 7 when I was molested by my dad, and at the age of 8 I was violated and molested and then essentially raped by my mom for a package of cigarettes, and then my five sisters, the screams, the taunts, the beatings, all the shame, all the pain, everything encapsulated in all the years of growing up, up until that point God unveiled, and my five sisters who were violated by my dad, and five of them were molested, and three of them were raped by my dad, and one of them conceived six times, and she had an abortion at the age of 11 and an abortion at the age of 14. Her daddy, my daddy, and she had a miscarriage at the age of 16 because they beat her so bad. She lost the child, and so in the midst of that she conceived three more times. Those are my half-brothers and half-nephews, and so God unveiled all these things in the midst of this 8 to 10 minutes and then plus me getting cut from baseball, basketball my senior year, so God just showed all the hurts, the pains and the rejection, the deep roots of rejection that this world had to offer. And so when the visions stop, audibly I heard a Father's voice speak to me again, and He said, "Go check on her," and I felt somebody tap me on the back of the head three times like I would one of my four boys. Come on, son, let's go, get up because whenever the voice spoke, I would just do what the voice said, and that's how I would see the results that God would reveal. I just didn't know it was God. I walked over to the bathroom, and a door was left open about 6 to 8 inches, and as I looked inside, there lay Margaret Rose Cox. She's face-plant first. She's pale as a white shirt. She's lifeless, blue lips. She's cool to the touch. She's starting to get clammy. She had no pulse in her throat or in her wrist, and then that audible voice said, "Pick her up," so I straddled her, and I picked her up, and I keep in mind I had a messed-up back, shoulder, knee and neck, and I still picked her up, and as I picked her up, I stepped into the eatery, kitchen. Then the audible voice spoke one word. He said, "Heimlich". Well, I'd never done the Heimlich before. I pulled up improperly once and nothing happened. I pulled up a second time and up come a piece of chicken the size of a quarter, and it flopped on that kitchen floor, and in the midst of this I'm expecting her to breathe because the chicken got dislodged.
Sid Roth: She wasn't breathing, on the floor?
Stan Lovins: She wasn't, breathing. She was lifeless, and as I'm held, hugged her in my arms, there's nothing else I knew to do, and in the midst of that widow woman's home came the same presence that I experienced as a little boy at the age of 2, and that presence of the resurrection, power of Jesus came into that widow woman's home at 34th and Kessler in Indianapolis, Indiana, and God quickened that body back to life, and she started gyrating, and she started gasping for air, and in the midst of that God didn't stop. The goodness of God, He was revealing His truth. He revealed His resurrection power, and not only did God breathe life into her. God healed my shoulder 100 percent. He healed my neck. He healed my spine, and He healed my left knee at the same time, and that was my introduction to the resurrection power of the truth of Jesus Christ.
Sid Roth: And you've been running ever since, praying for the sick and prophesying and dreams and everything in the Bible, but you still had issues with shame of what, how you were abused, how your sisters were abused. How did you ever get free of the shame and guilt and condemnation that you probably felt for yourself?
