Hello folks.
I’m sure that title got your attention. I write this entry from the new outdoor patio in my parents’ backyard, back in Canada. I first started to write this post in Peru before coming home, but time restrained me. Then as I went back to it, I couldn’t help but ask myself why bother posting this? I had to search my motives, because I know many if not most reading will disagree with me and think I’m being melodramatic. But I’ll get to that in a moment.
I had a great trip to Tarma, which is 8 hours south of Lima. You might have listened to the mp3 I posted and seen the pictures below. After speaking on the Holy Spirit, Pastor Omar came forward and asked anyone if they had not received the baptism in the Holy Spirit before and wanted to, to come forward. At least 15-20 people came forward, and never mind that also when Nina preached in the afternoon on the love of the Lord to a group of women from the church, she prayed for 9 people to get baptized then too! So the mp3 attached below is what I shared on that led to the Holy Ghost bubble bath aftermath that is depicted in some of the pictures below and even more on my photo album on Facebook.
But I want to relay an incident that happened on my last Saturday in the country, at Ron and Michelle Smith’s. We all went with his Bible school group to see the movie Prince Caspian (which I thought sucked, but this isn’t a movie review). Names will not be used, and certain details will be omitted to keep this vague and protect the dignity of those involved. I’m also not sharing this story to glamorize deliverance ministry and give demons any credit, but quite frankly, I write this as a warning about Christians opening themselves up to seemingly harmless worldly activities, and believing it wont affect us.
When we got back to his house, a young Peruvian man and his friend stuck around and were chatting with Ron in Spanish, and Ron would periodically inform me of what they were talking about. Then, at the request of the young man, we stood up to lay hands on him and pray because he had been having migraines and neck pain ever since he had started telling people he planned on coming back to Ron’s Bible school. We knew that was an attack, so we went after the healing through prayer and laying our hands on him.
Mere moments into the prayer session, this young man snapped, and started looking intently at Ron’s chest without blinking. Minutes and minutes went by and he had his eyes open the whole time and started dripping tears from his eyes, all while still not blinking. Ron turned to me and made a remark like “
do you remember when I told you we prayed for a guy for over 4 hours to be delivered from a demon? Well this is him–you better be doing some serious warfare praying!“
My heart sank. I knew the verse that says when an unclean spirit is cast out of a person, it goes away and comes back finding its former house swept and in order, and goes away and finds 7 other demons to come back with him (Matthew 12:43-45).
If it had taken 4 hours previously and this man opened himself up again, then how much energy, effort and time is tonight going to take….?
Little did I know a six hour labour in prayer lay ahead of us:
At first the young man tried grabbing at Ron, so myself and the other Peruvian there held on to his arms. After a while that got way too tiring, so we managed to get this guy to sit on the couch, so we could “lean” into it more and not wear ourselves out. However, the young man was no longer responding to us by name or seeming to recognize us. Never in the few times I’ve gotten to see people delivered of demons have I seen so much fight coming from the person, for so long.
So we did all the stuff we knew to do, but basically just kept asking God to show up. We played worship on Ron and Michelle’s computer full blast. But two hours went by with seemingly no outward indication of impact. Finally at one point in my heart, out of utter desperation, I just asked God to maybe reveal what could be the root of this–what is it that has happened, since maybe the other guys had already discussed it in Spanish and I didn’t catch it. Immediately at that moment the young man we were holding down started to reach for and scratch at his right pocket, so I helped him reach in and grab his phone (keep in mind we’re holding his arms down the whole time so he wouldn’t harm himself or one of us). As soon as we pulled out the phone it dawned on each of us that there’s music and probably videos on this phone. We were right: as soon as we took the phone away and put it on a nearby couch, this demon got more agitated, and kept reaching in the direction of the phone.
A while of this went on, all three of us holding him down and getting extremely worn out. Finally we realized a Bible was nearby the phone, so since this demon kept reaching towards the phone, we tauntingly asked it if it was wanting the Bible. Keep in mind this guy didn’t speak any English, but during this ordeal, was responding to everything I asked in English. We put the Bible on the phone, and kept praying and asking God to show up and move.
I know, you’re disappointed that I wasn’t smarter than that. As David Hogan says “I know, YOU would have done it better, but you weren’t there!”
We kept speaking to the root of this problem; we kept commanding spirits to come out; we kept doing all the Bible college stuff you get taught to do or read in books as being the proper way to minister deliverance–but we just got desperate, and repeatedly asked God to show up with freedom. In fact, after a while, we finally decided to try READING aloud from the Bible. At this point in the night, I guess it was a battle of wits– to see who would give up first–the demon or us!
