Sid: I have in the studio Doug and Jean Jones they’re from Shiloh Place Ministries. Their teachers of a subject that too few Christians understand and every one of us must understand it. The subject is bitterroot strongholds and better yet understanding what they are and how to deal with them. We found out that Doug and Jean were married for 39 years and from Doug’s viewpoint 38½ of the 39 years were happy but Jean that was not from your viewpoint. In fact you indicated that things got so tense you were thinking of leaving.
Jean: True.
Sid: And of course he was caught up in his job and so he was relatively happy but the children leave and all of a sudden you’ve got yourselves to look at. And how tense was it Jean?
Jean: There were several tense times raising the children especially as teenagers they wanted me to leave because my son was really the object of my husband’s anger most of the time.
Sid: Isn’t that interesting because Doug you father made you the object of his anger.
Doug: That’s right.
Sid: And is that how this bitterroot judgment works.
Doug: That’s exactly how it got started. I because of my father’s bitterness and anger and the way he treated us I judged him as being an unfit parent one that was full of anger, he wasn’t worthy of my respect.
Sid: But the truth is that was true that was a true judgment he was an alcoholic he was beating you mother it was true about what you were judging him.
Doug: No what I was doing I was judging him and God tells us we cannot judge the individual we can judge what they do as what they do as being wrong, we can’t judge them as being wrong of bad. That’s where we get into trouble we identify a person’s actions with who they really are and God makes the difference. He splits who you are from what you do. And when we start saying because a man does something that’s bad he is bad then we’ve taken on the responsibility of God. That’s him.
Sid: So are you saying to me because of that sin of judgment of your father carried on into your generation.
Doug: Yes it does scripture tells us clearly that the sins of the fathers be passed on to the 3rd and the 4th generation. And it says the same measure that you judge will be will come back on you and you’ll be judged on the same measure. And most of the cases people will do exactly opposite of what they judge their parent or the same thing. Very seldom has it become in between you do the opposite or your exactly like your father or whoever it was that you judged or you had a judgment against.
Sid: Now if Jean had succeeded in divorcing you and you hadn’t gotten help and you married again do you think you would have reproduced the same thing in the next marriage?
Doug: Statistically I think that I would have done the same thing without help we cannot help but do the same thing because we don’t know any better.
Sid: But you thought the problem was your wife not you.
Doug: Oh yeah definitely that’s one of the symptoms of this type of emotional distortion of our life. I live in what we call a very dysfunctional family we don’t trust we don’t talk, we don’t feel. And so if I leave one marriage and go to another all I’ve done is change places and changed faces. I’ve done nothing with the problem that I have in my life.
Sid: How in the world get this Mishpochah they’re under the same roof but in affect it’s so bad for Jean that she wants a divorce they were two strangers in the house. Is that the way you looked at it Jean.
Jean: This is true we did not communicate with one another especially on any level that Doug didn’t want to talk about.
Sid: What was your background?
Jean: I had a good background I used to say it was perfect but Doug decided otherwise (Laughing).
Sid: (Laughing).
Jean: But I had a good loving father. My parents loved the Lord and they walked with the Lord. My dad was very loving and he was verbal and I was the most beautiful girl in the world and wonderful girl in the world. And he said the same thing about my mother she was the most wonderful lady in the world and he was very big on giving gifts and flowers and cards and he was sentimental and Doug was that way when we dated. So I thought I’d found my knight in shining armor but when we got married he was not like that. He would forget Birthday’s, I would remind him of Mother’s Day and he’d say “Well you’re not my Mother.” And you know I would cry because I just felt really rejected that he just really didn’t care about me. But Doug didn’t know how to care because his dad didn’t do those things and so he didn’t do those things. What happens is that after we get married our root structure begins to grow and those things that we don’t see when we’re dating and we’re in love well our root structure begins to grow and the things we argued about were not the things that were really the problems it was the roots that usually came from childhood.
Sid: How in the world did the two of you avoid divorce and get help?
Doug: After the 29 years the children left the home we met a guy named Jack Frost he came to our church like my wife said earlier and through our contact with him we started a full home fellowship our support group 4 couples that were having really deep problems in their marriage. Now I didn’t realize I had deep problems in our marriage I could see it in the other 3 couples that they had problems but I really didn’t see that I had a problem with my marriage. I saw that my wife had a little…
Sid: It’s kind of hard to correct something if you think it’s the other person.
Doug: That’s right but I was Christian and I knew that people needed help so I was going to join the group and sort of help Jack get some of the others out of their problems.
Sid: And first help your wife get the help.
