When I was in New Orleans during my dark days I practiced witchcraft and black magic. Through the years I’ve met many people who write witchcraft off as a bunch of malarkey.
It’s not!
The Bible warns us of the occult and in no uncertain terms cautions us to stay away from it, (including astrology). Always the original rebel and evil to the bone I experimented in black magic and soon was known as a “warlock”, (male witch).
In my book, Miracle on Luckie Street, I recount a couple of spells that I put on people that had dramatic results. I cast a love spell on a beautiful girl who was living with some guy in some apartments not far from me. I copied this spell from a black magic Bible onto a parchment looking piece of paper. It had strange writing in two circles and I copied it meticulously onto a piece of heavy paper that looked like parchment and after chanting the words in a ceremony over it, I gave it to them and then lied and told them it was a “good luck” spell.
That very night their apartment caught on fire and they narrowly got out in time. The fire started because they had put the “good luck” spell on the wall and lit a black candle under it. I was told the parchment eventually caught on fire which got the wallpaper and curtains going, and it spread from there. Her boyfriend was so afraid of me that he left New Orleans the next day for Texas and she moved in with me.
My friend Bill Glass and I had a lively discussion about satan while he was visiting. Bill, like many preachers that I’ve met, does not want to give satan undue attention. While I agree, I also made the point that it is foolhardy to underestimate an opponent with whom we in engaged in war.
Fallen angels and satan did not lose any powers when they were expelled from heaven. Every account in the Bible of someone who encountered an angel fell flat on their face in fear. Satan was created second to God and when he fell from heaven he took one third of the angels with him. That number was not given to us because I believe it is incomprehensible to our limited minds. Fallen angels, (demons) still retain incredible powers that we do not have. This power is referred to in the Bible as a “spiritual stronghold”.
What is a spiritual stronghold?
Paul defines strongholds in spiritual terms as an “argument or high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God”. A stronghold is a point of operation from where Satan can keep the unbeliever captive or the believer incapacitated.
To avoid captivity we are told to put on the “full armor of God”. Our weapons are not physical, for our warfare is spiritual in nature. Rather than guns and tanks, our weapons consist of “the belt of truth buckled around our waist, with the breastplate of righteousness, (doing the right thing and not the wrong) in place, and with our feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, we are to take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” and we are ready for anything that satan can throw at us.
If we do, then satan will flee from us, (body of Christ), like a scared rabbit.
It is commonplace in the prison ministry to come under satanic attack. Satan doesn’t want those who are lost to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ. The same was true as we prepared to launch Honey Lake Church and Worldwide Ministries this weekend.
We knew our little church was not going to hold the crowd that came to our first inaugural service, so we prepared to stream it over the Internet to our Lakeside Pavilion as an overflow crowd alternative for those who did not arrive early.
As background information, we installed a very expensive fiber optics network throughout the resort several years ago and we’ve never experienced a problem with it. And then just days before our inaugural service was to take place, we came over satanic attack. The fiber optics network switch that processes Internet signals and assigns IP addresses coming into the resort quit working, (it had worked reliably for three years). We had no Internet service or phones while we frantically tried to identify the problem and repair it.
We found the switch problem and ordered one to be delivered by Fed-Ex next day air. Okay problem solved…
Nope!
The next day the phone and Internet service, supplied by our provider, Century Link Phone Company, went out for the entire state and stayed that way all day and into the night until a piece of equipment located hundreds of miles away in Orlando was finally repaired by the phone company.
Okay we’re ready to go…
Nope!
Just as we got ready to test our video/audio streaming capabilities, it went out again. This time the problem was limited to only one tiny little town in Florida, Greenville, and that just happens to be where Honey Lake is located. Again workmen worked far into the night to repair it. They eventually found some wires that had been cut and finally early Saturday morning it was repaired.
Okay we’re ready to go…
Nope!
Our IT team frantically installed and configured complex switches, hooked up various video output/input modulators, and so forth and finally got everything tested and working late Saturday night. Sunday morning I got to the church feeling good, that is until I talked to my IT people. They were frantic, pale as ghosts, and physically shaking from exhaustion and frustration. It had quit working again.
Sigh… I decided that I would preach at the Lakeside Pavilion and Bill Glass would preach the church as planned. I recommended that my guys take a Valium or something and calm down. I’d been earnestly praying for all three of them since 3:00 a.m. We talked about it and then they tried a new patch cable and BINGO it came back up and started working beautifully.
Okay the church is filling up with worshippers and we’re ready to go…
Nope!
One of them moved some of the equipment to get it out of the way and it quit working again. He physically shrieked. I told him to calm down and disconnect the wires and re-plug them and it came back up and started working again. I looked at them sternly and told them not to touch anything!
Okay we’re ready to go…
Yep! 🙂
Satan was defeated and over 400 people heard the message of God preached with several coming forward to make first time decisions to follow Jesus and not the world.
Did you hear me? These people will spend eternity in heaven now instead of hell because they accepted Christ as their Savior at the inaugural of our new church at Honey Lake! Our inaugural was a big success in spite of satanic attack.
I’ve noticed that whenever I try to accomplish anything for the Lord or just in my ordinary life that I come under satanic attack. Expect it and understand that he is powerful and can cause storms, but that we can successfully resist him until God defeats him and sends him packing with his tail tucked between his legs. Today he is licking his wounds over being defeated at the “Great Battle of Honey Lake”.
I have no doubt that our ministry will face him again and again in many battles before Christ will decide the time is right for his final defeat. Eventually he will be chained up in the deepest pit and suffer in hell forever. He will have plenty of time to reflect on his defeats including the Great Battle of Honey Lake.
Hmmm…Smiles all over my face as I envision that sight… Poor bastard…
1 John 3:8
“For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil”