Demonic Possession –Ray Comfort<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

After the recent study of Luke chapter 4, there has been a lot of talk about demonic activity. The Bible is filled with stories of people being demon-possessed, and continually speaks of an evil spiritual force headed by "principalities and powers." Scripture says that the battle that Christians face is not against human beings, but against these spiritual powers (see Ephesians 6:12). Over the next few days I'm going to share some of my experiences with this realm. No doubt it will stir up a few demons... Allow me to share a couple of hair-raising experiences with you. Because I know that no liar will enter the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />kingdom of Heaven, the following incidents, which are only two of a num­ber of similar experiences, [except for the name of "Jane"] don't have even a tinge of half-truth or exaggeration. They are the "gospel truth," exactly as they happened.While I was the speaker at a church youth camp, an eighteen-year-old named John stepped into my cabin late at night and told me he was having problems.After talking with him for a while, I told him that we would pray about his troubles (depression, a feeling of inferiority). As I began to pray, he slumped off the bunk bed on which he was sitting onto the floor. Then he groaned, rolled onto his back, arched his body, and began pushing himself backward across the floor. In the Book of Mark, Jesus said, "These signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons," so I began to use the name of Jesus in what is called "exorcising prayer." The demons in John screamed, hissed, and manifested with such velocity that saliva from his mouth hit a chest of drawers eight or nine feet from where he lay. With the help of God, I cast the spirit of rebellion from him, then asked a friend, who had come in to see what the noise was about, to get John a drink of water. When John came back to himself, I asked him what he had been in­volved in that got him into such a state. It turned out that he had been listening to occult-based heavy metal music and drinking blood. He and his girlfriend, under the influence of mar­ijuana, would get a cup of blood from the local butcher and drink it in a satanic rite. The essence of Satanism is rebellion against God. Those who give their wills over to occult influences will find a compelling urge to rebel against everything wholesome and good, against everything for which the kingdom of God stands. That's why their ceremonies include blood-drinking rituals. God says that blood is sacred, so they desecrate it. God loves little children. That's why they have child sacrifices. God says the human body is to be covered. That's why their ceremonies are often conducted completely naked, etc.

The second incident happened after I had been preaching in the Square in New Zealand. Two girls approached me and said they wanted to talk about something personal. I asked if it was about demons. Surprised, they said that it was. One of the girls was having continual blackouts. For no apparent reason, she would black out at various times of the day. The blackouts became so frequent that the girls suspected something spiritual was involved. I told them to come to my office at 2 p.m. that afternoon. (This was while Sue and I were running the Drug Prevention Center in the Dome of the Regent Theater Building).The girls arrived at precisely 2 p.m. Frankly, I was surprised they showed up. I ushered them into my office and began to question the one with the problem. Besides the blackouts, she was having suicidal thoughts and, after some probing, I learned that she hated her father. At that point someone came into the Center, so I said I would pray for her after I served the customer.As I stood at the counter, suddenly her friend burst from my office in tears and blurted that the young lady was writhing on the floor. The customer left rather quickly. I raced back to my office and found her crawling on her hands and knees, groaning, screaming, and making animal-like noises. I commanded the spirit to manifest and name itself, so that I would know how to pray."No, no!" it screamed.I persisted. It shrieked, "Hate, Hate!"I named the spirit of hate and commanded it to leave. (If you find this hard to believe, consider how I felt. You are only reading about it. I found myself right in the midst of something supernatural, illogical, and irrational, but I couldn't deny its reality). Another spirit identified itself as "Suicide."I said, "Those are personalities-what is your name?""Soal," it screamed."How long have you been in this person?""Twelve years.""How did you gain access?""Easily!"During the manifestation, the spirits referred to the teenager as "her," that is, they were separate from her personality.Finally, after I prayed for about an hour, she came to herself and seemed free. I told her (we will call her "Jane") to become a Christian, or she would end up in a worse state than she had been.I began to question Jane about her past. She told me that about twelve years ago, at the age of seven, she began talking with a "friend." This friend was invisible, but was very real to Jane--so real, in fact, that she asked her mother if he could come to dinner. He used to tell Jane stories. They were bad ones that started off good if she was in a good mood, and good ones if she was in a bad mood. A few days later, I received a card from Jane, thanking me for praying with her. She said that she now felt free. On the card, she gave a reference for a Bible verse that she said meant a lot to her. We turned to it, and it didn't make sense as it was about the wrath of God. This remained a mystery until sometime later.I advised her to get rid of everything that gave her contact with the occult. She was wearing occult bracelets, which we knew had some sort of demonic influence, and around her neck she wore a silver fairy, which I told her she should destroy. Unfortunately, as I found out later, Jane didn't heed my advice.

