Deliverance from Cigarettes: This One Confession Destroyed an Addiction Overnight

I am going to tell you a story about my wife, Beth.

She is absolutely amazing and gives this testimony herself on the significance of “saying.” Many years ago, we were moving from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Southern California. The movers had wrapped up all the major items, but we had one small U-Haul truck left to go. I was already booked and on the road in meetings, and Beth gladly volunteered to drive the truck out to the West Coast.

As you can imagine the drive was going to take some time, at least 12 hours a day. The thought came to her, I need something to keep me from getting sleepy and I don’t want to eat a lot of junk food and gain weight. So, I have smoked cigarettes a little a long time ago, and that would help me stay awake. And I’ve heard people say when they were smoking, they lost weight. It’s not our car, so no one would smell it. No one would know. I mean, what could it hurt? It’s not like I’m addicted. It would just help me stay awake on this drive. We all know cigarettes aren’t good for you, but I’m not going to make a habit of it. It’s just for this drive. So, she smoked that first day on the drive.

 The next morning when she woke up, the first thing that happened when her feet hit the ground is she said, “I have to have a cigarette!” She said she couldn’t believe that was her actual thought! But it was another long day of driving, so she thought, This will be the last day of the drive, so it can’t hurt just to get another pack of cigarettes. Then I will get there and that will be it. She told me afterward, “After I arrived in California, I found myself in a constant state of wanting cigarettes. I was craving them.”

I wasn’t home from the meetings yet, so she could smoke a little while longer, thinking it wouldn’t hurt anything. No one would know. But when I came home, she was still smoking. I didn’t know it, but I knew something was up. She was taking sometimes more than one shower a day, spraying a lot of perfume, and eating mints like they were going out of style. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I eventually realized what was going on. I didn’t say anything.

One beautiful night as we were getting everything settled in our new place, I said, “Why don’t we go for a drive and check out the town”? We went to get in the car, and I said, “You can bring your cigarettes if you want to.” You should have seen the look on her face. I’ll never forget it.

“If you knew,” she said, “why didn’t you say anything to me about it?” I told her I just figured when she was ready to talk about it, she would. I grew up in a culture of smoking, so it wasn’t a big deal to me. My whole family smoked. In the Baptist church I grew up in, we had a smoker’s porch, and between Sunday school and the start of the regular service, all the deacons went out and smoked. I thought you had to smoke to be a deacon!

I had just heard a Keith Moore teaching that dealt with the exact same thing, a man who had been addicted to smoking and couldn’t quit. I told her she should listen to that. He was teaching on the significance of what you are saying. He said, every time you purchase cigarettes, every time you light a cigarette, even while inhaling, say, “I’m free from cigarettes in Jesus’ name.” He went on to say, “Don’t ever say again that you can’t quit smoking. Don’t say I’m addicted, only say what the Word of God says about you, that you are free in Jesus’ name.” It wasn’t long till that man was completely free. It worked just like he said it would. The Word of God always works if you work it.

So, Beth did exactly what was suggested. She listened to the teaching. She spoke out loud every time she bought a pack of cigarettes, and every time she smoked, she said, “I am completely free from cigarettes in Jesus’ name.” One morning soon after that, she woke up completely delivered and never wanted another cigarette. She said she has never once desired to smoke again. She said it over and over, and it came to pass in her life. That is the significance of saying.

Beth has a genuine ministry of helping people get free from addiction. After telling her story, the Lord has used her in amazing ways to minister to people. We’ve seen so many set free from addictions to drugs, both prescription and otherwise, alcohol, nicotine, and almost everything else you can think of. The saying part is the bedrock of her ministry because it was so impactful in her own life. If anyone knows the significance and the power of your words, she does. Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.”