Last week we went into town and this man came up to us. He was smiling a lot, in a sort of creepy way, and kept trying to give us money. We said, “No, we can’t take your money.” He then bought us a drink, which we were advised not to accept. (Many times people who are against Christians poison them here so our contact only lets us accept drinks and food from people he knows, or has at least tried first.) So this man just followed us everywhere we went that day and kept trying to give us money.
We talked openly in front of him, assuming he didn’t speak English. We said things like, “I wonder why he is trying to give us money. Maybe he thinks his god will bless him if he gives to us. Maybe he is doing it cause we are white and he thinks we are blessed or something.” We were trying to figure him out, because the beliefs here are so extremely different and this is our first experience with poeple trying to give us money. We are way more use to people begging us for money. So this threw us off guard.
Drew and I approached him and through a translator asked if we could pray for him in the name of Jesus. Then he spoke back in
English and said, “What is the difference of being saved through Jesus Christ and not being saved?” We started giving him the
gospel, and before we were done he was basically finishing our sentences. The man knew the full gospel. He said he was an
evangelist and gave out tracks and had a bible on him. But something wasn’t right, obviously. Besides that he was following us, etc., we felt a weird presence when he was around.
He followed us the entire time we were there. Proclaiming Jesus as God and wanting to go with us. We told him to give his money to God and not us. After praying we told him that he needed to stop following us. He wouldn’t stop. He would just laugh, say “ok, ok,” and continue. We got into our tuk tuk and the man even got in with us. We said, “No sir, we are going home. You can’t come with us.” Do you think he got out? No way. The driver started driving with him in with us!!!! Howard stopped the driver by almost jumping out and told him if the
man doesn’t get out, then we will. I thought to myself, good thing by chance Drew was in the other tuk tuk… He’s uber protective and might not have been so nice!
All this reminded me of the story in Acts 16. Paul and Silas went to prayer, and said “that a certain slave girl possessed with a
spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out,
saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” And this she did for many
days. But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.”
And he came out that very hour.” ‘ It goes on to say that made her masters upset, probably because they weren’t making money anymore, and they threw Paul and Silas in jail.
When I first read this story many years ago, I thought it was so bizarre. A demon actually proclaiming Jesus as the Son of God,
but being a nuissance and distracting others from really hearing the gospel. However, this encounter with this man was the first time I related to this story and it actuallly made sense. In fact, the next couple of times we needed to go to town, he found us and did the same thing again. As we got in the tuk tuk the last time, he threw his phone in my lap as we drove off. I didn’t want to accept it and couldn’t hand it back because we were driving already… so out of reaction I threw it on the ground!
We experience the craziest things here. I don’t know what exactly was going on with him. Was it the spirit of divination? Was it mental illness? Was it spiritual and physical? I don’t know, but we’re blessed to have been able to pray for him and rebuke any demonic spirits in his life. I believe God loves this man and wants him to have freedom. I pray the Holy Spirit frees him, saves him, and that he will be given a new life. Will you pray with me?