I read almost ALL of the red letter print in the book of John, and the whole time this man’s head kept shaking “no” in response to everything I was reading. Great! I thought maybe it would get tired of hearing the pure Word of God and leave! Well, some of them did–apparently there were several in there. One of them tried telling Ron, in Spanish that we were tired, and to give up and call it a night. It would say things to me in Spanish and Ron and the other guy would laugh and tell me not to worry about it–which was easy since I didn’t understand it anyway. On and on this went, so finally this man’s friend got the idea to just go delete the music from the phone himself. To this, the demon/demons freaked out and we had to hold the young man down with even more force than previously. I’d never thought such a small individual could put up with such a fight with two guys weighing over 200 ilbs each on top of him holding his arms down–but if you had several demons in there, then I guess it’s no surprise!
When the music was finally deleted, the young man was a lot calmer, but not quite responsive to us yet. He finally said something about not being able to see us, but being able to see demons in another realm. We understood what that meant, and kept asking God to move, to intervene. After quite another while going by, we finally decided to check the phone again, and realized there was movies and pictures on there. I don’t know what all was on there, but I know a Harry Potter movie, and pornography were among them.
This time, the young man was able to cooperate a little more with his own will power, and asked us for help setting him free, and helped point out the buttons and instructions for how to delete the movies and music on his cell phone. We did so, and he calmed down again. I’m not much of a “feeler” (I don’t typically shake, fall down, etc.. when the power of God comes into a room), but it was obvious that something “lifted” in the atmosphere of that room. I thought we were done, but when we let go of his arms, this guy tried to choke himself (ie, the demon, as a last resort, I believe tried to harm and/or kill him). We proceeded again to hold his arms down, and Ron later after the fact told me he almost fell asleep at this point in the night (at LEAST five hours had gone by by this point).
We prayed and worshiped and declared Scriptural things, believing that we’d make whatever demons were left him in (apparently just one) leave and get tired of putting up the fight. The power of God came down on this man, and he shook and shook, and then finally calmed down, “woke up” in his right mind, and smiled through his worn out face. Ron’s wife Michelle got him some water to drink and an orange, and we told him about what had happened and what time it was. He had little to no recollection of the night.
I’m not writing to glamorize deliverance ministry to parade myself as a weekend warrior and boast of something powerful I got to see God do. The majority of readers of this blog–insofar as I know–listen to secular music, and some of you listen to outright blatantly sinful music that you think nothing is wrong with or that you have “liberty in Christ” and think my opinion about it is legalistic. I figured why open myself up to a debate that I’ll never be able to follow up much on–and almost didn’t bother posting this, but then finally was gripped to make a warning to those this applies to.
When I’m in certain circles, especially in Peterborough, people have argued with me about the proper way to minister deliverance or that ‘
Christians can’t have a demon‘. Frankly, I was not ready for the all-evening battle that night, and was worried in my spirit that I’d reveal how unspiritual and unprepared I was for this kind of stuff to the other guys who had more tenacity than I about seeing peoples’ freedom come about all the way to the completion. We had determined earlier in the evening, that we weren’t letting this man leave the way he came–messed up.
But when the light exposes the darkness, it brings things to light, and in this case, the power that this rap music, witchcraft movie (but Steve, it’s JUST a kid’s movie, what’s the big deal?–I want to cuss responding to that!). Please, dear reader–don’t dabble!
The account I shared is the truth, with a lot of details omitted. You can write comments and try one-sided debates about if you think Christians can or can’t have demons in/on them or wherever, but I don’t care, I know what I saw and I write this post as a warning and might not respond to any comments posted–especially stupid ones.
Not only do I plead with you, I beg you, it’s NOT just “
something harmless” –the dope of this world is not worth participating in. Anyone wanting to kid themselves into thinking they can listen to some of this crap (I’m not picking on the genre of rap music, but anything that is anti-christ in spirit) and NOT be affected by it can go right ahead living in such ignorance. But I had that Saturday night put a holy fear in me of avoiding evil in any way, shape or form, and I want to STAY free from it.
That is all, thank you for reading this with an open mind, because I know secular music and demonology have polarized opinion groups about it, but please take this account to heart and do whatever is right to rid yourself of the open doors to sin and demonic influence. I want to make clear I’m not saying that listening to secular music just by default makes you get demon possessed! But frankly, I do believe it’s better to not stick one’s straw into the cesspool and drink.
One of the first podcast episodes Dan and I did last year was on Secular music. It’s a little bit old, and I’m not sure how similar our opinions are as they were back then when we shared this stuff, but I’m sure the discussion will at least prompt you to think and pray about it in your own life. It can be listened to here:
Listen to this episode
Download this episode (right click and save)
Other than that, I have a job interview tomorrow which I believe is already locked in place. Then this weekend I’m finally going down to Lakeland, Florida to check out the revival that’s been going on nightly for the last 2 months. I’m sure I’ll write something about it afterwards next week.
Blessings, and fire on your heads!
Hello folks.