Militant Evangelism! (27 page)

A few days later, a well-dressed plump woman in her early thirties came out of the crowd, yelled at me in the most obscene language, slapped my face,
then
punched me in the mouth. A few weeks after that, a heavy dude, who said that he had "been sent into the local square to stop the preaching," made me want to do what Jesus said, and
flee
into another city when persecuted. I repented of fear, but the next time he was in the crowd, he had a can of gas in his hands. I remember thinking as he listened to me preach, "I want to be 'on fire' for God,
but not like this!"
More repentance.

The following day he stood in front of me again, and in a fit of rage, screamed out obscenities as I preached. This time I was not at all fearful. There were two reasons for this. The first was because God was with
me,
and the second (unbeknown to the man),
two policemen were standing directly behind him.
Suddenly, he stopped the obscenities and began to, in a deep powerful voice yell, "Get out of my way! Get out of my way! Get out of my way!" He bellowed this about twenty times, then the police made their move. It took them more than twenty minutes to arrest him and put him in the squad car. I watched fear come on the faces of the non-Christians, who could hear the animal screams coming from his mouth as demons manifested themselves through him.

Rarely is there freedom from opposition to the Gospel when it is preached in truth. I remember watching in unbelief, as a woman dressed in black, stood in front of my crowd as a self-proclaimed prophet to the nation. She had a wooden staff in one hand, and pulled a diamond ring off her finger and threw it at the crowd, saying that it was symbolic that God was divorcing the nation. Then she smashed a bottle on the ground, saying that He would destroy the nation for its iniquity. She claimed that she was
alive
2,000 years ago, and helped Paul write the Epistles. She also said that as in the days of Noah, only eight would be saved . . . she was one of the eight, and she determined the other seven. She also maintained that my spirit visited her in the night. Four-letter filth words would spill out of her mouth as she brought God's reproofs to the nation, in perfect King James English of course.

These few incidents, plus a number of others have ingrained in me knowledge of the truth that we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against hateful spirits, who "work in the children of disobedience" (Ephesians 2:2).
Believe
me,
your struggle to break out of the barracks is more than a mere fear of man.
Jesus called
satan
the "father of lies," and the lies come thick and fast into the ears of the soldier who wants to carry out orders.

The Bible tells us that when "the enemy shall come in like a
flood,
the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him" (Isaiah 59:19). We are seeing the tide of
occultic
activity gush upon this world before our very eyes. Satan is walking about as a roaring lion a little faster than in times past, because his era is short. He is seeking whom he may devour, and at the moment he may devour many, because many are in his territory.

The subtlety of the spiritual occult realm is its guise of harmlessness. This was epitomized in the following cynical letter I received from the manager of a large book publisher:

"Mr. Comfort, it may be of interest to you that I specialize in writing books on the occult, and you would probably find some in your local library (occult source-book, other temples, other gods, inner visions, etc.,
etc
). My experience of Christian evaluations of the occult is that they are invariably shallow and misinformed and worse than that, extremely intolerant. How the Hare Krishna,

Mormons, J. W.'s, 'The Occult,' E.S.P. and T.M. can be classified together, let alone dismissed out of hand, is beyond me. Isn't Christ Himself a mediator who has E.S.P. and healing gifts? P.S. I once had a vision of Christ while on an LSD trip and it was very awe-inspiring. How do you explain that? Was I possessed by the devil?"

When I visited our local school many years ago to speak to the principle about the fact that I had heard they were teaching the occult, he confided in me that it did have a fascination, and that the school now "studied the occult domain each year at Halloween, as it studied Christianity at Christmas and Easter," (Halloween is an ancient Druid celebration of death,
honoring
the god of the dead).

He even shared how a ten year old had asked him about ectoplasm, which the dictionary says is the "viscous substance exuding from the body of a spiritualistic medium during a trance." My eldest boy came out of class the same day I spoke to the principal and said, "They're still doing it Dad ... today we learned about yoga and levitation." I took my kids out of the school that same day and put them into a Christian school.

All around us we are witnessing a fascination for the occult. Psychic hot-lines and other demonic activities are being endorsed by celebrities, while almost every newspaper and magazine carries horoscopes.

One magazine had a real deal for just two dollars:

"Yes! Here is the biggest bargain of the decade for the millions of men and women just like you who understand the importance of astrology and luck in your lives."

The advertisement continued to say that this
Astro
-luck package will bring the greatest love, joy and happiness in your life. Along with a special chart came a "Maya cross." This little symbol of good fortune was said to bring love and wealth, and was referred to as an "ancient talisman." It continued with the words, "obey that impulse ... order now," and asks the very relevant question, "Will this cross transform your life?"

The word "Maya" comes from Hindu philosophy and means "illusion." The word "illusion," according to the dictionary means "deception."

What's In a Trinket Anyway?

Some years ago, two teenage girls approached me to see if they could talk to me about the demonic realm. They were both non-Christians and didn't know how to express their concern. I arranged to speak with them the following day. To cut a long story short one of the girls manifested demons on the floor of my office. After she regained consciousness after a time of exorcising prayer, I counselled her to commit her life to Christ and also make a complete break of all
occultic
practices, which included getting rid of a small trinket which she had around her neck. Two weeks later, I received a phone call from her friend to say that she was still having blackouts. Once again all sorts of demonic manifestations came through the mouth of this quiet young girl as she lay in a blacked-out state on the floor.

