Invisible Enemies Read online

  But to my shame, my rebellion led me in a direction I loathed, one that had become a pattern in my sales travels. Once again, I soiled my conscience through sexual self-gratification. The routine was all too familiar. And once again, guilt battered me.

  I knew all the Scriptures, especially the one in Matthew 5:28 that reminded me that my Lord considered even looking on a woman with lust as committing adultery. Logic dictated that my fantasizing about women accompanied by a sexual release made the offense even worse. I fell to my knees and repented for what seemed to be the millionth time. I then reached for my Bible to salve my conscience and eventually slipped into sleep with it in my hands.

  Why My Battle Raged On

  It was not until many months after the episode in Birmingham that I came to understand the process much better. Why had I been so repulsed by Ted’s enthusiasm about deliverance from evil spirits? I realized that it was because I myself was dealing with unseen enemies.

  My own personality had been infiltrated by evil spirits that definitely did not want me to go to that deliverance conference. Those demons knew that had I gone to the meeting, they might have lost their happy home. My mental accusations against Ted and my combative reasons for not attending the meeting that night were not entirely my own. Many were fueled by evil spirits inserting their thoughts into mine.

  The phenomenon I just described is not unique to me. There are many good-natured people who have similarly hostile thoughts injected into their minds on a daily basis. Those people have genuinely good intentions. They long to have close friends, pleasant vocational environments and loving family relationships, but they often fail because they are plagued by critical thoughts that swim spontaneously through their cognitive processes. The malicious intent of that demonic activity is to incite arguments and to alienate their hosts from others and from any chance for harmonious living.

  On the sexual side, the aberrant drives that people assume are just natural inclinations are nothing of the kind. Often, those thoughts and inclinations are the product of attacks from satanic entities that invaded their psyches during their formative years. These powers trash their God-given inhibitions, causing their consciences to become so calloused that they accept that which is unnatural and defiling as natural and harmless.

  As it was with me, so it can be with many people of moral uprightness. It is one thing for a hormone-invigorated teen to experiment with masturbation. It is quite another for a married person to disregard marriage vows by fantasizing about sexual escapades with members of the opposite sex. The solution for my unholy habit of sexual self-gratification was deliverance from the demon spawning it. Amazingly, when it happened, my release was instantaneous and permanent.

  It was my parents who introduced me to Don VanHoozier, the minister who helped to set me free. In turn, it was Pastor Don who got me connected with the ministry of Derek Prince, the Cambridge philosopher-turned-preacher who would soon hold such a valued place in my life.

  At the time of my initial contact with Pastor Don, Prudence and I were living in Jackson, Mississippi, with our three young daughters. A fourth daughter, Rachel, came ten years later. Our family was very active in a local Southern Baptist church. My parents, who lived in Atlanta, Georgia, were godly, conservative evangelicals who attended a Presbyterian church that emphasized evangelism.

  Everything was going along routinely until my mother got spiritually hungry for something more.

  Some Renegade Baptists

  One evening, my father called me with some rather startling news. He began by saying that my mother had hauled him to a meeting of the FGBMFI. To his shock (and awe), she had gone forward for prayer, seeking Holy Spirit baptism with the evidence of speaking in unknown tongues. He did what he imagined any respectable retired military officer and head of his conservative Christian household would do. He followed her politely to the altar, lifted her bodily from the waist and walked her off the premises.

  Up to that point in their lives, both my father and mother believed that the gifts of the Holy Spirit had ceased during the first century. With that understanding firmly in place, my father felt that no wife of his should or would ever start dabbling in “Holy Roller” foolishness. What happened to my father later that night blew his theology to smithereens.

  At about two in the morning, he was awakened from sleep by a voice. He sat up to see a bright light filling the room as my mother slumbered peacefully beside him. A voice spoke from the light and said something to this effect: I now baptize you in My Spirit. Dad instantly began to speak in a language he had never learned. The next morning, he could hardly get a word out in English as he told my mother what had occurred during the night.

  Her reaction was twofold. Her first response was joy. Her second response was to scold my father for not waking her so she could have shared the experience. They were thus set on journeys near and far seeking the baptism with the Holy Spirit for my mother. Along the way they discovered delights from the Word of God to which they had previously been blind. Mom’s search was satisfied when they visited High Point Southern Baptist Church in Macon, Georgia.

  The phone call from my father that evening filled me with concern, as he and my mother took turns telling me about the wonders they had seen and experienced as they continued to attend the Baptist church in Georgia. They said that everyone, from the pastor to the janitor, had been blessed with gifts of the Spirit. They talked excitedly about people getting delivered from demons, prophesying and being healed of sicknesses.

  Out of a deep sense of alarm (they had obviously gone off the deep end) I suggested that Prudence and the girls and I meet them at the church in Macon on the following Sunday. As I hung up the phone, I thought: Southern Baptist church, my foot! In my estimation, that church is filled with nothing but renegades!

  I was determined to expose the fraud.

  The Church in Macon

  On the three-hundred-mile drive from Jackson, Mississippi, to Macon, Georgia, my mind defaulted into that same combative mode with my heart that I had experienced in Birmingham. A stream of testy, condescending remarks rushed into my mind. The scenes shifted from one scenario to the next as I anticipated how I would react in each event.

  I had no clue, however, that the barrage of thoughts coming to me were actually instructions from demons that were working within me. I thought the vindictive put-downs were all coming from my marvelously astute doctrinal perspectives.

  When Prudence and I and our girls entered the church in Macon with my parents, I discovered to my surprise that Pastor Don VanHoozier was a genuinely warm person. At our introduction, he brushed past my formal offer of a handshake and instead wrapped his long skinny arms around me.

  I went stiff as a board, but he did not let me go. He rocked me like a child with his chin resting on the top of my head. “Oh, Jimmy, I’m so glad to meet you at last. Come on into my office and you can pray with my deacons before the service.” I was embarrassed enough about being hugged by a beanstalk of a man for what seemed like an eternity. Now he wanted me to join him and his crew for prayer and go further out of my comfort zone. Before I could protest, I found myself standing in his office surrounded by six smiling men. I felt like a worm at a bird convention.

  A short man who fit my perception of a redneck placed his hand on my head and began to speak. For a moment I grew tense, wondering if I would be subjected to their supposed gift of speaking in tongues that my parents had described. I relaxed. The language in which he spoke was not gibberish. My father had been stationed in Germany during my early teens, and I easily recognized that the deacon was speaking German. I was fascinated by the man’s fluency: His speech had no hint of a rural Georgia drawl.

  Just as he finished speaking, another man began to talk, interpreting for us the words just spoken in German. He told how God had called me from birth to be a Bible teacher, how I would travel the globe setting the captives free from demonic powers. I was stunned by the significance of his words. I was not famil
iar with what it meant to be a Bible teacher, and I had only budding perceptions of what “setting the captives free” might entail. Yet the words hit my heart with accuracy: God had clearly spoken to me, directing me into my life’s calling.

  As the prayer time ended, I was touched by a sense of God’s power, but still cautious. I started to converse with those two men using the bit of German vocabulary at my command, but clearly neither of them understood a word I was saying.

  Now I was utterly amazed. Had I actually been on the receiving end of the gifts in the Bible known as speaking in and interpreting tongues?

  It was time for the morning service to begin and our little group parted. As I walked into the sanctuary, my heart acknowledged that the renegade Baptists were experiencing more of God than I was. And what was more, I suddenly knew I wanted what they had.

  After the morning service, Prudence and I stayed for the evening service as well. Afterward, Prudence returned to our motel with the children, and I talked with Pastor Don late into the night. I had not told him anything about my personal problems. A few times during our talk together one of my carefully orchestrated arguments would raise its proud head. When that happened, he would just smile and gently disarm whatever I said with a prowess in the Scriptures like none I had ever witnessed.

