God's Property ~ Part 1

Dear Friends,

From the very beginnings of the AMEN Corner ten years ago, I’ve been writing every October about the spiritual dangers of “fellowshipping with the demons” on Halloween and have been asked many times if I actually did believe in demons and the demonic world. According to a YouGov survey, 57% of all Americans and 86% of born-again Christians believe in the existence of the devil and 51% of Americans and 72% of born-again Christians believe that a person can be possessed by demonic spirits. I believe because the Bible tells me that Satan and his demonic spirits exist and I have personally encountered evil spirits and demonic possession too many times to disbelieve. 

Long ago I gave up trying to be young and handsome but there was a time in my life about 30 years ago when I went to a gym on a regular basis. This was a popular health club for both men and women and that afternoon I was in a large room of workout machines. It was a light day and I'm the only one working my way around the room on the various machines. I'm about half-way through when a beautiful woman enters and starts her workout on the machine by the door. She's about my age - early 40's - or a little younger and has one of those perfect, gym-toned bodies. As a good Christian husband, I just noticed her and looked away. She was wearing a very small tank top and she had fresh, brightly-colored tattoos on the arm that was nearest to me. There was one tattoo that looked like the face of a woman with long-flowing blonde hair.

Like I say, I'm being good so I ignore her and focus on my workout. But the workout machines are arranged in a circle, so that as we are going around the room, she is constantly in my line of vision. I notice that every time I look up, she is staring at me. When our glances meet she smiles but it's more than a smile and the problem is this: I'm trying to be a good Christian. I'm a committed married man. I'm a pastor. But the honest truth is that it’s difficult for any man under the age of 100 to completely ignore a gorgeous woman starring at him in an enticing manner. So I'm getting these uncomfortable guy-type thoughts in my head and I'm thinking it sure is getting hot in this room and I need to leave.

It was at that point that she stands up. But instead of moving to the next machine, she starts walking toward me. I'm on a weight machine bench where I'm half sitting and half laying on my back. My legs are moving weights up and down and my arms are pulling down a bar with weights. As she gets closer, the smile on her face is getting bigger and it feels like her eyes are boring right into mine.

I’m having an increasingly strong feeling of discernment that something is not spiritually right with her. The closer she's getting, the more I'm feeling as if the Holy Spirit is putting me on full alert. She moves to take the machine next to me. She's now standing directly over me. She looks down at me as she opens her mouth to speak. Instantly, her smile disappears. 

Her eyes blaze with hatred and her beautiful features contort into a horrible and ugly sneer. What comes out of her deformed mouth sounds like a guttural snarl. She spins around to stomp out of the room and that was when I saw the tattoos across her shoulders - symbols that I later found out were Wiccan and on her back a large tattoo of a pentagram in a circle. I also later found out the tattoo of the blonde woman was a goddess. This woman is a Wiccan or a Satanist and she makes a low growling sound as she runs from the room.

It wasn’t until she was close enough to stand over me that she was able to see the tee shirt I was wearing. (see photo) And by her instant, uncontrolled reaction it was apparent that one of the demons that possessed her had manifested itself. I later realized that her enticing behavior was from what our Bible calls a “Jezebel spirit.”

I'm thankful that God has allowed experiences like this because it's hard to ignore the reality of the powers of darkness when you're confronted by a snarling demon at the health club. And what God clearly showed me that day was that when you are God's property, you are Satan's enemy.

Dr. Charles Stanley is not your typical impassioned deliverance minister. He's a theologian and Bible scholar who wears a bow tie. Dr. Stanley has said: 

“Every morning when you and I wake up, we are at war. Many believers simply fail to take this reality seriously. When we talk about spiritual warfare, however, we must remember that each day, we live in the midst of a real, personal battle that we must fight. Failure to recognize this vital truth results in painful defeat time and time again. Dedicated Christians feel confused and downtrodden because they don't understand why they continue to experience failures in their spiritual lives. Just when they think they have something conquered, it rises back up to defeat them.”

In next week’s AMEN Corner:

A House Possessed By Demons.