Doug: Yeah my wife she needed help.
Sid: (Laughing).
Doug: She was not an obedient wife like I wanted her.
Sid: And what were you looking for out of the group Jean?
Jean: Just help because I knew we were desperate and that we needed help. But let me tell you this at that time we were active in the church, we were active in the denominational church for years we taught Sunday school. Average people would look at us and say “Oh what a wonderful Christian family.” And we probably had an argument on the way to church and then we’d act nice at church and look very pious and then after that we’d might argue the rest but Sunday’s we’re always a bad day I don’t know what was stirred up but Sunday’s was always a bad day for anger. And then after we became in a Spirit Filled church we began we still counseled people, we counseled a lot of couples.
Sid: Your counseling couples on marriage
Jean: Right.
Sid: And the mean time you’re on AM and he’s on FM.
Lisa: And I asked Doug one time “Does it bother you that we’re telling people to do things that we’re not doing?” And he said “No the truth is the truth whether we’re doing it or not.” So…
Sid: Doug when did you first…when did the light bulb go on that the problem wasn’t her it was you.
Doug: It was in that group of 4 couples seeking help in their marriage and I finally found someone that I could trust for 30 some years almost 50 years really I was the person that couldn’t trust anyone to make decisions for myself. And I was so afraid of being rejected that I would carry a mask I would put a mask in front of me and I would let you see what I wanted you to see. Because I was afraid if you really knew me you wouldn’t love me you would reject me. So outwardly I put on a mask that said that I was something that I really wasn’t. And through the teachings of “The Bruises of Satan” by Carol Thompson that Jack was taking us through it just finally broke. But here’s someone who cares about me who has value in me and not in what I do but who I am. And the Lord just sort of opened my eyes that there is someone that you can trust that you can be real to this person you can share your hurts, you can share your fears with these group of people because they love you. I was afraid that I would not be loved if they really knew who I was.
Sid: And so you had to play a role.
Doug: I had to play a role and we…
Sid: They didn’t even know that you were doing it it was so the role was more real than the real you.
Doug: That’s right it was a subconscious thing that I had developed through habit structures through my life and I automatically played these roles to protect myself it was part of these strongholds that I had built around these areas of defense to protect myself so I could function in the way I thought that I should function.
Sid: Okay you begin to see that you have these problems how did you get rid of them?
Doug: Well we haven’t completely gotten rid of all of them but we’re on the way we have started the process and we know that…
Sid: What is the major one the one that broke the devils back on the stronghold in your marriage.
Doug: Mine was anger, I was so eaten up with anger and bitterness and it was at my father and I didn’t really realize that I hated my father the way that I did. I’m going to tell you a story for years I would wake up in the middle of the night and I would be in this almost a sweat a panic that I would in the dream that I had in the middle of the night I had murdered a person and I drove him to a hole in the ground and I knew exactly who that was from my childhood I knew where that place was in the woods. And I thought that I had really killed someone and so I would just forget it and I was a Christian at this time and I would forget the thing and I would get away from the dream and it would go for another 6 months or so and then the dream would come back and I would wake up just startled in the middle of the night seeing that same picture again I would kill this person and I was rolling him in the grave. And I tried to see who he was I could never see his face but I talked to Jack about this problem I talked to my wife and I talked to my pastor. And they through cancel showed me that Satan had used some things in my life to deceive me where I thought that I had killed a person physically. But what I had done was emotionally divorced and to kill my father emotionally. And there is where the root was that I had so much un-forgiveness against my father that I had emotionally divorced myself and murdered him in my heart and that anger was just festering in there.
Sid: What did you do about that?
Doug: Well I confessed it as sin in my life and what I had to do and what we all have to do is we cannot not deal with the other person’s sin against us but our reaction to what they do many times become sin in our own lives. When I could deal with my sin I got relief to stop blaming someone else. It was always my wife’s fault for me getting angry I never get angry…
Sid: Jean I have to ask you this question Doug said you’re on your way and I understood what he meant by that meaning as humans we’re being more and more conformed into Messiah’s image. But you’re the wife you were about ready to leave him, what difference is there in your marriage now?
Jean: Oh all of the difference in the world that anger the root has been dealt with. Now that’s not saying that Doug doesn’t get angry anymore but when you deal with the roots and that’s one of the main nuggets of this teaching is that bad fruit bad root. So you may go for years thinking “I don’t have anything wrong with me but I had a good family but if there’s bad fruit in your life like anger and addictions then there’s a root.
Sid: Let’s talk a little bit about that on tomorrows broadcast.
Tags: It's Supernatural, Sid Roth