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The Demonic Part IV - The Joy of Ministry

If you have been following these last few blogs , you can see that God is at work against the powers of darkness, while He makes it possible for us to participate. As a Christian I never would have picked many of the circumstances that I have been in where God has used me. I would have preferred some much neater, and less stressful situations. Something like Sunday school teacher, nursery worker or vacuuming the sanctuary. But that is just not me. I am looking for the types of meetings where God is at work, it is not always entirely predictable, and there is some sort of anointing -- a song, a word or a prophesy. I have a lot of other things that I would rather do with my time then sit and listen to what I can hear on the radio. I am looking for a relationship with my Lord. As the last part of my series on the the demonic and the wiles of the devil. Some times the life of a minister can become routine; even a part-time one. I admit that I was kind of board of teaching home groups, mess...

The Demonic Part III - On My Own and a Sleepless Night

My wife and I had been dating for four or five months. Let's just say that our spiritual experiences at the time were different. Mine were more the type of thing that you can read about on this blog. Hers were more like most normal folks. I don't consider my experiences in the main stream of Christianity, but I think they should be. It is also true that those that know me, never ever uses the word "normal" to describe me. Be Sure to Read The Demonic Parts I and II. One evening I decided to make the trek to visit my friends from ministry school out in western Massachusetts. Our classmate that had normally hosted these reunions had since moved to the Midwest. Therefore; a friend-of-a-friend agreed to host our little gathering of Jesus lovers. I decided to invite my new girlfriend and see if she would enjoy it. After all, in our few short months together she had already survived my my mother's funeral, my 25th high school reunion where one of my drunken classmates of...

The Demonic Part II - My Turn to Play

The last night I ministered in Brazil (See The Demonic Part I ), wrapping up about 20 days of continuous meetings, pastor's luncheons, TV appearances, personal meetings, encouraging missionaries, and occasional street ministry, I was in the Monté Hebron church in Curitiba. The pastors there had been very instrumental in helping me put together this dizzying itinerary. Their church had about 200 members, and many of them were there at the meeting. My friend and interpreter preached and ended with an alter call at which nearly 40 people got saved! I was asked to come to the platform and say a few words. The pastor's wife interpreted for me, and I began to minister individually. After about 20 minutes, we ended the meeting with an opportunity for folks to come forward to the alter for the laying on of hands, which is common in Brazil. As I went down the line, we prayed for about 40 or 50 people. After 20 days and probably 18,000 one-on-one ministry encounters, you would have thoug...

The Number of the Beast - More Supernatural Stories

The number of the beast (Rev. 13:18) seemed to be a popular fad in 70's and early 80's rock-n-roll. Idealized by bands like Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden, we got used to Satan Rock and backwards masking. Possibly the adolescent passion of a misguided rockstar or a grand marketing ploy by corporate America, it was successful in bringing the number 666 into the minds of the masses. The church railed against it from the pulpit and in books. Entire ministries were formed to combat the frenzied flow of evil. Groupies of the bands wore it proudly on t-shirts and tattoos. You can easily find reproductions of those album covers from that era on the 'Net today. I didn't really want to ascribe much credence to the whole thing. I honestly expected that the number of the beast was something that we would hear about in the end times; if we lived until that time. I read the books that said it was the three empty bar-code separators on everything we purchased. But that was about all t...