I said: “What else did you see?” She said: “Well I couldn’t see you. I heard you speaking. I could just see this person who looks like Jesus, and there’s just light flowing out everywhere, and every demon is looking at this person and they’re terrified. Every time you began to speak, it was like a river of God flowed and the demons were just swept away.” I said: “What else did you see?” She said: “It was all too much for me, I couldn’t manage seeing into two worlds at once. I just closed my eyes again.” I said: “Oh I’d like to know more.”
But there’s the thing – the spirit world sees us as we really are. Demonic spirits recognise Jesus, they know He’s the Son of God; they are terrified of them. He defeated them at Calvary. The Bible says when Jesus died and gave up His life on Calvary, He legally broke the power of the devil over every person. Jesus extends an invitation to us to turn away from sin, turn away from these occult practices, and turn to Him, the living God. He loves us. We’re not made for evil spirits.
There are some of you here who have opened your life up to evil spirits. Maybe it’s come through your family. Maybe you were dedicated to some idol or temple. Maybe your family are involved in idolatry, fortune-telling. Or maybe you have done this: opened your life to spirits through fortune-telling of some kind. Perhaps you’ve opened your eyes to the occult world by invitations to demons. Maybe you’ve opened your life in these ways. God wants to set you free.
One way I’ve noticed some people have come into bondage is through computer games – role-playing computer games; playing the role of a sorcerer. I’ve prayed for a number of people, about 400+, who were involved with computer games, who became addicted and demonised when they used these role-playing imagination games, and began to engage in the spirit world. Others have got demonised through martial arts, from meditation, from various kinds of occult things. Jesus came to set us free.
Let’s finish our story now and see what happened. It says: “She did this for many days, and Paul was greatly annoyed. He was grieved.” The word literally means – he was struggling to break through. When there’s a lot of demonic activity, we can feel spiritual pressure and struggle to break through. He was struggling in getting breakthroughs, and then he began to realise the demonic spirit around this girl.
So he spoke to her, notice what he said – he came in the authority of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the devil conqueror; and when we align our life with Him, we become devil conquerors too. “In the name of Jesus Christ, come out!” Spoke to the spirit, and the spirit manifested, and then came out of her. It was a python. Came out of her, and she was set free.
I remember when I was in Hastings many years ago, and we had our first move of God in deliverance. I remember it very clearly – it was very spectacular. We had a meeting one night, and people came up for ministry, and I laid my hands on one man. He was from the Pacific Islands, and his family are involved in fortune-telling. He fell on the ground. It’s quite common.
But then he did this, and I had never seen this before – He imitated a snake and he slithered all this way under the chairs, all the way to the back of the room. I’d never seen anything like it! How do you do that trick? That’s a good trick to do at a party. The chairs were just popping like this, and he just slithered his way on the ground.
We came and spoke over him, commanded the spirit of divination to go. The spirit left him. It was a spirit in the form of a python, and it manifested just like it. I’ve had that happen on several occasions. People slither, very fast. I’ve seen all kinds of things like that. And here’s the point: they’re all bad. They’re all bad. And they seek to hurt you.