Demonic Possession--continue from yesterday...

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.

To be continued Monday...

From, Out of the Comfort Zone (Bridge Logos Publishers)