Two weeks later she called to say that she was experiencing more blackouts. I told her to come and see me right away. Twenty minutes later her friend yelled for me from the top of the stairs leading to the center. Jane began to experience a demonic manifestation halfway up the stairs. When I got down to her, she was leaning against the wall, stiff and motionless. I managed to get her up another ten steps, but as soon as she turned the corner, she ran ahead and threw herself headlong over the balcony. I automatically ran after her, grabbed her and screamed for help. Two friends who were in the center rushed to assist me. I held Jane by her legs, while the rest of her dangled over the twenty-foot drop to the floor below. I knew that I had her life in my hands! I don't know how I hung on, as her body weight was over the point of balance, and with everything she had, she was trying to fall. We managed to pull her back and carried her to my office. As soon as we began to pray, Jane grasped her fairy necklace. She held it so tight that the blood drained out of her knuckles. It took me about thirty seconds to loosen it from her hand. I walked across to the other side of the office to an eight-inch-long piece of railway track that sat on my desk (at that time I was still making a few leather jackets for people, and I used the metal as a base to hammer domes onto jackets). Jane was in a blackout state behind me. Two people stood between her and me. I had my back to her, so there was no way she could see what I was doing. I took the ornament and smashed it with a hammer. God is my witness -- the second the hammer hit the necklace, the demons in her screamed. I hit it five times, and each instant the hammer came down upon it, the spirits in her screamed in terror. It was like something out of a horror movie! I picked the pieces up and threw them out the window to the ground five stories below. Over the next few hours twelve spirits named themselves and came out of her. The first one to leave called itself "Joseph Smith." Jane apparently had contact with Mormonism, and had even been baptized by them. The other spirits named themselves as Mocking, Lying, Deceit, Schizophrenia, False Tongues, Music, Affliction, Soal, Marinda, Strength, and Lucifer (which I would think was a lying spirit). The two that had the greatest stronghold were Strength and Marinda. I commanded, "Marinda, what is your function -- what do you do?""I cause blackouts!" Jane had been having blackouts since her early teens.During this time, Jane writhed across the floor, screaming, groaning, and choking. The spirits tried constantly to afflict her. On three occasions she grabbed lamp cords and tried to strangle herself. It took all the strength of four of us to hold her down. She kept hitting her head against the wall or the floor, and she would pull her hands free and attempt to gouge her eyes out (I heard of one young man who actually did so recently, while being held in a police cell).At one stage I noticed that she, in a total blackout state, put her hand down her blouse, pulled a safety pin off her clothing and with incredible dexterity undid it with two fingers and attempted to swallow it.As I ripped it from her fingers the spirit said, "I'm going to kill..." I replied that it couldn't harm us because we were Christians. It spat out, "Not you. Her!"Jane lay in the corner in a blacked out state. Every time we prayed she would scream, and Strength would reveal itself by making her very strong. We found that if we named the spirit and commanded it to relax, it would obey our command. (Jesus said, "Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven"-Luke 10:20, emphasis added.)For no apparent reason she began sucking her thumb like a baby. So I said, "Jane, I want you to answer, not Marinda. Marinda, you must stay relaxed-you must obey! Jane, tell me what happened to you when you were a baby."She writhed in anguish. "They're taking me away from my mother. No, no!"Jane, who was adopted, then spoke in a clear voice about her scarred childhood. She told us of her father who didn't love her. She talked about a séance at school, in which a spirit was manifest who said that Jane's friend would die in a car accident. The girl, aged twelve, was terrified. She became afraid to even get into a car. She was killed at the age of fourteen, when one struck her as she stood on the sidewalk. This left Jane completely filled with fear.I always believed that hypnotism was delving into the spirit realm, but something happened during this time to confirm that fact. Even the snap of my fingers (as done by hypnotists) could either put her under or take her out of a blackout state. She then spoke of different pains that she had suffered throughout her youth, including the physical pain of an ear operation. I asked her what significance her fairy necklace had. She said that it gave her a feeling of power over people, saying that as she held it, it caused her to "freak out."I asked her about the card that she sent me. I said, "The Scripture reference that you gave me, in Psalm 58..."Jane interrupted, "Not Psalm 58-Psalm 56:9."We turned to it and read it aloud, "When I cry out to You, then my enemies will turn back; this I know, because God is for me."The moment that Scripture was read, Marinda manifested with Jane screaming in terror. It became clear that Marinda and all her works needed to be renounced and turned from, by a conscious act of Jane's will. Jane then verbally renounced Marinda and everything associated with the demonic realm, and freely confessed that Jesus Christ came in the flesh (see 1 John 4:2,3).The next day Jane came into the center and said she was totally set free -- and this time she was. Although she was bruised, she didn't remember a thing after reaching that halfway point on the stairs. From, Out of the Comfort Zone (Bridge Logos Publishers).
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