 Refuge and always there for us when we are in a time and even we are so glad that you're joining us for hope today because we love to spend this time to uplift and to encourage you. It's just Anna and I today on this Friday and Anna, we are going to be talking about something that so many are plagued by that is really running rampant. It's really an epidemic that's happening in our culture and in so many believers today. Yeah, absolutely. Well, coming up on today's program, we have. Have you ever struggled with feelings of fear, anxiety and guilt? We don't want you to struggle with it. It's the weekend. It's time to be free. Well, these thoughts can be debilitating and can even prevent us from fully walking in the freedom that God desires for our lives. Tom had the chance to speak with Bishop Mark Stephen Filkey and he addresses the widespread prevalence of anxiety and fear in our society as well as offers advice for overcoming fear so you can take back your life. It's a great conversation that you're not going to want to miss. So coming up in just a moment. Yeah, so fear and anxiety can really like like I was driving to work today feeling so happy like the sun is shining. The birds are chirping and very light hearted. But when we are gripped in that fear, it is like this bondage that just wraps itself around us and suddenly like all the goodness seems to go away. You know, a lot of us, I think we've had moments that are times where we've wrestled with fear and anxiety at one point and other. But one thing we have to remember is fear is a spirit and that we have to use those weapons of the war. We have to use the word of God to just come against those things. And so today, if you're wrestling with so many things, I know so many people are dealing with fear, anxiety, depression, all of these things as we see what's happening in our world. If you look at the headlines, things continue to unravel. But we know that there is hope in Jesus. So we hope today that as you're watching that you would be encouraged, that you'd be strengthened and that you would have strategies to overcome anxiety. And right now we're going to go to Tom's conversation with Bishop Mark Steven Filkey as they discuss how we can leave fear behind. Take a look. Fear and anxiety are tactics that the enemy uses to draw us away from God and the good plans that he has for our lives. And it's only when we choose to live by faith and not by fear that we can begin to truly flourish. And you know, Bishop Mark Steven Filkey is our next guest. And in his book, Fear Must Not Win, he offers a deep understanding of fear and how to overcome it with God's strength. Mark, thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you, Tom. Greetings from the left coast here on the west coast here in California. You know, it's a different planet than where you guys are, as you well know. Yes, you know, enjoyable. When I visited out there as a tourist, I'm sure living there, it was a little bit different, but I'm sure there's a lot a lot of great, exciting parts of seeing God move out there in California as well. Yes, God is moving and it is. You're right. In terms of geography, it's beautiful. But I want to tell you, we've we've got the devil on the run. You know, we are notoriously famous, of course, for being the left coast or a place where, you know, we're just a few miles from San Francisco. This is in many ways, it's kind of point center for all the demonic activity that you see happening, you know, in Hollywood and different places that's between Hollywood and San Francisco. But you know, thank God, that's one of the reasons I wrote the book, you know, because we're right here in the middle of a spiritual war zone, I felt like that I needed to address the subject 45 years of experience of teaching people how to overcome fear, panic attacks, phobias, and all of those things through the presence of God and through the word of God. And so I'm so excited today to be with you. I was hoping I'd get a chance to sit down and talk with you, Tom, and praise God. God answered my prayers. Well, hey, thank you. I'm so glad that we're able to have this conversation. And let's talk about that. Let's talk about that thing of fear, you know, where the enemy comes in like a flood, God raises up a standard, doesn't he? And so we see that Christians, in many cases, struggling with fear of different kinds. Let me ask you from your own childhood. How did God, you know, begin to develop your victory over fear? In fact, I have to tell you, you got to tell the hash brown story if we have time here, because it's a great story. I would love to. Well, you know, mine goes back to my childhood, you know, I probably most of our viewers and all of our family, our cornerstone family that is watching today can probably relate with this. If you think back, if you think back into your childhood or back in your adolescence, many of our deeply rooted fears, and I'm not talking about God given natural carefulness, God given fear, which keeps us from, you know, running into traffic and picking up rattlesnakes. But the type