Experienced any Supernatural Encounters with EVIL?

When I was young the Ouija Board was just becoming popular and we had one. Folks, this stuff is real and I cringe when I think back on it and our experiences "playing" with it. After I was saved I made sure it got tossed out of our house.

 

I have not had any encounters with demon-possession or ouija boards.....but when I was doing pulpit supply work in Indiana I was asked to preach in a small country church. From the moment I walked in the door I felt the presence of evil--it was one of the strangest things I have ever felt. The people were cold, the church was dead and it seemed that the presence of evil reigned. I preached my message and left as fast as I could and never accepted an invitation back.

 

Not to worry about that, Robert---I know a lot of charismatic folks who believe they're spiritual enough to handle it---but who ain't!!!!

 

I tried an Ouija board several times when they we're going around and that thing never moved on it's own once! Alot of people sure tried to convince me it really did though.

 

PastorSBC...way to faithfully preach your sermon. Praise God for that.

I have encountered evil before myself. I was fasting (try to avoid it now) and started hearing voices that were not very friendly. I was terrified to be alone in my house even in the daytime. Finally after about a week I had my pastor and another man pray with me. I felt the peace of God and boldness that I would not be afraid anymore. When I got home I heard footsteps on my porch and believe I was face to face with a demon though I could not see it. I stood my ground depending on the Lord and it left.

I learned then that the biggest battle with the devil is through your mind. He is not going to punch you in the face unless it is coming by way of a possessed person.

 

PastorSBC,

Amazing testimony.

Robert,

One of my gifts is spiritual discernment. I've frightened others and myself with it sometimes.
Once when I was young I was walking into church with my mother when we passed a well dressed man that sent cold shivers down my spine. I told my mother, "Something is wrong with that man. I think he's a demon." It turned out the man had a gun and while we were all in church he went into the treasury where they were counting the offering and tried to steal the offering. That particular church was televised in the days when that required massive cables hooked up to satellite trucks and he tripped running away, and the deacons were able to recover the money he stole.

When I was in high school a group of kids were playing with a Ouija Board and I felt an evil enter the room. One of the girls went almost insane right before our eyes, she became hysterical, started cursing like a sailor, and for a few weeks after that was alternating between totally wild to suicidal. (This is Austin, Texas folks, not Africa). We finally called her mother and said, "She was playing with a Ouija Board." Her parents held a prayer meeting for her/with her. She returned to normal.

In college I ended up with a journalism professor who just made my skin crawl. I couldn't put my finger on why, he had not yet done or said anything that would explain my feelings, but it was instant dislike between us. It didn't take me long to find out why. On the third day of class his lecture was "How Christians are destroying the world." On about the fourth day of class he brought in two of his friends for the class to interview. They were a Wiccan Coven 'lord' and his wife. They were speaking on how "misunderstood" and "good" Wicca is. We were all told to do an assignment on them, and have questions for them for the next class. I did some investigation. The male of the two had been arrested for murdering teenagers. He had claimed accidental death in self defense. (He said he fired a shot gun into the air to frighten teenagers off his property, and that one of the shots scattered and hit a teens he wasn't aiming at.) When I brought this up in the interview the professor went wild and threatened to fail me if I didn't stop asking those kinds of question. (Remember, this is an investigative journalism class). I said I'd be glad to take it up with the Dean, and he backed down. I started getting letters and cards at my home from Wiccans, nonsense telling me they sensed power in me and that they could teach me how to use it. I tried ignoring it, and then found these two hanging outside my classroom. I told them to stop contacting me in any way or I would call the police. They literally laughed. Finally I said, "I am a Christian, and there cannot be any other reason for your harassment other than demonic activity. If you ever contact me, come near me, write me or anything else I will NOT go to the police. I will go to my church." I never heard a word from them again.

My Aunt and Uncle are missionaries to a tribe of natives on one of the British Columbia reservations. They said that after a few years in the field one of the tribal elders became a Christian and he started teaching bible classes with the missionary team. When he did, the word of Christ spread like wild fire. Kids who had been afraid to go to the "White man's church," felt it was "okay" if the elder went.

He died in a canoe accident, and a few days later people started calling to say they were dropping out of the church because he told them to. The missionaries investigated, wanting to know when he told people that he didn't believe in Christ, the people said, "He came to me last night in the form of a wolf, and he told me that I would die if I went to your church." So the missionary team held a prayer meeting, asking God to bar the demon from the reservation. The next Sunday the attendance was back up at church.

 

I was about 23 or 24 and doing pulpit supply in central IL. I went to this church that I had been at several times -- it was a small church, about 4 families on Sunday night.

I had preached Sunday morning and Sunday night on numerous occasions. One Sunday night, there was a man a little older than me. He obviously wasn't a regular, and nobody seemed to know him. I preached (I think out of Ephesians.) He sat there with his Bible and followed along. Afterwards, he asked to speak with me in the pastor's office. I figured he was convicted and wanted to be saved.

Turned out he was convicted -- he felt the need to confess several things to me (despite me telling him it was a baptist, and not catholic church.) Among the things he told me was that at one time he thought he was Christ. However, right now, he was convinced he and his cousin were prophets and were in fact the two witnesses of revelation.

I had NEVER dealt with anything like this, but I got through it very prayerfully.

 

I've never had such an experience, but I'm totally convinced that such does happen.

Unfortunately, too many are not willing to admit to the garbage that satan can toss around and they come up with all sort of "naturalistic" reasons for these problems.

Therefore most of any demonic manifestations are attributed to mental illness, fatigue, hallucinations, response to medication yada,yada; anything but the truth.

And I'm certain that satan does nothing to refute the misinformation as this insures his continued success.

 

I’d tell you all some spooky stories…But I don’t want to give someone nightmares!!!

 

Robert,
why the disparaging attitude and the rolling eyes? You've gotten all these great responses, yet you claim that none of us Baptists would know what to do! What makes you think that way?

 

I had so many evil encounters and experiences I can't begin to list them. Some of them, such as seeing a towering figure in a hooded robe look down at my body on the bed as I watched from the corner of the room while out of my body, were before I was saved. A few are in my story here:
http://cana.userworld.com/cana_spiritualjourney.html

Others have happened since I was saved. Once I was in a long line at the public library to check out books. I had a strange feeling about the woman in front of me but did not know why. She did not look unusual but I felt there was something evil about here. After several minutes, a teen girl (I presume her daughter) came over with several books, telling this woman she had found some she wanted. I saw the titles of the books and they were about witchcraft, spells, etc. (not fictional books). The woman seemed to approve of these books. My guess is that she was into witchcraft and so was her daughter.

Another incident was that my sister and I both saw, as I was driving, a shadowy figure going down the middle of the street (this was after being saved). My sister and I saw this but did not say anything at first, so we didn't know each other was seeing it. Then the figure just disappeared, but we felt so creeped out that we prayed for several minutes afterward. There was no human around and this was not a human that we saw.

I have many more but I think this is enough.

I don't think the pentecostals have anything to teach us when it comes to dealing with the supernatural. The Bible gives us all the info we need: "Submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee." The key is walking with the Lord and looking to Him and His word when encountering evil.

 

Ok Robert, I see. I know we very often tend to go to the extreme in our reactions.

There's a couple men in my church who have a few experiences with casting out devils, so maybe I take it a little more in stride.

There's a missionary I know, he taught some of my missions classes in college, but had many experiences with black magic and shamans and such. The stories he told raised the hair on the back of your neck. Although he never ever sounded sensationalistic, ya know? And he certainly never glorified those stories, either.

 

I noticed something on...don't laugh now...American Idol last year. There was a young man, either a youth pastor or music director who professed Christ trying out. He had a good voice. Gene Simmons from KISS was a guest judge that day. As they went through the judges Randy, Simon and Paula, they liked him and sent him through to the next round. When they came to Simmons, he had the most evil look on his face, and scowled "I hated it". He also said something to the effect that there was no place for "christian" singer, youth pastors or artists on AI. It was almost as if he were possessed.

 

sorry webdog, I did laugh a little.....

 

The first time I noticed my ability to "sense" evil I was 15 years old. I went to a charismatic church (I am only specifying charismatic because that was what the church was - it was a Full Gospel church) for revival. During these services they would speak in tongues, people would be slain in the Spirit, etc. I had attended this church off and on for as long as I could remember because my mom and grandma took me with them whereever they went. There was a new evangelist at this particular revival that had never been there before. I guess he came recommended by someone the people who ran the church knew. I had just gotten over appendicitis and this was my first evening back to church. The evangelist was greeting and shaking hands with the congregation and when I met his eyes, they struck me as the coldest, most evil eyes I've ever seen in my life. It took me nearly 20 years to bring myself to start meeting people's eyes again because that so spooked me.

A couple years ago, there was a lot of turmoil in my home caused by my stepdaughters. The one was on drugs and was drinking badly. The other has a violent temper. Both of them were and are into the current music craze. As soon as I would cross the threshold into our home, I'd sense a dark cloud. As soon as I left the home, I'd sense the dark cloud lessening the further I got away from the house. I could also sense when they were lying, something I wasn't as proficient in doing with my own children. I just accepted it as an extra dose of discernment that my husband didn't have that God allowed me to have in order to help him...help he has refused to accept to this day. Once, one of my stepdaughters wrote in my Bible Study notebook the words, "Satan lives, you die." Talk about an icky feeling!

So yes, I have been exposed to it.

NomadsWife

 

Besides sensing evil, do you think that God can give us an insight or feeling or whatever you would call it to discern when something terrible is going to happen? My father is a retired pastor. There were quite a few Christians in our past churches who did horrible things to our family. My mother would always say, God will take care of them. Within a few months, something horrible would happen to them (usually death or illness to that person or family member or sometimes even jail or financial ruin). I can't remember one family who wasn't affected by their attacks on my father. One man's wife was striken with cancer, and he had a massive stroke not long after that. Another woman was diagnosed with cancer within a few months of her interference of my dad's ministry. And, yet others have suffered personal and financial ruin. The last church he pastored at, out of the group of people who had my dad removed, not one person has escaped some sort of wrath.
I have had this experience myself....bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, or a vision or dream of sorts. I hope this is normal. Is this what you call spiritual discernment?