Stan Lovins: Well, I started running after God. I had an expectancy, and I tasted of the goodness of God, and the Bible says, "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good," and I saw that there was a true Heavenly Father that was a true Heavenly Father that wouldn't have hurt me or violated me or my children, and there was a Father that loved me. See, the truth is, Sid, you and I, not a one person that's ever been born ever choose our father or mother, but we can choose a Heavenly Father that would have the finest, and so with the capacity for the hurting, with the capacity that God downloaded in me, the goodness of God to bring healing to the hurting, I just began to seek after the Lord, and as I was reading in scripture over and over again, and I started seeing thousands and thousands of people being healed, freed, delivered and saved. God began to reveal to me even in the midst of all that, that I was still broken and still hurting. There was a anguished little boy on the inside that was just longing for a comfort from a father. And so I began to cry out to God, and He showed me in scripture, in Hebrews 12. "Since we're surrounded by such a great host of witnesses, let us cast down everything that ensnares us, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, as let us fix our eyes upon Jesus, the author, the perfector and the finisher of our faith who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God," and He said, "Consider Him, Jesus, who endures such great opposition from sinful men so that you would not grow weary and lose heart," and at that moment God showed me that the shame that I'd went through, the forced shame, the torment, even the shame that I chose after that because of spirits that had jumped on me that I needed delivered from. God began to show me that He scorned that shame, and I had to walk in my authority to reject it. And so then I was sitting in a car outside of a retail store, and I was longing for God, and I asked God. I said, "God, reveal to me, there's something that needs to be free that I don't understand," and I get a call from a woman by the name of Elaine Poland who was an intercessor. She'd prayed for me to be baptized in the Holy Ghost, and she called me, and she said, "Stan, the Lord prompted me to call you," and I said, "Yes, ma'am". I said, "What is it"? She said, "Well, have you forgiven your father"? And I said, "Oh, yes, I've forgiven him". We flip what we do. We say, "I forgive you," but we don't mean it from the heart. We just say it in our head to clear our mind, and so I said, "Well, yeah, I've forgiven him," and she goes, "No, Stan, have you forgiven him as Jesus has forgiven you"? She said, "Stan, God commands us to forgive," and I knew she was right, and immediately I said, "Oh, Lord, I forgive my dad. I don't trust him, but I forgive him, and I forgive him as You forgive me," and all of a sudden God began to give revelations, and so at that moment in time I began to really understand that it wasn't just me that had bondage of unforgiveness that got set free. I began on a journey to really set the captives free, and the root issue is unforgiveness, its bitter roots, and the Bible says, "See to it that no one takes you captive and that no bitter roots up in your heart to cause trouble and defile many," and so I realized that my dad had bitter roots, and that his dad had bitter roots. My mama had bitter roots, and I began to realize all the unforgiveness, all the unveiling in my family, and I began to see people as treasures, even my enemies, and my dad was my worst enemy. He was the one that commissioned me to go out and protect my sisters as he was violating them behind locked doors. He was the one...
Sid Roth: I'll tell you what, hold that thought. When we return, Stan is going to complete that story and pray for complete freedom from all shame, all guilt, all regret and all unforgiveness, be right back.
Sid Roth: Have I got good news! I'll kind of preempt Stan. God saved his mom, his sisters. They became believers filled with the spirit, delivered, but something amazing happened at your grandmother's funeral. What happened?
Stan Lovins: The Lord is a redeeming God, and God's desire is to bring healing to not only to us but to our family members and extended family members, and at my grandmother's homegoing celebration, I had been blessed to lead her to Jesus at the age of 84, and she had passed when she was 93, so my uncles had asked me to preach the homegoing celebration, and I was tremendously honored for that. And as I began to share and to testify, I looked out, and there was about 150 people at that homegoing celebration, and as you can imagine with all the hurt, abuse and shame, there was a lot of tension in the room, and as I began to testify to what Jesus had done, literally over 120 of them out of 150 made confessions of faith in Jesus Christ.
Sid Roth: At a funeral!
Stan Lovins: At a funeral, but it didn't stop there. It carried over into the homegoing, and at the burial we touched on the Lord in front of the casket, as I stood before the casket. I said, "She's not here. She's home in heaven," but I can tell you. I sat before my dad, and I knelt down, and I begged my dad for forgiveness in the midst of that moment to forgive my dad, and he said, "No, you've never done anything wrong," and I said, "No, I've wronged you. I need to ask you for forgiveness," and he said, "What's that for"? And I said, "For not forgiving you sooner," and I shared that openly at the burial site, and all of a sudden there were screams and cries because people were gasping because the revelation that they have not forgiven even others around them, and we had revival break out at the grave site, and the power of the Holy Spirit began to transform lives, and people were sprawled out in the glory of God, in Jesus' name.
Sid Roth: Your father, tell me about the moment that he got saved.