of fear that troubles us, a lot of it is sometimes, or in many instances, rooted back into our childhood. In my own case, and I'll try to make this brief, my mother and father were both pastors. My mother was a fiery evangelist. My dad was a pastor, a loving pastor, and they were great people. But what a lot of folks did not know publicly is that my mother struggled with she was bipolar. And so one day she would be up and the next day when she went down, she would bottom out. And one of my earliest recollections, I was only four years old. And grant now mind you, my mom and dad are already moving they're not pastoring, but they're moving into ministry at this point. They're they're believers, they're born again, believers. But my mother was secretly struggling with her own fears, deep anxiety, deep emotional sadness, panic. It's a long, long story. And a lot of it's in the book. And I would invite our readers to get it and to really, I mean, our listeners to really get into it and read it because it will help you. But remember my earliest recollection four years old, my mom waking me up with my dad in an argument, and saying, picking me up and saying, Markey, you know, you and I were leaving California. I love your dad, but we're not going to be here anymore. We're moving to New York. And you maybe, you know, she was using me to channel her fear and her anxiety. And what she did not realize is that she was actually at the time, unknowingly, passing down a generational curse. And Tom, it traumatized me because the thought of leaving my dad at four years old. And later, of course, she eventually got delivered, became a her and my dad became members of our church. But those early years were so filled with so much drama. And so many highs and lows that it affected me where it I didn't realize that but as I got into my teen years, I was so affected by it that I had abandonment type of issues afraid that I would be abandoned. I had moments where I'd wake up night terrors, you know, panic attacks. And I was just in my late teens and it followed me, you know, into a moment where I had a divine encounter with the Holy Spirit in Los Angeles. I was almost 18 years old. It wasn't a church. It was sitting on a curb. And the Holy Spirit came to me sitting on that curb. I was weeping, crying. I was having thoughts that my life was not worth living. I couldn't understand why I had lived and gone through what had gone through with with my parents and my family. And I remember the peace that I felt when I the presence of God came to me sitting on that curb in Belflower, California, all by myself and hearing the Lord say, Mark, you're not alone. I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. And here's what he said to me. He said, you don't have to be afraid because I am with you. As long as I'm with you, you never have to be afraid of anything or anyone. And it changed my life. And after that experience, God spoke to me. I came back here to Northern California and put together what was a Christian band back during the Jesus movement. You know, there's a movie coming out about that. I know you heard about that. And during the Jesus movement and God spoke to me and I put a nine piece band together. I play a number of instruments, 19 if you count the kazoo and the tambourine and put a band together and we went down into the tenderloin, which is the worst part of San Francisco. And we began to hold revivals. And it was there that I began to use my gifts to begin to deliver people from their fear and their anxiety. And hundreds of people, I would say thousands of people were saved in the tenderloin on the street. I mean, we would set up our instruments, Tom, down in the streets. And we would begin to sing the old Andre Crouch. I was later blessed to call Andre my friend. But in those days, I didn't know I'm just new to songs. And we would go down and we would sing and we would we would just begin to worship and prostitutes and drug addicts and pimps. And people who were demon possessed people who were a trap that alternate lifestyles would come by the dozens. I mean, they would, there were times where you, you know, we were just surrounded by people on their knees, giving their hearts to God in San Francisco. So that's what really started my journey years and years ago of helping people get delivered of something that the enemy had meant for my life forever. You know, God set me free. And I'm not I'm not going to tell you that I didn't have issues afterwards, because even into my marriage years, I continued to realize that I had to stay in the word to stay free from all of that fear and that anxiety, you know, well, I do. And I can identify with your story because I remember doing ministry in New York in the first time, having tremendous fear, intimidation, going into Brooklyn, going into the difficult areas. And but then seeing by the end of the evening, seeing people coming to the Lord, the devil run in the other way. I love that. I love that. And so let me ask you about so we we see different, different things that are sources of fear in our life. And