  As our conversation concluded and I rose to leave, eager to tell Prudence all I had learned, Pastor Don asked if he could pray for me. Alarms went off in my head, all of them screaming for me to run out of the building. But this time my heart won, and I gave the pastor my consent. I was expecting a generic “bless-us-as-we-go-our-separate-ways” benediction. That was not even close to what happened.

  My First Personal Deliverance

  Pastor Don asked me to sit in a chair and he stood behind me. He thanked God for my life and for bringing us together. He then said something I had not ever heard in a prayer. “Father, in Jesus’ name, I bind every evil force in the atmosphere around us and anything that might be complicating the life of this dear son of Yours.”

  Unknown to me, I was on the brink of getting demons expelled from me. He did not mention anything about demons or evil spirits. There was no shouting and by no means was it an aggressive ritual. Pastor Don had an unpretentious confidence in the anointed authority he possessed. More importantly, he somehow knew that the vile entities he was addressing were also aware of his authority.

  As Pastor Don prayed for me, it was as though my sins and struggles were being broadcast into his thoughts from a direct spiritual wiretap of my conscience. He dealt with specific evil spirits in several ways. At times he called them “things” and at other times “powers.” When doing so he would describe the particular activity of the demon, and then tell it to be gone from me. At other times he would identify a spirit by its particular function, and tell it to go in Jesus’ name. It seemed evident that he was speaking to spiritual entities having faculties and personalities similar to those of humans.

  “I order this thing that causes Jimmy to give harsh critical assessments of others to come out of him in Jesus’ name. You powers that compel him to lie and to exaggerate, leave him now. Insecurity, the blood of the Lamb and the power of Jim’s adoption into the family of God render your whispers null and void. Come out of him now in the matchless name of the Lord. From this moment forward, this sexual power that drives him to defile his sense of dignity as a recipient of God’s grace is banished forever.” Without question, the pastor was speaking to the spirit of masturbation that had been so disconcerting for me. It left. All of the spirits he commanded to depart did so.

  I did not have any of the grotesque manifestations portrayed in the movie The Exorcist. I would estimate that I was liberated from at least five distinct evil spirits. As each one left, I felt a gentle lifting sensation in my abdominal area. Then I would either breathe out a little air as with a stifled burp or I would sigh with a yawn. I was hoping the minister would not think me rude or bored.

  Pastor Don indicated the session was over by saying a hearty, joyful, “Amen!” Then he looked at me with one of the kindest expressions on his face that I had ever seen. “How are you doing, Jimmy?”

  I responded, “To tell you the truth, I feel like a new man. Each time you prayed, I felt a lifting sensation in my gut. Were those sensations the demons you were calling out of me?”

  “Yes, my boy,” Pastor Don replied. “A lot of faithful saints are carrying around excess baggage they never knew existed. When the weight is off-loaded, their Christlike characters are liberated to shine forth. Don’t fret about the issue of all those things that have been lurking within you. You’ve been dragging them around for years. You’ve already survived the worst those particular evil spirits could dish out. Now, lo and behold and bless your soul, you’re still standing tall as a man of God. Regardless of the sins the demons manipulated you to imagine or commit, the Lord has never forsaken you. Jesus loves you, and so do I.”

  With that, Pastor Don reached over to give me another hug. This time there was no bristling from me. I hugged him back and soaked his shirt with joyful tears.

  Seeing with New Eyes

  Prior to the services that Sunday, I was not accustomed to seeing people lift their hands heavenward in praise. I would have felt awkward to copy them. When I stepped out into the night to walk to my car, however, I raised my hands in thanksgiving to God. I simply felt it appropriate to do so. As I did, I noticed an unusual glistening of the stars and the night’s majesty seemed to have a new sheen. It was as though cataracts had been surgically removed from my eyes. Everything around me took on a depth of beauty I had never experienced.

