Sid: We want everyone everywhere to be red hot for the Messiah. So what’s the deal, are you red hot, are you lukewarm, or are you cold? Well you know lukewarm is worse than cold, when your cold you know your cold, when you’re lukewarm your deceived. Guess what, if your lukewarm Jesus says and this is in the Greek, in the Book of Revelation the word of God says “If you’re lukewarm I will vomit you out of my mouth.” Listen, this is the wrap up. This is time that all of the prophets and all of the wonderful men and woman of old whose shoulders we’re standing on that we’ve been waiting for. It’s the time of the great harvest and it’s the time to be free. Now there’s many people that I’m speaking to right now that are not free in one or more areas of their life. There’s a specific area that I want to deal with this week, it has to do with eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, and gluttony. You know gluttony is the acceptable Christian sin but sin is sin. And I have on the telephone Nancy Alcorn. I’m speaking to her at her office in Nashville, Tennessee. I’m interviewing her on her new book titled “Mercy for Eating Disorders – True stories of Hope and Real Answers for Healing and Freedom.” And I cannot pronounce her name Nancy. Darlene…
Nancy: Darlene Zschech like a check mark.
Sid: That’s it, Darlene Zschech you’re familiar with her from the Hillsong music this is what she says. “I personally know several young girls who the principles found in this book have been set free after near death from anorexia and bulimia. Mercy for eating disorders is so timely reminding us that freedom from an eating disorder is possible. I thank God for Nancy who on these pages is willing to tell the truth.” Now Nancy Alcorn, for my knowledge and listener’s knowledge how rampant are eating disorders today?
Nancy: Well they’re extremely rapid in fact it’s getting to the point that it’s almost like an epidemic breaking out. I travel not just in America but in other countries such as New Zealand, Australia and England and it’s the same thing everywhere. Young girls in junior high, high school, college and now even in some elementary school children….
Sid: I couldn’t believe last month on USA Today they’re talking about special fashion shops to glamorize little 5 & 6 year olds, I mean I think the whole deal is getting out of hand.
Nancy: It is, it’s leading right into this issue and causing it just to become more and more rampant.
Sid: Now you said something in the introduction to your book that is so fascinating to me I want to read this. First you spoke about anorexia, bulimia, binge eating and then you said “This issue has been explained as an evolution of self-medication that in years past manifested itself in alcoholism, then transformed into drug use in the ’70s, and now is evident in eating disorders.” I never thought about that before but I think that you’re really on to something there.
Nancy: Well you know I think that it’s just another ploy of Satan to try to destroy lives and he uses whatever he can. And there are girls out that are part of youth groups that go to church every Sunday that wouldn’t think about doing drugs or alcohol but they have got caught up with this whole thing of self-image and not dealing, numbing pain and trying to be in control. And a lot of girls who have suffered from eating disorders there’s 1 out of 3 you can relay it back to sexual abuse, and the whole control issue and the way they see themselves and all kind of stuff. It’s just so many things that play into it.
Sid: Now you originally were involved in secular social work, government programs but you got very frustrated, why?
Nancy: Well the reason I was frustrated was because I worked in the government system in the state of Tennessee and I was told that I could not share Jesus Christ, separation of church and state. And here I am knowing that government changes behavior but only Jesus Christ could put a new heart and a new Spirit in us. And when there’s a heart change behavior change is an automatic byproduct of that and yet the One that could change the heart I was told I couldn’t talk about. So knowing that the word of God says that “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon us because God has anointed us to heal broken hearts, to set captives free, to open up the prison of them that are bound.” Then to have the answer and be told “You can’t share that” so I saw kids leave that place 300 kids at any one period of time locked up for a year sent by Juvenile Court Judges and I saw kids leave the place from drug overdoses, killed in street gang fights, some past the age of 18 and ended up in the woman’s prison. Some felt so hopeless that they went out and committed suicide. And it was out of that that I became so frustrated that I began to cry out to God to show me a better way.
Sid: Out of curiosity you founded in 1983 that better way “Mercy Ministries” in which you you’ve seen 1000’s of young women between 13 and 28 rescued from really certain destruction. What results are you really getting, there’s a lot of women that have gone through those door?