Stan Lovins: Well, it was June 9th of 2019. He was on his deathbed, and they'd told us five different times that he only had an hour or 2 hours to live. As I'm driving to the hospital, there was this righteous anger that rose up into me, and I preface it for this because I said, "Oh, no". I said, "Satan, I turned him over to you 10 years prior to. You've done your job to sift him so that his soul shall be saved". I said, "Now today is a day of salvation, and today he shall be saved," so as I arrived at the ICU, and I walked in, and he's got tubes down his throat. He can't speak audibly. I looked into his eyes, and I saw literally, a scared little boy, and I began to see a grown man but yet a scared boy on the inside, and the Lord told me to grab hold of his hand. Now keep in mind I had to grab hold of this cold, clammy hand, the same hand that violated me, the same hand that violated my sisters and my mom and everybody else that he had ever violated, and the Lord said, "Look at him in the eyes," and I said, "Today," I said, "You're going to spend eternity in one of two places. You're going to spend it in hell where you're destined to at this moment, or you're going to spend it in heaven," and I said, "If you can hear the sound of my voice, I want you to squeeze my hand," and he squeezed my hand. I said, "If you can understand what I'm speaking to you, squeeze my hand," so methodically I walked him through the repentive prayer, and after he repented he gave his heart to Jesus. Tears started welling up in his eyes, and then I walked him through a series of forgiveness, of forgiving loved ones, his dad, his mom, his siblings and others that abused him and violated him, and then I said, "Now it's time to forgive you," and when he forgave himself, literally demons came screaming up off of him, and in the midst of that, God healed his kidneys. He was on 100 percent dialysis for his kidneys, and God healed his kidneys 100 percent. And then immediately two doctors came in and asked me if I could pray for them, so we had a total of five doctors, six nurses that got born again. Several of them got filled with the Holy Ghost, including my sister who had been living at the home. She got delivered, and she got set free. She had never, ever lived outside of that home, but God broke those chains and literally brought forth healing 10 years after I turned him over to Satan to be sifted. That's a powerful, awesome God that we serve.
Sid Roth: There are people watching us right now, and they desperately want to know Jesus. Something you've said has touched their heart. What should they do right at this second?
Stan Lovins: Right now, first of all, trust that Jesus Christ died on the cross for you. He died because He loved you so much that He took on your sin, your shame, the forced shame, everything that you've been through. Everything I've been through Jesus took on. I brought a couple demonstrations out here today for you. This is the baseball. This is ripped open, bleeding from the inside out. That was me. I was wretched. There was darkness inside my heart, but God knew. He wouldn't quit on me, and He's not quitting on you. He's able to, when I cried out to God, when I cried out to Jesus, He literally did a mighty work to pull me back together, to stitch me back together, to wash me as white as snow and redeem me by the blood of Jesus to make me whole. He'll do the same for you today. You don't have to be here where you're ripped open, bleeding from the inside out anymore. God wants to put you back in the game. He may, He's a creator. He's a divine creator, and your old creation can go. A new creation can come, and so right now, right now where you're at, you can just say, "Jesus, I trust you. You died on a cross for my sin, my shame, my pain. So by your authority, Jesus, I reject all the darkness. All condemnation. And I accept You, Jesus into my life. You rose from the dead. You conquered death, a place called hell, and the grave to liberate me today. I accept you, Jesus as my Lord, as my Savior, as my God. Jesus, thank you for loving the hell right out of me. I'm not holding on to hell anymore. In Jesus' name. Amen".
Sid Roth: Pray briefly to be free of shame and guilt.
Stan Lovins: Right now if you've had shame and pain, and we've all had it. Maybe it wasn't to the extreme of what I've been through. Maybe it's been worse. Maybe you've been through sex trafficking. Maybe you've been violated by word curses or have coaches or parents or mentors or teachers that have berated you and tormented you, and literally you've been isolated into a box of shame, regret, fear and torment. God wants to liberate you right now. Listen, Jesus Christ going to all shame. We have authority. If you've given your heart to Jesus, you have His authority to reject the shame so right now repeat after me, say "Lord Jesus, I reject all shame. All pain. Literally to hell with it. I'm not holding onto it anymore. By your authority, Jesus, I choose, to be obedient, to Your Word. And I choose to forgive as You've forgiven me, Jesus. I choose to forgive". And you literally name the people that have wronged you, hurt you, violated you right now, and right now say, "I forgive myself. And I trust You, Jesus. Fill me with the power of the Holy Ghost and the Holy Fire. Scorn out all shame, scorn out all pain, all condemnation, because I'm born again and I'm healed this moment. In Jesus' name. Amen".
Sid Roth: Amen.
Stan Lovins: Amen, hallelujah.