As she lay there, I noticed she was gripping something around her neck so tightly that all the blood had drained out of her hand. I pulled back the fingers of her now white hand to find the trinket I had told her to get rid of. It looked like "
Tinkerbell
," out of Peter Pan, and was made of silver. I felt it was probably a goddess of fertility, or something similar. I pried it from her hand, took it to the other side of my office and hit it with a hammer. She was in a blacked-out state in the far corner of the room. Two of my friends were praying for her; I had my back to her, and yet every time I hit that trinket with the hammer, demons in her screamed. I must have hit it five or six times and as I hit, they screamed; it was like something out of a horror movie.

The first Book of Timothy 4:1 warns:

"Now the Spirit speaks expressly that, in latter times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils."

That is the age in which we are now living. I read an article recently where psychologists related a case of one man having 26 different personalities. This newspaper stated that each personality had a complete and separate identity. One psychologist said it was "just like a scene from The Exorcist."

I was taking a young people's camp where a seventeen year old nice-looking youth asked for counsel. His complaint was that he had an inferiority complex. As I quietly prayed for him he blacked out, slumped onto the floor, back-arched, and screamed as demons began to "rent him sore." Using the authority of the name of Jesus I commanded the spirits to tell me the area of stronghold in the young man's life—"Bitterness!" came the answer.

When he regained consciousness, I counselled him to let go of any bitterness he held against anybody, justified or unjustified (2 Corinthians 2:10-11). I then asked him to tell me what areas of occult activity he had been involved in. He listed a number, including Ouija boards, LSD, satanic praise, drinking blood (under the influence of marijuana) and of course, rock music. The question arises as to what would cause a young man to drink blood for kicks. He was deeply into the ancient rock group AC/DC, and had been influenced by their album, "You Want Blood? You've Got It!" Other tracks on their album were, "Hell
ain't
such a bad place to be," "Rock and Roll Damnation" and "Sin City."

This incident happened in the eighties, and after it, I did an in-depth study of the "rock" world. Bear in mind that it has gone even further downhill since that time. Many of these groups are still popular, and their music will be around for many years, so let me share what I found with you. One very popular artist of that time was Alice Cooper, in real life known as "Vincent." Vincent, who is the son of a Baptist preacher, revealed in an interview in a secular magazine that he was once in a
seance
when a spirit manifested itself. It promised him that if he would allow it to inhabit his
body,
it would make him and his group world famous. Vincent then named himself and his group after the demon spirit "Alice Cooper."

Alice sang about necrophilia (the joys of having sex with a corpse). On stage, he jumped in and out of coffins, and even hung himself, and had the rope cut just before he was about to die. He also had a preoccupation with snakes. On one of his albums, he was pictured urinating on the back cover, with a smear of blood across the front cover. He sang, "So pray for him father, you need not bother
! 'cause
I am the fox and I go where I want. . . if Heaven ignores me, the devil adores me."

Another group that our young friend was into was Iron Maiden. They derived their name from a horrific medieval torture instrument, and called their third album (a million seller), "The Number of the Beast." Many other groups showed obvious links with the demonic world. The
Plasmatics
, who took their name from blood plasma, had tracks "Butcher Baby," "Living Dead" and "New Hope
For The
Wretched." Judas Priest sang, "Sin
After
Sin," while Ozzie
Osbourne
was well-known for chewing the heads off bats and doves on stage. His albums were aptly named, "Diary of a Madman" and "Paranoid."
Cossy
Powell, originally known as The Sorcerers, sang their top hit "Dance
With The
Devil." Led Zeppelin, who
have
been heralded "a deity," didn't bother to hide the fact of demonic involvement:

"The mystery of the world's most exciting band was heightened by Jimmy Page's well-publicized flirtation with the occult and black magic ceremonies . . . the mysterious death of drummer John Bonham late in 1979, effectively drew their eleven year chapter to a close."

Jim
Steimer
, lead singer of Meat Loaf said, "When I go on stage ... I get possessed!" KISS, who incidentally sold well over 30,000,000 of their albums said, "We are members of the satanic brotherhood of America first and musicians second!" As usual, with rock stars, the lead singer Gene Simmons revealed his likes and dislikes to the fans, "I've always been interested in what human flesh tastes like." Lead singer of the group, Ozzie
Osbourne
, was compelled to see the Exorcist 26 times! Blue Oyster Cult called one of their songs, "Don't Fear
The
Reaper," on which they sang of suicide, referred to Beelzebub (a name for the devil), and stated the truth when they sing, "Our father is not in Heaven!" The Eagles released an album called "A Day
In
Hell," sang about "
Witchie
Woman," and had a track called, "They Just Can't Kill The Beast." They were all members of the first Church of Satan, in fact their biggest hit was about that church, and was called "Hotel California." The geriatric Rolling Stones, who signed the biggest recording contract in record history, released an album entitled, "The Satanic Majesties' Request" and sang, "Sympathy for the devil," while "Queen" sang, "Beelzebub has a demon set aside for me" . . . the list goes on and on. Jim Hendrix said back in the sixties, "Atmospheres are going to come through music because the music is in a spiritual thing of its own; you can hypnotise people with music and when you get them to the weakest point you can preach in the subconscious what you want to say. The music flows from the air so that's why I connect it with the spirit."