Nancy: Right, well you know the thing that’s so incredible is we can’t… I’d love to say that it’s because Mercy Ministries is so great that these lives are changing. We actually are getting changed lives because God is so great and God is so good and He sent a Savior who could put a new heart and a new spirit in us. And when we have a way a message of hope and freedom where we can say to them Jeremiah 29 verse 11 “These are the plans that I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you not to harm you and to give you hope and a future.” And God “You’re not a mistake, you were born for a purpose, God does have an individual plan for your life. And the past does not have to destroy your future, there’s nothing you’ve done that God will not forgive you for and God promised He’ll never leave you and He’ll never forsake you.” And we just really basically try to take all of the negative out and try to see themselves the way that God sees them. To be born again, to be filled with God’s Spirit, to understand God’s plan and purpose for their life, and to have their minds renewed to the word of God. And then that’s where the real transformation process begins as they renew their minds it’s Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you can prove what is good, acceptable and perfect will of God.” So that’s what changes the lives, I mean mercy creates an environment where that happens but it’s really Christ who is the heart and the life changer. And because what He’s done for us all ready and girls receiving that and getting a revelation of it. And knowing that they are the righteousness of God in Christ, they’ve been forgiven and that then having the slate wiped clean and being able to start over, being born again. Then they can go forward and that’s why it works.
Sid: But Nancy you have this wonderful facility, and I’m sure you must even have waiting lists of people to get into it. Is that why you wrote your book, for those that perhaps can’t come?
Nancy: That’s absolutely true, we do have a waiting list of girls waiting to get into our facilities, we’re in the process of opening new facilities. There are 2 reasons, 2 primary reasons that were in my heart about writing the book. One is just about what you just said “We wrote this eating disorder book in such a way that girls would not have to come to a place called Mercy Ministries but they would come to a God of mercy who this place is named in honor of. We wanted to write it with the principles of freedom contained on the pages so that anyone who chooses to read this and apply it to their life with God’s help that they can overcome whatever they’re facing. And the second thing I wanted to do with is book is to expose the lies of the experts of the world who say that this is a disease that you cannot overcome that you just have to learn to cope. I wanted also to take our girls at free of charge because we want them to know that our love for them is pure, that our love is unconditional, that we’re not trying to make money off their problem, that we genuinely care. And we believe that they can be free but there is an industry going on in the name of treatment out there that charges some places $2000 a day for these girls to come. And as soon as their parents run out of money or their insurance runs out you know the same people that said they cared they don’t care anymore because that beds got to make money.
Sid: It’s a quick fix but they don’t get a changed life.
Nancy: Exactly, and so I wanted to expose that too, that freedom is possible and that there are a lot of people are being I believe taken advantage of financially by being told your “Daughters going to die if you don’t come here and get this help. And then they get all their money and they’re still not better.”
Sid: Put some flesh on the bones, take one specific person very briefly and tell me about a particular girl that was set free.
Nancy: Okay, well there’s a young girl that came in to the program and she had… I’ll tell you about one from just probably 2 years ago. Her parents were told by the sales department at this Eating Disorder Clinic that’s well renown that if they’re daughter weighed about 70 pounds, I think about 68 pounds at the time and very very thin and very much in a life threatening situation and just getting worse and worse and worse. And her parents were told if they didn’t use their retirement money, they’d saved $100,000 was all their retirement money, if they didn’t spend that to get that to get their daughter help. Because they didn’t have any more insurance, they had already exhausted all of that. If they didn’t spend that she would certainly die. So they spent their whole retirement and when they’re daughter graduated from the program Mercy Ministries, because she went through their program and she didn’t get the help she needed and she called us she was back at the same weight that she was before she went into that treatment program. And when she came into ours, while she was here about 6 or 8 months and she just needed to deal with the issues inside of her heart that she had never dealt with. And there were things internally that she needed help with. And so our counseling department pointed her to Christ, pointed her to the word of God, pointed her to God’s healing process. And it was a process of her working through things and making things right with people in her family that had heart her, and some other individuals in her life. But over a period of time her parents came and stood at her graduation and tears streaming down their face by this time because she weighed about 115 pounds and just absolutely beautiful girl. And she’s now back in college and doing great.
Sid: And you know Nancy when you see that and you contrast it with some clinics where people pay $2000 a day sometimes they keep the young person for 6 months, the parents go bankrupt literally….
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth