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.
