| My wife, Bev, and I were at a two-week seminar in Palm
Beach, Florida - held at one of the hotels on the beach. The second week of the seminar, the evangelist
running the seminar held a three-night outdoor meeting at a nearby
stadium, which all the seminar students were to attend. They were told
that when the evangelist made the altar call at the end of the meeting,
they were to move out of the stadium and down to field - the speaker
platform was set in the field in front of the stadium seats. Then when the
evangelist had finished whatever he wanted to do, they were to minister to
the people who had come forward. It was practical training time. When the altar call was made the first night, the students dutifully went down to the field to minister, Bev among them. But since I was never comfortable going up to someone and asking them if they wanted to be prayed for, I stayed in my seat and watched. People were still walking toward the platform when I noticed two students struggling with a tall man about twenty feet in front of the platform. They each had hold of one of his arms, but weren't being very successful in controlling him, he was yanking them both back and forth. I watched for only a few seconds and then got up and started walking down the stadium steps to the field, all the while asking myself why I was going down there. It was a bit of a strange, yet not unknown, feeling. I was walking out to the field without having any thought of doing so, and not knowing what I was going to do when I got out there - or why. When I got to the three men, I walked around to the front of them and saw a tall Hispanic man about 18 or 19 years old. He was growling and snarling and yanking the students back and forth, while they desperately hung on to his arms. It was obvious, however, that they had no idea what to do next with him. Theory was one thing, putting it into practice was another. The possessed young man was about six inches taller than I was, so I had to reach up to get hold of his jacket collar on each side of his neck - and don't ask why I did that. As soon as I had hold of him, I took authority of the demon in the name of Jesus Christ and commanded it to be still. It immediately quieted down and stopped yanking the students around, though it did snarled defiantly once in awhile, which is fairly normal since they try to give the impression that they're really scary. By this time, the area in front the platform was full and no one else was coming down from the stadium, so the evangelist started to speak to those who were there. Since the young man was still snarling and making some noise, and I had to keep telling the demon to be still, I thought it would be best to move him off to one side. But the four of us - the two students, the demon possessed young man, and me - had only moved a few steps when the evangelist called out and said he didn't want anyone moving around. So we stopped. After about five minutes, I tried moving our group again, since the demon in the young man was getting a bit agitated and I had to assert control a little louder. But, again, the evangelist called out and said he didn't want anyone moving around, that everyone was to remain still, and no one talking. So it obvious this time that he meant us. I think I tried to move our group once more a few minutes later, but with the same response from the evangelist. Finally, after about fifteen minutes, the evangelist stopped, students started ministering to people, and I moved our group about a hundred feet to the side of the platform. Then I commanded the demon to come out of the young man. When I did, the demon let out a loud roar and the young man fell backwards and thrashed about on the ground. I knelt down next to him and put my hand on his forehead and rather quietly continued to command the demon to come out of him. From experience I could tell that the demon was loosing control of the young man and was about to leave. Then someone on the other side of the young man slammed a heavy Bible down on his chest, and snarled at me worse than the demon had, "You don't get demons out by being nice to them, yell at him and tell him to get out!" I looked up and saw that the intruder was a young businessman, a new convert, who was traveling with the evangelist as part of his entourage. I said to him something like, "Hey, man, don't strike him in the chest like that, you'll hurt him." He replied with great authority, "You can't hurt a demon, they don't feel anything." "It wasn't the demon you struck, it was this young man, and you can hurt him." He then retorted with something else, and at that I stood up and backed off and told him, "I won't argue with another Christian in front of a demon. It you know so much you get the demon out." And I pushed through the crowd of people that had gathered and walked off. I hadn't gotten too far away when one of the original two students ran up to me and said, "Please come back and get the demon out, we don't know what to do." I said, "Let the expert who interfered get the demon out." He replied, "He left when you did." "Well," I said, "Don't worry about it, the demon's weak enough to come out easily. You folks just gather around the young man and thank and praise the Lord for delivering him. The demon will leave and he'll be okay." I'm not sure he really believed me, but he went back to try it. The next day, after I had ministered to another man in the field (see the story below), I was walking back to the stadium when a handsome young Hispanic man approached me with two elderly people. I barely recognized him as being the demon possessed man from the day before. He was all smiles and thanked me for what I did, and said that he was totally changed, so much so that his parents wanted to come that night to thank me for giving them a new son. He said that before last night he was just angry all the time, even though he didn't want to be, and that since the demon left him he loved everybody. Neither of his parents could speak English, but it wasn't necessary, the smiles on their faces were enough. I said to the young man, "Be sure you tell them that I wasn't the one who did it, that it was Jesus Christ." "I did tell them that," he said. "And you live your life for Him from now on," I said, "and tell everyone what the Lord has done for you." He smiled about as broad a smile as anyone could, "I will! I will!" he said, and thanked me again. We then hugged each other, said goodbye, and parted company, not to meet again until that great day.
The next night almost exactly the same things happened, but a bit different here and there. When the altar call was made and all the students went out onto the field, I stayed in the stadium. The evangelist finished with those who had gone forward, and then the students on the field started to minister to people. After several minutes, I noticed a group of students gathered around someone on the ground to the left of the platform. I watched them for a while, and then like the night before found myself walking down the stadium steps to go out to the field, and like the night before wondering why I was going out there and what I was going to do when I got there. When I approached the group of six or seven students, I could hear three or four of them yelling and screaming at a demon to come out, and I could hear the demon snarling back at them. Without thinking, I pushed my way through them to the side of a young man on the ground. Two men were holding his arms down and he was snarling and trying to bite them. I didn't blame the demon. The screaming and yelling of those trying to deliver the man was enough to make even a human being snarl and want to bite somebody. I said to them, "Stop it! Stop your yelling and screaming!" They all looked a bit startled, but they stopped. Then I knelt next to the young man, put my hand on his forehead and said to the demon, "Be still in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazarus." Then I told the men holding his arms to let him go. At that, a young woman to my left, one of the screamers, yelled at me, "You better watch out for him, he'll scratch your eyes out!" I said, "He's not going to scratch anyone's eyes out. No demon could scratch Jesus' eyes out, and no demon can scratch my eyes out. Now let him go." They did, although somewhat cautiously and holding their heads back a bit. I then quietly commanded the demon to come out. I did it quietly because I wanted to show those who had been trying so hard that it wasn't necessary to yell and scream to get a demon to come out. It's faith in the authority of Jesus' name that gets them out, not noise. After a few commands, the man shuddered slightly, and then opened his eyes and smiled up at me and said, "Thank you," and weep. I asked one of those who had been holding his arms if he knew how to minister the baptism in the Holy Spirit. He said he did, so I told him to do so and stood up to leave. At that, the screamer said to me, "He's not free yet! He comes to our prayer group and we've cast demons out of him many times and he's still got more." "How do you know that?" I asked. "Because when one demon comes in a thousand come in." Not overly diplomatically I replied, "Well, when I cast out a demon a thousand come out." She sputtered something else to me about why the man still had demons, and I asked her, "Where did you ever learn that kind of stuff?" She said authoritatively, "I've read a book about demons." Again, not quite diplomatically, I said, "Well, while you've been reading a book about demons I've been casting them out. The man is fine now, leave him alone, and don't do any more of your casting out on him." The next day at the school of ministry, the man who had been holding down one of the man's arm and had then ministered the baptism in the Holy Spirit to him, came up to me and said, "How did you do that, I've never seen anything like it." Thinking he was really interested in learning how to develop true power and authority over demons, I started telling him what was necessary, but after about ten minutes he thanked me for the information and said he had to get to a class. Actually, I think he left me after the first couple of minutes.
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