I had no experience with demons or spiritual forces the day my future wife and I went to visit Harry in a small rural hospital near the church I pastored part-time during college. He had suffered a serious heart attack and been in a coma ever since. We arrived near lunchtime and encouraged his wife to take a much-needed break while we stayed with her husband.
Harry was motionless as Julie and I talked to him, assuring him of our love and concern. Then we started to pray. In the middle of our prayer, Harry moved his lips and said, “Jesus Christ did not come in the flesh.”
Stunned, Julie and I immediately thought of 1 John 4:1-3: “Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of antichrist.”
Julie began to cry. I wanted to.
Perhaps by divine design, we had studied about the Gadarene demoniac in a “Life and Teachings of Christ” course just that morning at Baylor University.
The professor had said, “Jesus always found out the demon’s name before casting it out.”
I said to Julie, “Let’s pray and ask for a name.” We bowed our heads and demanded in the name of Christ that if we were dealing with a demonic spirit, it must reveal its name.
Much to our surprise, Harry spoke: “My name is Clarissus.”
We were speechless and terrified.
Julie asked, “What do we do now?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “The dismissal bell rang this morning and that’s as far as we got” (which was the truth).
“Then, why don’t we do what Jesus did?” Julie suggested. “Let’s pray for Clarissus to come out.”
So we bowed our heads and prayed for Clarissus to come forth. Nothing happened.
Shortly afterwards, Harry’s wife returned: “How did things go?”
Julie and I looked at each other. We weren’t about to tell her what happened. The truth is we were not certain ourselves.
“Just fine,” we said.
We were in the parking lot when Harry’s wife came running out the hospital door yelling, “Wait! Wait! What happened in there? Something’s happened to Harry! His facial expression has changed. I want to know what happened?”
Frightened, we said not a word.
About 10:30 p.m. that evening, Harry regained consciousness and said to his wife, “I just had the strangest dream. I was climbing the steps to heaven and St. Peter said, ‘You can’t come in now.’ So I climbed back down the ladder. I guess God has more things for me to do before I die.”
Ten minutes later he had a massive heart attack. Three days later I conducted his funeral.
I had a hundred questions about what happened that day, and Harry wasn’t around to answer them. But in the 25 years since that intriguing Thursday afternoon in central Texas, I have invested considerable energy in thinking about how spiritual forces oppress pastors in two areas: in our personal lives and in how we care for people who have opened their lives to the Evil One and suffered spiritual attack.
Overcoming the Devil is a must-learn skill in the process of spiritual growth (1 John 2:12-14).
Spiritual war in your personal life
If I were the Devil, I’d wage warfare against pastors. I’d attack relentlessly with spirits of depression and despair, anger and bitterness, jealousy and lust, deceit and pride. I’d motivate all sorts of people and hosts of demonic forces to make pastoral life miserable.
In addition, I would make sure all pastors memorized early in their careers the passage “greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.” Then, I would wreak havoc while pastors assumed divine immunity from my attacks. I would hide while they sought help everywhere but the one place where they might find relief.
One of the most vicious satanic attacks I’ve withstood began one Sunday during the closing moments of the evening service. An impression of impending death overwhelmed me. I felt I had just preached my last sermon. I would die before next Sunday. I sat in dread in the blue rocking chair in our living room, late into the next two nights, waiting to die. Strange tinglings moved down my arms.
Tuesday morning I called a cardiologist friend at University Hospital, and within hours I was on a treadmill undergoing all sorts of heart tests. When all checked out well, the cardiologist called the chief of neurology, and 30 minutes later I was in his office undergoing a neurological exam.
I looked on with amazement as he went into a trance. His eyes had a glazed, far-away look. “They’re back aren’t they?”
“Your symptoms don’t fit any of the usual neurological problems or diseases,” he said. “Perhaps you have some exotic problem I have never encountered. Other than that, I don’t know what to tell you. I advise you to go on home, resume your normal activity, and see if any other symptoms develop.”
But the oppression did not abate. Late Thursday afternoon I was exercising when a counselor from one of our deliverance teams called. “I really hate to bother you,” he began, “but we had something happen that may interest you. A woman struggling to get out of witchcraft just revealed in a deliverance session that she and some of her friends had placed a curse on you. They actually prayed for a spirit of death to destroy you. I know this is probably nothing, so I almost did not call. But perhaps you’ll find the information useful.”
I got back on the exercise machine and shouted out praise and thanksgiving to God. Then I rebuked the spirits attacking me and immediately the oppression lifted. The symptoms dissipated.
Most spiritual attacks are not nearly so dramatic. I would be hard pressed to tell another story like that one. However, over extended periods, less intensive attacks can be just as devastating. Subtle attacks often go undiagnosed for years.
Worry was one of my besetting sins. My day off was the worst. My wife, Julie, often told me how much she hated Friday. Without pressing church problems to distract me, I was free to brood about all sorts of problems.
“You’re acting like a preoccupied, intimidated child,” Julie said to me on many occasions. “Now stop it. You’re no fun to be around.”
The process I used to find relief from my worry I now use often when I suspect a spiritual attack. James 4:7 gives a simple formula: “Submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
Submitting to God involves, for me, three things:
- Confessing that the area is out of control and needs help;
- Consciously yielding the area to God; and
- Considering myself dead, according to Romans 6, to the sin in that area.
