“And he said, The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence.” – 2 Samuel 22:2-3

“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” – James 4:7

“I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.” – Psalms 34:4

“For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” – 1 John 5:4-5

The following are several testimonies of the saving power of Jesus Christ, the only One who can deliver people from the grip of the devil:

A fine example of Christ’s power to deliver is afforded us in the answer to a girl’s prayer who is now a Christian social worker. The girl’s father is a well-known Christian man equipped by God with many spiritual gifts. He had once invited another man to his house who was occultly subjected, in order to give him some sustained Christian counselling. The oppressed man had experienced terrible states of fear each night and was severely troubled by this. He felt as if the devil himself was the source of his complaints. The origin of the attacks was obvious. In his youth the man had practised a lot of sorcery and he was now experiencing the unhealthy and demonic effects of his folly. A group of people prayed for the oppressed man and the daughter joined them. One night a remarkable battle took place. The girl continued to pray by herself for the man, and in her desperation and entreaty she asked the Lord to remove the man’s burden and to place it on herself and then to free her. Suddenly she felt the presence of some unearthly forces in her room. The next thing she knew was that she was being thrown to the floor in the grip of some terrible claws. She could not move and lay there for hours. The only thing she could do was to groan, “Lord help me, Lord help me.” What the girl experienced that night was hell. Next morning when it was quite late she was able to drag herself out of her bedroom into living room. Her mother took one glance at her and then cried out, “Child, what’s happened to you?” The girl was very pale and horribly disfigured. She could hardly say a word and was completely exhausted. Slowly she told her mother about the battle she had had in prayer. Her parents told her and begged her never to do the same again. An hour later the man she had prayed for came out of his room. He was happy and relaxed, and joyfully told them that God had freed him during the night. His oppression and attacks never recurred. The Lord had answered the girl’s prayer of faith and had delivered the man. The girl herself suffered no ill effects, and she quickly recovered from her ordeal of faith.

Jesus the prisoner’s fetters breaks,

And bruises Satan’s head;

Power into strengthless souls He speaks,

And life into the dead.

(The Devil’s Alphabet, 137)

My story-teller took up a teaching post in a rich farming area. Since the farmers in their contentment and prosperity saw no need of a Saviour, the new teacher went from house to house giving out Christian literature. As the farmers would not go to church, he brought the church to the farmers. One day in the course of his door-to-door visitation he was confronted by a man who asked him, “Do you believe in the messages of your tracts?” “Yes, of course I do. I wouldn’t give them out if I didn’t”, replied the teacher. “Can you really rely on the things being true? Aren’t they just a lot of religious jargon?” the farmer went on. The young Christian disciple replied, “These things have been written by convinced Christians. You can trust them completely.” “Ah, that’s what I wanted to know’, the farmer said. ‘You remember the tract last Sunday”, he went on. “It was about someone being healed by faith. Can your Jesus heal my wife as well?” “I’m convinced that miracles happen today; otherwise Jesus would not be the same yesterday, today and forever”, the teacher answered. “I’ll take you at your word”, said the farmer. “Come and see my wife with me. She’s beyond the help of the doctors.” “What’s wrong with her?” asked the teacher. “It’s a nervous disease or something worse”, replied the man. “Can your Jesus heal things like that as well?” “Jesus can heal everything, including the things in which man has failed”, returned the teacher.

The farmer thus led the way, not into the house as one might have expected, but into the barn. Taking a ladder he climbed up into the loft. The astonished teacher followed him. ‘Her room is in the corner over there’, the farmer said. They came to a heavily secured door. The farmer unlocked the padlock, removed the wide metal bar across it and pushed the teacher into the room beyond. The repulsive atmosphere of the room hit the young man. The walls were smeared with blood and excrement, the windows were barred, and the only piece of furniture was an unmade bed on the far side of the room. The teacher could not retreat because the farmer now stood in the doorway behind him. An evil force seemed to strike home at him. He at once began to pray the words, “Lord cover me with your blood. Protect me from this power of Satan, and stand with me. I don’t know what’s wrong here but I know you are able to withstand anything.” Then the blanket on the bed moved and a pale and horrible face appeared from behind it. It was a woman and for a moment she stared at the intruder. Then she sprang up from the bed, crouched down and made as if to spring like an animal. The teacher stood his ground but continued praying for the Lord’s protection. The woman sprang at him as if to scratch his eyes out. Then when she was a foot away from him her hands dropped and she scurried back to the bed. She prepared to spring again and did so only to return to the bed after she had done so. This repeated itself a number of times. She would spring at him and then circle him like a beast would a captured prey. Yet on each occasion when only a foot away she would spring back to the bed. Her rage increased and she began to blaspheme the name of Christ terribly. It even filled her own husband with horror. She tore at her own clothes and lifted them up for the men to see her naked body. The teacher still prayed. It was obvious to him now that the woman was not mentally ill but demon possessed. But he only knew a little about these things. Here he was being thrust into a circumstance he had never really met before first-hand. He prayed that the Lord would order the woman to go back to her bed and lie down quietly. And she did. However, it only lasted a few minutes and then she was up again and renewed her attacks. The struggle began a second time. In the end the teacher had the courage to cry out in a loud voice, “Jesus has overcome.” At once the woman went back to her bed, and this time she stayed there and was quiet. The battle appeared to be over.

The farmer advised his visitor to leave now. He bolted the door. “She’s never behaved like that before”, he said. “That I’ve never experienced. Do you still think she can be healed?” The teacher, although still exhausted from the battle, replied, “Yes, Christ can still heal your wife. The doctors won’t be able to, but if you hand your own life over to Christ and pray for your wife, she can be healed.” “I can’t pray”, he said. “Then begin today”, the teacher told him. “Pray for me. I just can’t believe she’ll ever be all right again. I’ve got letters from some psychiatrists saying that she is incurable. Even at the psychiatric clinic she behaved like an animal. She tore at her hair and took her clothes off and ran about naked. She’s attacked the attendants, ate her own excrement and she does the same here. How can she be helped?” To this the teacher replied, “Why shouldn’t God be able to help someone like this? Your wife isn’t ill, she’s demon possessed, and a doctor won’t be able to make them leave. This can only happen through prayer and fasting.” The farmer asked anxiously, “But how does a person get like this?” “Through sorcery or superstitious customs or card-laying or magic healing”, explained the teacher. “In the case of your wife I got the impression while praying in the room that it is a case of spiritualism. Maybe table-lifting or contact with the dead or something like that.” “It could be”, said the farmer. “My wife was in the habit of doing things like that.” Hearing this the teacher asked him, “Do you realise that this is a serious sin?” “Yes”, he replied. “Good, then I will pray for you both.” “But my wife’s completely mad. The doctors told me she’s incurable, and you say she can be healed. I just can’t believe it. I can’t imagine your God doing a thing like that.” By now the two men were at the gate and the teacher left.

The next Sunday he again went around to the houses giving out his tracts. As he approached the house of the possessed woman he really wanted to hurry right past it. But the farmer saw him and called him over. “I must show you something”, he said. The teacher thought, “Now we’re off to the loft again.” But he was mistaken for the farmer led him into the kitchen. And there, cooking the midday meal was his wife. She did not recognise him, and the teacher himself avoided talking about her illness. However, his heart was flooded with thankfulness to the Lord who had revealed Himself so wonderfully to this oppressed woman.

In the living room the farmer explained how it had all happened. On that Monday as usual he had taken his wife’s breakfast up to her prison. However, for the first time in years he found her sitting on her bed in her right mind. She spoke to him clearly and distinctly and implored him to give her some other clothes to wear. He had risked doing this and had let her come downstairs into the house. The first thing she had done was to make herself look presentable, and then she had cleaned out the house. She had since cooked the meals and worked in the house for the whole week. The farmer had wondered all the time if she would have a relapse. But she had not and had remained in good health.

A week later the farmer was again at the gate waiting for the teacher. ‘Come in’, he called. “There is something more to see.” They went into the house and there at the piano was his wife. She had been an excellent pianist and could now play again. The farmer said that she had also done some shopping in the village and was still looking after the housework excellently. Three weeks after the wonderful deliverance the woman went to see her parents at Thüringen. There was much rejoicing. And so her recovery was complete and her previous troubles disappeared entirely. The teacher only once ventured to ask her about her illness. She said it was all very vague but she remembered two men visiting her. One of them had been black and other other white. The white man had called out, “Jesus has overcome”, and she had afterwards been healed. About the teacher’s visit she could remember nothing. He said no more, but inside he praised the Lord. The woman has continued in good health for a number of years now; and so Christ has maintained His victory over the powers of the devil. (The Devil’s Alphabet, 137-142)

In July 1945 a woman in great distress came to see me, and asked me for help. She told me of the strange way in which both of her daughters had been taken from her. When the elder girl had been six weeks old she had begun to have fits of crying, and this lasted till she was 18 weeks old. The doctors could find no reason for the crying and were unable to be any help. The woman had then gone to see a mesmeriser and through the treatment received the child’s condition improved somewhat. But now some strange things started to occur. One night as the child was next to her in the bed she stretched her hand out to put it on the child’s head. Suddenly she felt something like the fur of an animal. She put the light on at once but saw nothing. The child had been about three and a half at the time. The child was also quite religious and some days before it died it said to its mother, ‘Mother, read the Bible.’ On the 14th October 1941 at about ten o’clock in the morning a bird began to sing just outside the window. The child then died.

In 1942 the woman was again pregnant. At this time another woman came to the house and through card-laying she told the mother, ‘You are going to have a girl.’ After this the woman had a terrible dream. In the dream she was seized by some horrible woman who said to her, ‘You are going to have a little girl but I will kill her again.’ Well, soon after this she gave birth to the expected child. It was a girl. When she was six weeks old she nearly choked. The mother again sought the help of the mesmeriser. On the 18th October 1944 the same bird as before began to sing outside the window. The child suffocated in the mother’s arms. It was 15 months old. A doctor who examined the child could find nothing wrong with it.

The woman now had one other child, a 14-year-old boy. However, through having her fortune told she learnt that he too was to be taken away from her. It was her fear of losing him that had brought her to see me in Strasbourg. She said to me, ‘As I was just outside your door I heard a voice quite clearly next to me say,’ ‘What are you doing here? You are a religious woman. You’ve been baptised and confirmed, and you go to to church each week. What more can you do?’ I didn’t let this voice stop me through. Will you help me please, now that I am here?’ After a brief conversation I encouraged the woman to repent and change her old way of life. She then confessed her sins and handed her life over the Lord. After praying with her she said that it was as if a great weight had fallen from her shoulders. I was able to tell her in the name of Jesus that her sins were forgiven, and I added, ‘Just believe, and your son shall live. The devil is unable to take him away.’ She returned home joyfully. We too can praise the name of the Lord for His grace and His victory.

Since the time I have just mentioned the young lad has grown up to be an excellent Christian and teacher. He takes an active part in encouraging people to go to church services and other similar meetings and through the many coach parties he has thus arranged many people in his neighbourhood have been blessed. His mother has since then given birth to a fourth child, in 1946, and it has given them much joy as it has grown up. The original oppressions and troubles have disappeared since the time when the woman placed her life under the control of Christ.

Concerning the example I have just related, there is a great divergence of opinion amongst doctors and theologians. In general doctors consider a phenomenon of this nature to be the outworking of some physical illness, and would like to look upon it as a purely immanent event (explicable entirely in terms of the natural world). A great many theologians, especially those of Bultmann’s school of thought, would agree with this opinion. They look on stories in the New Testament which are similar in character to this, as merely the products of that age, without realising that the selfsame demonic oppressions are frequently to be found in people today. For myself I cannot agree with them. When one counsels severely oppressed people one is confronted with an entirely different state of affairs. Some oppressions just cannot be explained away on purely medical grounds, and neither can they be dismissed by a rationalistic theological explanation. The answer can only be found through Christ. In the example of the woman I have just related there is a definite connection between the sins of sorcery and the consequent demonic effects. The woman had already as a child been healed by a magic charmer. At 18 she had been to a card-layer who had prophesied that she would suffer from a grave illness. And for four years following this visit she had actually had tuberculosis of the lungs. Counselling further revealed that the woman’s mother had also been mixed up in sorcery, having been actively engaged in magic herself during her life. And in addition to all this the family lived in a village which was well-known for its practice of black magic. Some time after this counselling session with the woman I was able to hold a mission in this particular village. In spite of the opposition that was to be expected, the Lord sent a revival there. Many families were converted. As well as this the relatives of the family in question also came to the Saviour. At the same time many serious cases of sorcery were revealed. Christ nevertheless proved Himself again to be the victor over all the wiles of the evil one. In this village today there is now a real fellowship of genuine disciples of Christ.

(The Devil’s Alphabet, 147-149).

In 1951 I visited a man living in Strasbourg. He told me that he was terribly plagued. In his distress he had gone to see the minster of his local church but the man had not been able to help him. Instead the minister had referred him to me. When he told me about himself my reply was, “Only the Lord Jesus Christ can help you.”

The man had already been in a mental home and dreaded the thought of returning there. His brother too had been in an institution for a number of years. As I soon discovered, he was enmeshed in all kinds of sins of sorcery. As a child his parents had practised charming int heir house, and he had later visited fortune-tellers and similar people himself. Only recently when he had been ill he had been visited by a disciple of the false Christ, Georges Roux of Montfavet. This disciple had asked for three small pieces of linen cloth, and then had dipped them in some holy water and laid them on three spots of the patient’s body. He had then prayed for the nam under the laying on of hands. Since that time he had been badly plagued.  At night when he had gone to bed he had experienced a continuous crawling feeling in his pillow and mattress, and it even continued when he slept in another bed. During one of his visits to me I asked him involuntarily if he wore anything about his neck. “Yes”, he replied, and he opened up his shirt to reveal two amulets there. One of them had come from another man who worked in conjunction with a medium. In it was a piece of paper on which were some mysterious signs together with crosses and a proverb. This piece of paper was itself sewn into a small piece of cloth. The second amulet contained a copper coin, a piece of wax about the size of a finger nail, again both sewn into a piece of cloth. He had obtained this second amulet from a cloister where he had gone to seek help. They had given it to him after a ceremony of consecration, and they had told him to carry it close to his breast. In addition to this he had also been given some consecrated wax which he was told to dissolve and drink in his coffee.

I took the two amulets away from the man and burnt them in front of him on the kitchen stove. He asked in all seriousness and quite anxiously if any more misfortune would come upon him as a result of this. After giving him some basic teaching I earnestly encouraged him to repent and to set his life in order, both in the eyes of God and in the eyes of man. He said he was ready to give his life to God. Then followed a confession of his sins which brought to light some of the most dreadful sins and abominations. Over a period of weeks and months he returned again and again to see me in order confess new sins which had been brought to his mind, and he had to return a lot of stolen property. New demonic attacks occurred, but in the end he found his peace with God. Today as a Christian he is still active in the church to which he belongs.

As a result of sins of sorcery this man had had some terrible experiences in his life. Yet wherever the oppressions and the burdens of the devil have grown mountain high, the grace of God reaches even higher. Around the cross of Calvary there lies a field of force wherein those bound and fettered by sin find release and joy.

(The Devil’s Alphabet, 149-151)

Jesus Christ the Deliverer

Only Jesus Christ can really deliver a person from any kind of occult oppression or subjection. An oppressed person who is not prepared to submit to Jesus Christ should not expect to find any form of relief (Col. 2:15; Eph. 6:16-17).

Jesus invites everyone to come to Him no matter your past sins. Indeed, Jesus said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28).

Certainly in the case of any kind of occult subjection neither psychology, psychiatry etc., can be of any help. Likewise meditation, yoga is also impotent. Turning to false religions such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism etc. will certainly won’t help either.

In the Bible it is written, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name [Jesus] under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Amen!

The Biblical Condemnation of the Occult and Sorcery

There are many passages throughout the Bible that condemns the occult and sorcery. But in the following we will look at Deuteronomy 18:10-11 which the late Christian author, Dr. Walter Martin, expounded on:

Deuteronomy 18:10–11: “There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witch- craft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead.” Each of these nine occult practices is actively pursued by people today, some thirty-five hundred years after Moses penned Deuteronomy, yet people still consider themselves extremely advanced in their thinking, technology, and wisdom. These occult practices are real, and they remain the legacy of the billions of people who practiced them for thousands of years and passed them on to their children—all the way down to our modern age.

• “pass through the fire”: This was directly tied to the Canaanite worship of the god Molech, but three viable occult rituals may be intended. Today there are fire rituals practiced by occultists on various levels. New Age writer Tony Robbins was one of many who had a fire-walking initiation ritual for his personal awareness seminars. The belief that engaging in such rituals releases personal power is where the occult begins. Several fire rituals exist within occult groups, from naked dancers before bonfires to The Burning Man festival in Nevada to Witch coven rites to Satanism, where Satan is represented by fire.

• “one who practices witchcraft”: The word witchcraft is otherwise translated “divination” (NASB, NIV). Divination is the practice of divining knowledge or information concerning the past, present, or future. The occult methods are numerous and sometimes vary by culture, but the most commonly known are fortune-telling by means of tarot cards, palmistry (palm reading), scrying (tea leaf reading, coffee ground reading, crystal balls, mirror gazing, water gazing, glass gazing, wax reading), ESP, precognition, telepathy, clairvoyance, Ouija boards, pendulum swinging, dowsing rods, dream interpretation, table tipping, numerology, I Ching oracles, casting runes, and psychometry (impressionists who read objects belonging to a subject).

• “a soothsayer”: one who forecasts the future for an individual or nation, which is also translated as an “observer of times” (KJV). This is found among occult practitioners in the modern world as astrology, horoscopes, and conjuring rituals in accordance with certain times and seasons.

• “one who interprets omens”: The occult practice of gaining power or knowledge through various omens and signs. These signs may be read in the sky, as a passing comet, or they may be read in nature, as when a certain animal crosses the reader’s path. Many ancient societies, including the Romans, also practiced animal sacrifice, during which the entrails or organs of the animals were read in search of omens.

• “a sorcerer”: This is one who practices the induction of formulas, potions, or incantations to assist in gaining power over a person or an event. In the New Testament, this is referenced by Paul in Galatians 5:22 by the Greek word pharmakia, which includes illicit drugs for spiritual awareness, promoted by the infamous Timothy Leary and others. Richard N. Longnecker points out that pharmakia “also acquired two negative connotations: the use of drugs to poison people and the use of drugs in sorcery or Witchcraft.”

• “one who conjures spells”: refers to occultists, Witches, and Satanists, who believe that they can change events through casting spells. This description also includes the usage of amulets, talismans, charms, and “good luck pieces,” all of which can be used for good or bad.

• “a medium [and/or] spiritist”: someone who claims to make contact with spirit-beings, whether deceased, extraterrestrial beings (UFOs), spirit guides, angels, or demons, often through external manifestations such as table tipping, table rapping, ectoplasm, psychometric (impressionists), or the moving of objects, as by a poltergeist attributed to the deceased. Trance channeling and spirit channeling in the New Age fall into this category.

• “one who calls up the dead”: a medium, a necromancer; one who makes contact with departed human beings and allows them to speak through his or her body as their mouthpiece, sometimes manifested through automatic writing, automatic typing (as in the Ruth Montgomery books), or channeling the spirit’s voice through the voice of the necromancer. “Calling up the dead” is most often displayed during modern séances, where contact is sought for a specifically named individual who is deceased.

God forbids all of these practices, and they are called an abomination in His sight. The occult is a vast subject with many far-reaching tentacles, but the list we gain through this biblical passage serves as a reminder against participation in any of these or their related practices.

You may also want to check out Freedom From Occult Bondage.

If you don’t know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you can receive Him into your heart and He can deliver you from darkness and sin and have your name written in His Book of Life.

If you are sincere, you can say this simple prayer to the Father (it doesn’t have to be word for word):

“God, I recognize that I have not lived my life for You up until now. I have been living for myself and that is wrong. Please forgive me of all of my sins just as I forgive others. I need You in my life; I want You in my life. I acknowledge the completed work of Your only begotten Son Jesus Christ in giving His life for me on the cross, I believe in my heart Jesus is Lord and was raised from the dead and I long to receive the forgiveness you have made freely available to me through this sacrifice. Come into my life now, Lord. Take up residence in my heart and be my king, my Lord, and my Savior. From this day forward, I will no longer be controlled by sin, or the desire to please myself, but I will follow You all the days of my life. Those days are in Your hands. I ask this in the Lord and GOD Jesus’ precious and holy name. Amen.”