I know you can list them in the book. How is someone going to access the victory that you've had that I've had over fear other people that haven't experienced that? How do they begin to access that victory? Well, you know, I think, you know, if we can just regress for one second, I think it's really important and I cover this in my book. I mean, I take there's a couple of three chapters where I literally use every word to expose to do an expose on the powers of darkness and how they were how they're using media and social media and using, you know, news network, secular news network. That's why Tom, the cornerstone network is so powerful and why why it's so important because you are the front line. I mean, this is the front line that's facing off with the evil that is flooding, not just into living rooms. Remember, Tom, when you and I were growing up, I don't know how old you are, but I bet you can remember when we only had three channels. I can. It's hard to believe that that kind of a country ever existed. But yes, I do remember. So so three channels. And if you remember, they came on it's like five or six a.m. And then at nighttime, they would say, this is the end of the broadcast day. We say, God bless you. And then you, you know, you've seen flags waving and music playing. And that was the end of the broadcast day. And they may have dedicated an hour or two maybe on reporting the news. Today, there are thousands of channels. And I want you to listen to the language, Tom, channels, you know, the word channel is the same word that they use for like channeling spirits. If you think about it, it's the same terminology. But now there are thousands of channels. We have the enter net. A net is something that catches people. You have the World Wide Web. That's something people get caught up in. So we have these thousands of channels in which the enemy, the powers of darkness, I believe there's millions of demons that are traversing through these talking points. What I call sock puppets or talking heads, demonic talking heads, that's repeating demonic talking points that's trying to incite fear, to incite division and listen, wouldn't it be wonderful if the only people that were affected by that was the secular world? The problem is Christian people watch those type of programs too. And so even children, if you look at these teenagers, we see these teenagers and see all of our youth today. Every time you see someone with they have a smart device, earphones, it is nonstop dispelling with fear, story after story. And Tom, you know this news network do not make their money by spreading peace. They make billions of dollars by inciting fear, frustration, panic. There is a story, as you know, every 15 minutes, there's another 15 minute cycle and they'll run it over and over and over again. Well, as a result, many of our listeners, you may not even know why you're feeling what you're feeling, but I want to tell you there is a spirit in this. We have to recognize that the Bible says that Satan, he is the ruler of this world and he's the prince of the air of this world. And as a result, he is using the frequencies of this. I tell people, you know, Satan is licensed to use the lower frequencies. Tom, what you're doing today is the higher, that's the higher frequencies. Born again, believers, we operate in the higher frequencies of the Holy Spirit. The devil is so irritated because he cannot interrupt what we get through the presence of God. But what he does do is he incites fear and panic and phobias and all of this stuff through the networks, as well as just life, you know, around us. So as a result, you know, I don't want to give too much away, but in the book is 211 pages of pure information and power and revelation on how you can secure peace through a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not talking about a casual touch and go, but I'm talking about an unceasing prayer life, plugging in, connecting. You know, we're seeing revivals right now, Tom. I don't know if you've seen some of the revivals that are breaking out right now with Asbury and all of the different colleges. It's only one of many. I don't know if you've seen it, but the last couple of weeks, really the last couple of three weeks, there's revivals breaking out all over America, which I've been prophesying revivals upon us. But in the midst of that, there was a warfare that is going on between the powers of good and evil over the souls of believers. And if I can, I'd like to address all of all of our viewers today, and I want to say to you that if you were bound by a spirit of fear, if you find yourself losing sleep, you're suffering because you can't sleep at night time. You're waking up. You find yourself going to the day with non non stop thoughts of worrying about the future. Listen, rest assured that God has a peace and an anointing for your life that you will not have to live with this fear. God is a deliverer. You know, Tom, we're seeing people all over America delivered a fear right now. In fact, we're having meetings. I'm calling all of our calling all of our meetings fear free meetings. And we have a whole fear free tribe, a fear free nation that's rising up that is saying no longer will we be afraid? And I think what our viewers need to understand today, Tom, is that there is power in peace and the devil knows it. Yeah. And so to answer your question at the very root, in order to really get the peace and to be delivered a fear, there it's really it's in the power of relationship. I'm not talking about going to church once a week, but I'm talking about that unbroken that connectivity with the Holy Spirit. So you're listening to him all day long, every day, every moment of every day. You know, it's not it's more than a midnight prayer. It's more than just saying a prayer in the morning, but it's an unceasing relationship with the Holy Spirit. And I teach people how to do that in this book. I teach them how to be delivered of every type of ungodly, irrational fear that comes out of the imagination. And I am so thankful today, Tom, that we do not have to live in a state of panic. And I don't know what it's like where you are, but everywhere I go here, I'm talking, I talked to a waitress the day before yesterday and just started ministering to her. And she sat down and just began to weep. She said, I don't know how you, how you knew that I had been suffering with such fear. And I began to share with her that she wasn't alone. There's people all over America that are privately struggling with this irrational, panic, phobia, can't sleep at night time. That is not God's will for our life. Amen. Absolutely. I don't mean to preach. I don't mean to preach, Tom. Sorry. That's all right. No, that's some good preaching, especially like how you bring out that this is done through relationship, through relationship with Jesus Christ, real relationship, moment by moment relationship. Mark, again, the book is called Fear Must Not Win, Finding Peace, Confidence, and Courage in Challenging Times. Thank you so much, Mark, Steven Filkey for being with us. Mark, it's been great. I appreciate that. Yes, sir. I'm sorry I didn't get to the hash brown story, but it's in the book. It'll bless you. It's in the book. I'll have to get the book. It's a great story. Thank you so much, Mark. God bless. God bless you. Bye-bye. Cornerstone Television has believed in the power prayer sits in Synception 44 years ago. We invest heavily in our prayer line to provide you with 24-7 personal prayer, knowing it brings breakthrough, healing, and wisdom. Last year alone, we received over 65,000 prayer calls. And if you had partnered with us, thank you so very much. And when you give this month, I am so excited to share with you my new book, Praying on Another Level. It's a 30-day journal to take your prayer life to a new dimension in God. You see prayer as how we separate good ideas from God ideas. It's how we unlock the door to revelation. And it's where we get our strength to build up our spirit man to hear from God throughout our day. All that and so much more. So call us now at 888-665-4483 or give at ctvn.org forward slash donate to request your copy. It is time to take your prayer life to another level. We're so glad you're joining us this Friday on Hope Today and we are called Hope Today because it is our heart to bring hope into those places where you might feel hopeless. And as you heard the conversation all about fear. So often fear can keep us in this place of hopelessness. Like there's so much ahead. There's so much you want to experience in life and yet fear is gripping you and it's keeping you held down and you know Sydney and I were just kind of chatting like there's just so many layers to the conversation of fear and so like over these next few minutes of ministry time we're just we just kind of want to unpack some of our thoughts and experiences and hope that you can get on the other side because Sydney and I have certainly had struggles with fear and the anxiety and we're living in some freedom today. We surely are and so I know a lot of people have something they're dealing with and sometimes it's hard to admit but we just want to let you know. This is Anne was saying Hope Today as we're all about encouraging you, lifting you up and one of the things that I know Anne and I were very big on is like not only is it just like being in the presence of God, being in your word, listening to the Holy Spirit, but we are you know here at Hope Today. We're really big on if you need extra help, if you need to go to therapy, if you need to go to counseling, if you need to seek people then one thing I have seen even in the midst of my own life when I'm walking through hard times or walking through maybe a season of depression or grief. It's when I have therapists, when I have my community and people around me to lift me up to speak life into me. We are not meant to do life alone. So if you're battling with fear and you're seeing things and you know that is going on is that it's so important that you have community. You know one thing and I've been thinking about it's not just God. It's God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. They have the three of them are all together, you know, leaning on one another. And so that is our model. That is our archetype. How much more so should that be, you know, modeled in our lives? Right, absolutely. I mean, God made us for relationship, relationship with himself first because he is our source of life. But then relationship with a body of Christ who are your brothers and sisters that you'll meet in church that you might meet in your community everywhere you go. There are believers in Christ that want to wrap their arms around you. And when fear is speaking louder than truth, yes, God, the Holy Spirit through the power of the word can speak truth into your heart. But when that's hard for you to hear, then you have others around you who will audibly speak that into your ears and just help strengthen you and lift you up. You know, here on Hope Today, we do love to bring you scripture because we know that God is the first source. And today our focus scripture is Psalm 121, 1 and 2. We love this verse. It says, I lift up my eyes to the mountains. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. And you know, God is your maker too. There are so many different circumstances that can trigger that fear. You know, as Mark shared, it came from childhood trauma. We can go through devastating experiences, adults that bring that gripping fear into our lives. Or sometimes it is just something you can't quite tell where the root of it is, but it is the enemy coming after you. And the Lord is our helper. He is the one that wants to deliver us because he has given us a spirit of power, love and sound mind. You know, and as you were speaking, one thing God was just dropping in my spirit is isolation. That's one thing when it happens to fear when you're going through a tough time that you will self isolate, that you will go to corner, that you don't pick up the phone, you don't want to talk to anyone. And can we just encourage you today if that is you, if you've been in a place of isolation? I just feel that strongly in my spirit that today is the day that you need to reach out. You know, the spirit of suicide is so rampant and that's how the enemy will just try to put you in a corner, put you all alone, make you feel so isolated. Nobody cares about you. Nobody's thinking about you. You have all these fears that are going on. But those are the moments where it takes the biggest courage is to reach out for help. And in those moments it could be just crying out to God and just saying, like, God, I need help. I am desperate. I don't know what's going on. But also the other step is give someone a call because we are here for you. And maybe that's you today that you are in a place of just isolation, that you see so many things that are going on and you just feel like in a tiffy and you just don't know and understand what's going to happen next. But give us a call at our prayer line at 888-665-4483 because one thing that we are here for at Cornerstone Intelligence Network that brings you hope today, whether you're in Pittsburgh, if you're in Florida, Alabama, if you're watching anywhere around the world, is that we are here for you 24-7. And we believe in the power of prayer. We know that when two or three are gathered that He is in the midst. And so let us today join an agreement with you and believe those bondages, those things that are over, you're going to be broken off in the name of Jesus, all the fear, the torment, the depression, all of that. There is power in the name of Jesus. There's power in the blood of Jesus. And we want you to experience that wholeness and that freedom today. Yeah, and here's the good news. It truly is possible to be free from fear. Whenever you get help from the Lord, when you get help from community or a therapy, you are given tools that you can put into practice like starting today to be able to set you free. The Bible also says to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So one thing that worked well for me is that I would put scripture in front of me everywhere in my house, in my car, and I would speak it out loud. I would pray it over my life until I could live out that courage that God put inside of me because He has so many big plans for you and me. And so today as we're drawing to a close and we're about to head into the weekend that we just want to offer and let you know that Mark's book, if you're in may not win, that if you have any amount that you give to our ministry, we would love to put that in your hands today. And we are so glad that you joined us for this time just to uplift you, just to encourage you because we know there are hard times. We know that we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, that there's all these things that are coming at us, but it is such a joy and an honor and a privilege for us to come into your home to speak the truth and the love of Jesus. And we know that is the greatest hope that we have. And so as you start your weekend, we want you to hold on to that, know that you are valued, know that you're loved and we'll see you next time.