If these three activities provide freedom, then I thank God the problem was only a sin of the flesh. However, if the struggle persists, I consider that I may be experiencing a spiritual attack. The second half of James 4:7 then comes into play.
“Resisting the devil” involves four things:
- Declaring that I have forsaken and confessed my sin to God so the forces of evil no longer have a foothold;
- Renouncing the attacking forces (“In the name of Jesus Christ, depart and leave me alone. I rebuke you and your attacks against me. I want nothing to do with you.”);
- Asking for the filling of the Holy Spirit; and,
- Imploring the Holy Spirit to build a hedge of protection around me from future attacks. Every day I specifically pray for the spiritual armor of Ephesians 6:10-17.
Spiritual war in your work
The man from the utility company finished his work and said, “You’re Roger Barrier, aren’t you? I listen to your radio program every day. My wife and I are both Christians. She’s having some problems; in fact, there are times when I wonder what’s going on inside of her. Do you believe in demons?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Why don’t we sit down in the kitchen and talk?”
“Several months ago,” he began, “we went to a spiritualist church where we were encouraged to pray to receive spirit guides to help direct our lives. I didn’t pray for any, but my wife did. She hasn’t been the same since.
“Sometimes, it’s as if there’s a different person inside. Her voice changes; her face contorts; she has an aversion to the things of God. Our marriage is falling apart. She won’t go back to our Christian church.
“It all came to a head last night. While we were arguing, she walked into the hallway, turned slowly, and said with a sneer, ‘Don’t you know who we are?’ Her voice rose to a scream as she repeated, ‘Don’t you know who we are? Don’t you know who we are?’ “
He was shaking now.
“I think,” he said, “she is demon possessed like they talk about in the Bible. Can you help us?”
My affirmative answer was easy to say. But reaching the point where I felt confident to say it was not.
Today our church sponsors a deliverance ministry, which developed because of people who sought help for problems that could only be described as demonic. As we began caring for these folks, some in our congregation were upset. Some were convinced that demons existed only in the first-century world. Others were indignant; most were ignorant of spiritual-warfare issues.
A turning point was when our counseling pastor grew frustrated working with people who should have found emotional healing for their personal problems, reconciliation for their marriages, and harmony in their relationships—but never did. Well-trained by every secular standard in both counseling and psychology, our counseling pastor lamented that the success rate in the psychiatric field hovered around 10 percent.
When he added spiritual warfare to his tools for helping people, he discovered that people who were not helped in any other way began finding victory. When a problem does not yield to medical attention, standard psychological counseling, biblical insight, or the usual prayer requests, it is not unwise to consider the possibility of a spiritual attack.
Biblical weaponry
Alan came to my office late one afternoon after everyone had left for the day. Over the years his childhood devotion to Christ had waned. He responded to his spiritual longings by attending a spiritualist church. When the leaders asked if he wanted a spirit guide to help him through life, he responded enthusiastically.
Now he was no longer enthusiastic.
He told me, “I received something that night, and I don’t like what I got.” I looked on with amazement as he went into a trance. His eyes had a glazed, far-away look. After a while he came back to himself and said simply, “They’re back, aren’t they?”
I was not quite certain who “they” were, but I agreed—they seemed to be back.
I excused myself and called another of our pastors at home to return to the office. I did not want to be alone with Alan. When the other pastor arrived, Alan detailed the symptoms of his problem, which ranged from astral projection to demonic visions.
I read The Adversary, a primer on spiritual warfare by Mark Bubeck, shortly before I counseled Alan about his spirit guides and astral projection. Most of my deliverance experiences to that point involved direct encounters with the spirit world. I wanted to see if Alan could gain victory on his own with a more discipleship-oriented approach.
He took the book, followed the biblical guidelines, prayed the suggested prayers, and found freedom. He has served faithfully in our church ever since.
Keeping it in perspective
The only organized opposition I ever had against me the past 25 years of pastoring came from individuals who were dead set against our ministry to those harassed by the occult. I have learned to be patient in developing a spiritual-warfare ministry within an established church. It needs to be done—but carefully and wisely.
I watched a pastor lose his church because he became so involved in deliverance work that he had little time or energy left for his other pastoral duties. While I helped pioneer the spiritual-warfare ministry, I soon after turned it over to others. It gets no more time from me than other church ministries.
But the ministry is worthwhile.
I worked for several hours with a woman who was spiritually overwhelmed. She hardly moved or changed facial expression as I demanded in the name of Christ that the numerous spirits who kept talking through her be silenced. I wanted to speak directly with her.
No one in the room that day will forget her face, frozen, locked in stone, a tear trickling out the corner of her left eye the moment I asked her if she wanted to receive Christ. Her lips moved, and an almost imperceptible “yes” came out of her mouth.
Soon she was free.
Few events demonstrate the power of God more than watching the Spirit of God overcome the forces of evil.
This article is excerpted from Listening to the Voice of God: How Your Ministry Can Be Transformed, the fifth volume in Leadership’s “Pastor’s Soul” book series. To enroll in this series, call toll-free, 800-806-7796, and mention offer E8A28. If you like the book, pay just $14.95; you’ll then receive the next quarterly volume, and you may cancel at any time.
Roger Barrier is pastor of Casas Adobes Baptist Church 2131 W. Ina Road Tucson, Arizona 85741
Copyright © 1999 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or contact us.
