A story from South Africa!
Gosh dang Jesus is so good and protects us so well. He knows our hearts and loves us more than we could ever imagine. And I am so thankful for His protection and guidance.
In South Africa we got to go into squatter camps. If you don’t know what they are, squatter camps are communities in South Africa where the poor live. They are very small “houses” made out of tin. We would go door to door and ask people if they needed help washing clothes or cleaning their house or just wanted to talk. Sometimes we would have really short conversations, sometimes we would have very long conversations. But we had some super sweet, super cool encounters.
One day we sat in the front of two men’s house, Adam and Enest. They were basically roommates but it was two tiny rooms next to one another. We talked to Adam for a long time. He was the only one who spoke English. He knew a lot about who God was and went to church and prayed. At the end of talking to him we got to encourage him in fatherhood. After, we asked about Enest. Enest had a shake. Almost like a twitch but it wouldn’t stop. We asked about when it started and if he had been to the doctor. It had just abruptly started about 3 years ago and doctors couldn’t find anything that was physically wrong. So we prayed. We prayed for the demon living inside of him to flee. Guys… this is the first time I have ever experienced anything like this. But I believe that if we have full faith that at the name of Jesus demons will flee. So we prayed. For an hour and a half we prayed. And every time we would pray the demon would stop. Enest would stop twitching. But when we would stop praying he would start back a little. It wasn’t like it was when we started praying but it was still slightly there. We were confused because we believed fully it should be gone. So we left and we all kinda thought something wasn’t right.
After lunch we had decided to go back. But Enest was gone. He had went to town because you know, when demons sense the Holy Spirit they flee. So the demon fled and took Enest with him. But we got into a conversation with Adam again and not long into the conversation we realized he was a sangoma (witch doctor/healer). They worship and pray to their ancestors. The four of us that were there before lunch were so confused and were kind of freaked out. We had been deceived. We thought Adam was a Christian. We let him translate for us to Enest and pray with us for the demon to flee. But we have no idea what he even was saying. We believe the demon didn’t flee because Adam was there. We also believe the demon was in Enest because of Adam. Not long after Adam moved there Enest woke up with the twitch. I also saw first hand false prophets because he had tricked us. Jesus says people will do things in His name but never truly know him. I saw that even demons know Jesus’ name and know scripture super well. It was one of the most intense moments of spiritual warfare I had ever experienced. I saw first hand the fight that satan puts up. There is a spiritual war that goes on and it is intense and satan wants people for himself and not for Jesus. And he plays in cultures so well to convince people that he is the right way to go. Whether that’s in other religions or in a lifestyle or in simply wanting to be free and thinking Jesus only gives us rules. He knows how to make us think he is winning and he is right.
BUT I AM SO GLAD I KNOW JESUS HAS ALREADY WON. I can live in assurance knowing that yes there is a battle going on but Jesus has already won the battle. I get to live an eternity with Jesus because I have a relationship with him and know He has died for my sin to fully reconcile me to Him. The enemy only fights to keep people from knowing full freedom and having eternity with Jesus. We as Christians want people to fully experience Christ. We want satan to go back to hell and leave Gods children alone. I am a child of God and I want everyone else to know just how good He is and how much He loves them. And that He has fought this fight and won it for us. We are just here to share with others.
