In PART I, we described how this situation evolved. After meeting Rachel through a mutual friend – and a couple of interviews – my Pastor, Randy Smith and I both realized that we were likely suiting up for an exorcism. So we gathered up two more members of the church’s leadership – Pastor Donna Naedele, who shares pastoral duties with Randy and Randy’s wife Kathy. I felt blessed that everyone of them had had some experience confronting the demonic. Randy had chased a “whirling ball of energy” from a house in his first encounter with the dark side. Donna had seen and dealt with demonic possessions in her many trips to India. I was comforted by their history. Now, together we headed into the fray.
AN APPOINTMENT WITH EVIL
I recall being just a little bit nervous when I left work that day and as I waited at home for the rest of the team to pick me up. It all seemed a little crazy. I was heading to an exorcism! [That’s normal, isn’t it ?] My wife Cindie and daughter Skylar had prayed with me at home and then anointed me. But the car pulling into the driveway with the leadership of My Father’s House Church, Elma NY inside, was a welcome sight indeed. We had to travel across the city and so there was joking and stories and praying and singing and more anointing going on while we made that drive. Finally, we came to the house. It was a three-story, two-family, typical Buffalo home in a lower-middle-class neighborhood. We knocked on the door and waited. Rachel’s brother Carl finally came down and took us upstairs.
Pastor Donna told me that as soon as Carl opened the door she could feel the demonic presence. She had felt the same sort of thing on her many mission trips to India where the multi-god / demon-worshiping Hindus displayed many of the same characteristics that we would see on this adventure. When we entered the upstairs apartment we were treated to a veritable potpourri of doorways to the demonic. Halloween posters of varying degrees of darkness decorated the walls in quantities and frequency that would have made a small art gallery proud, punctuated here and there with Catholic likenesses of various saints. We moved through the kitchen and into the living room, the four of us facing Rachel and her children, her brother, her girlfriend Michelle, boyfriend David and housemate Donny. I think it was Pastor Randy who took the lead at that point. All of us took turns explaining just what we were facing, covering some of the same territory I had covered in the interviews. This was serious business. Doors had been opened and it was necessary that they be closed by renouncing any sort of activity that might have opened them. Together the group followed Kathy’s lead in renouncing everything from fortune telling to Ouija Boards to astrology to séances to a host of other sundry demonic activities. Donna told them that their posters were an issue too and that they had to be removed if we wanted to see progress. Rachel seemed to resist this, but brother Carl, – we would notice later – started removing them while we went about our business in other parts of the house.
Next, we moved into the room shared by the boys, James and Benny. The first thing we all noticed is that its decoration was – to say the least – rather bizarre for a bedroom occupied by two children under the age of three. The walls were plastered with even darker, more sinister posters than those found in the living room. There were masked wrestlers and pictures of Goth bands with skulls and demonic heads. As Pastor Randy later described it, “The house was filled with decorations that invited in the spirits of darkness.” With the boys in the room, Rachel asked them to “Show them where the mean man comes from.” Three-year-old James pointed to the closet door, where was posted perhaps the most evil-looking image of all. So we prayed and anointed – people and objects – and moved into Rachel’s bedroom. That’s where the spiritual warfare would really begin in earnest.
We entered there with more anointing and set to the task at hand: We were going to address Rachel’s two sons. Based on the evidence of what James had said, we believed them to be possessed and therefore in need of attention. As we prayed and laid hands on him, James went through some rapid mood swings. At one point both boys became hyper-active. After some prayer, the older one became quiet and sullen. Donna was trying to get him to focus on Jesus. “Can you say Jesus?”, she asked him over and over again. But he was totally unresponsive. Randy and Donna and Kathy were leading the way, as we moved from ministering to James and Benny to explaining things to the adults in the room – and back again. At one point I was making some point to the gathering when we realized that it had become a bit of a circus and we asked a few of the folks to leave and kicked the dog out in the process. It was then though that I realized the boyfriend was not in the room. Where was David anyway? I called out to him – in the middle of the time that the rest of our party was concentrating their attentions on James, still resisting our attempts to get him to say Jesus. David came in immediately – but almost zombie-like, as if he had been ordered to do so. I watched him as he entered the room and sat down in the only chair. He immediately seemed to go into some sort of a trance. I looked back at Rachel who was sitting on the bed with the boys and her girlfriend Michelle. Staring at David, she motioned me over and leaned in to whisper, “There’s something wrong with him. He’s not himself.” She couldn’t have realized just how true a statement that really was. It was at that point that I understood where the real battle would be fought. It was David where the center of the conflict would lie.
It wasn’t long afterward that James finally gave in and said the name “Jesus”! There was a change of mood on his part, and a general sense of freedom that followed immediately. There were hugs and quiet smiles of congratulation all around, and a celebration of God’s victory. But it was only seconds of relief before I drew the attention of the prayer warriors to David sitting in that chair. His mood had changed even from the trance like state he took on when he entered the room. The darkness of his soul had deepened. His eyes had taken on an other-worldly stare. He was rocking back and forth, contemplating inward. Donna and Randy Rushed in. Kathy was on the bed, praying, sometimes in tongues. Randy took one side and I the other with Donna facing him head on. She spoke to him gently. “Do you love Jesus”, she asked him. No answer. “Can you say you love Jesus?” No answer again. We were trying the same strategy that had been applied with James. Get him to say the Name. There is power in the name of Jesus. Randy coaxed at him too. But there was no response. Finally, Donna asked him: “Then who do you worship? Do you worship someone? Who do you worship?” It was then that we heard the voice for the first time. It was gravelly and low and evil. “The Devil”, he answered as he seemed to take on a dark energy that led him to rock more violently.
Donna countered with something like, “That’s not you David. You’re being controlled”. But he was silent and rocked all the more. We prayed against the mute spirit that would not answer. His personality changed again. It was as if I could see another demon rotate up inside him and his personality changed again. Like one demon retreated from the lead role in controlling this body and another took its place. In the course of things I noticed his hands become almost claw-like as they rested on his thighs, taking on a purplish tone and forming into a shape that I tried to unsuccessfully to recreate the next day in my office. This was a mocking spirit that laughed that movie-house evil laugh. [Yes, Hollywood gets it essentially right.] He stood up and Donna pushed him – and ordered him back down – “IN THE NAME OF JESUS”. He once again became mute and brooding.
It was then that we noticed the demonic medallion around his neck. “Get that thing off of him”, Donna ordered and Randy tried to do so. But David clutched at it, ripping it out of Randy’s grasp, clutching it into his own hands. He stood up again, like a caged animal breaking free of some chains. He was laughing that evil mocking laugh. His face had changed again and there was a dark and menacing power in his look. This was the face of pure evil. Randy was desperately trying to hold his right arm down. “Hold his other arm down, Rob” he called – and I did – but with little affect. You could feel the superhuman strength coursing through his body. He was down and up and down and up again. Then still laughing that mocking laugh, he managed to get a hold of my sweater. His laughter and scorn reached new heights. I couldn’t free my clothing from his grasp – but I managed to slip off my sweater over my head. I stepped back a bit shaken and began to pray in tongues. Then I began to sing, “Praise The Name of Jesus.” Randy and Donna continued to minister. Kathy on the bed, all the while praying. David was back in the chair, still clutching the medallion. Now Randy was administering love to him. “Do you know how much Jesus loves you? Jesus loves you. And we love you, David.” Donna: “We know that’s not you. Do you want those spirits to let you go? Just say so.”
Randy again: “Can you say Jesus?” No response. Randy: “Can you say Jesus? You can free yourself.” No response. Randy again: “Say Jesus.” Nothing. I’ve moved in too now, laying hands on him with Donna. Randy: “Just say Jesus. David, just say Jesus.”….. And then in a whisper David said it. “Jesus”. Randy: “Say Jesus. Say it again”. David: “Jesus”. Me: “Say it a little bit louder.” David (louder): “Jesus”. Randy: “I love Jesus”. David: “I love Jesus” Randy: “Jesus come into my heart.” David: “Come into my heart.”
David was exhausted, his hand relaxed and Randy wrestled the satanic medallion out of his hand. This time, David didn’t’ even notice. Donna took it and put it in her purse. David was crying and hugging and confused. (His hands bore the imprint of the satanic emblem he had been clutching. But it had no hold on him now.) In the simplest terms, Randy had led him in a form of the sinner’s prayer. He was a changed man. David was embracing us in turn, crying and asking, “What happened?”. While Rachel remained nonplussed by the whole affair, Michelle seemed a bit scared by what she had witnessed. Donna noted later that at one point she looked over at James, only to see him staring wide eyed at David, as he worked his way through his progressive metamorphosis.
We were through there. After talking to them about the necessity of filling their lives with Jesus, we left – exhausted. Out in the street, Donna produced the demonic medallion from her purse and we got a good look at it. It was silver, unmistakably evil and had red stones for eyes. We didn’t want to drive back with it. So Randy and I took it down the street, looking for a place to get rid of it. We ended up tossing it into a storm sewer.
As we drove home, we praised God. There was no doubting what we had seen. And it was by His power alone that we stood. We had witnessed the dark power of the enemy: It was strong, indeed. I thought, at any time, the possessed David, could have made short work of Randy and me and everyone else in that room. Yet though shaken at the time – I realized then – and afterward – that God had always been completely in control. In the end, the demons, and there seemed to be several infesting him, had to bow to the mighty name of Jesus. “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9-11) We saw that principle at work that day…and we were humbled. I could only realize that there was no power in me – except as was granted by the Creator and Ruler of the Universe. God had brought me – and all of us, I believe – to a new and deeper level of understanding. What was once understood in words alone – was now driven home with experience. There is a spiritual war going on all around us. God and His loyal forces are continually at war with the demonic hordes. Much of that battle is fought over the very souls of mankind. For Satan does indeed walk “about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” (1Peter 5:8)
Through it all I came a way with a greater appreciation for the power….and the love of God. In the heat of the battle, in the middle of it, I recall thinking that I was scared – in my flesh. But even then I realized that this wasn’t about flesh. I was firmly in the hands of God; fully protected by the power that sustains the universe. We watched demons bow and submit to the power of God. The rest of the team had seen it before; having dealt with the demonic in India and Bangladesh and Mexico and Haiti. But for me it was a new experience. One that I pray, and believe, I’ll never forget. Yes, Satan and his demons have power and it is much greater than our own. But as believers, we have the Spirit of the God of the Universe living inside of us.
Now during His earthly ministry, Christ first sent out the twelve apostles and later a group of seventy disciples. He sent them “two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go,” (Luke 10:1) to announce the coming of God’s Kingdom. When those disciples came back, they were amazed at what they had experienced. “Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.’ And He said to them, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.’” (Luke 10:17-20) But this is not just a role for believers of the first century. This is a charge that we all have been given as believers. Here then, again, are Christ’s words found in Mark 16:17. “And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons.” (Mark 16:17) Notice well! Those signs were given to all “those that believe.” Alleluia! Our God reigns!
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