  The next morning, an amazed Prudence and I stopped by the church to thank Brother Don. He handed me a dozen or more reel-to-reel tapes. “Jimmy, these are some taped teachings of a minister named Derek Prince. I believe the Lord wants you to get acquainted with his ministry. He’s an Englishman with an ability to simplify spiritual truths that is far superior to anyone I’ve ever heard.” Remembering the Birmingham missed connection with Derek, I chuckled at the irony and we headed for home.

  On the trip back to Jackson, I was bursting with enthusiasm as I gave Prudence a blow-by-blow description of every aspect of my deliverance session. She cheerfully remarked that I looked and acted more relaxed. Her warm and fuzzy reaction cooled, however, upon hearing of my plans for us to make a return trip to Macon so she could also be set free from any hold evil spirits might have on her life. Even though she had seen firsthand the effect of deliverance from evil spirits and had come to accept its credibility, she doubted that evil spirits could have any substantive effect on her.

  We agreed that we would listen to the tapes and see where the Lord led in this wonderful new venture. Remembering the word of prophecy spoken over me in the pastor’s office that morning, I could hardly wait.

  After our trip to Macon, I consumed Derek Prince’s books and tapes with an insatiable appetite. In spite of her initial objections, Prudence was forbearing toward my newfound zeal. My routine evolved into an established pattern: I would listen to a tape and then practice on Prudence.

  During one of my practice sessions on her, I rebuked the spirits of awkward shyness and insecurity about her intelligence. We felt sure that they had gained entry from her childhood experiences with an abusive aunt who took care of Prudence and her three siblings during their parents’ work hours. More than once the smacks from Aunt Ida’s cane—delivered with screams about her stupidity—left welts on Prudence’s petite frame. Prudence did not exhibit any noticeable signs of deliverance, but she is a wallflower no more. I have to drag her away from most conversations with visitors at our fellowship, and she is confident and happy about using her many skills.

  I began to beat the bushes looking for candidates to whom I could minister. My sales skills came in handy. I had a knack for persuading people to gather groups of their friends to listen to the taped teachings. Afterward, I would offer ministry. As a result, we saw remarkable changes in many
lives. I became so diligent to learn all I could from Derek’s taped teaching that at times I actually caught myself commanding spirits to leave with a feigned British accent.

  Not every one of my early experiences in ministering deliverance was a total success. One time I had invited some college students active with Campus Crusade for Christ to hear a tape. About fifteen students were crammed into the living room of a double-wide house trailer. Toward the end of the tape, one of the young women slipped to the floor and began to flop around. I was petrified, not knowing what to do. I bound the evil spirit and the flopping subsided. Then I asked her to sit in a chair for ministry. Not addressing the evil spirit by any specific or descriptive name, I commanded it to come out of her. To my astonishment, a raspy masculine voice spoke through her lips: “I will not come out.”

  I decided that the demon might identify itself if ordered to do so. So when I demanded its name, the answer that came was “multiple sclerosis.” I quoted some Bible verses that affirmed the authority of believers over demons, and I directed multiple sclerosis to flee from her. The thing gave a mocking laugh and while pointing at the other students said, “If I do, I’ll go into her, her and him.” The kids scattered like a covey of quail. I found them later, hidden in various rooms of the mobile home.

  I addressed the girl by her given name in hopes she would answer in her own voice. She did. I inquired about her condition and learned she was in the early stages of the disease. I apologized for not being able to help her. She wrote down the contact information for Derek Prince Ministries, and I encouraged her to inquire about Derek’s itinerary so she could be prayed for by the expert. I went home licking my wounds, my ego pretty badly bruised. Clearly, I had a lot to learn.

  A Life-Changing Meeting

  As time passed I gained more experience at setting the captives free. This was the 1960s and thousands of kids from the free-love, drug-ridden hippie generation were being swept into the arms of God the Father through the Jesus Movement. The charismatic renewal was in full swing in traditional churches. Many dependable Bible teachers were helping people better understand the biblical legitimacy of the baptism with the Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts and concepts of spiritual warfare.