Sometimes the devil will give you a free home Demon-stration. It happened one Sunday. A man named Weldon came up to our table where we were having coffee and donuts before church. He told Mike, a leader in the men of the church, what was wrong with their last meeting.. Clearly this was not God talking to us.
How did I know that? He was taking away from the person and work of Jesus Christ, and saying that the believers had no power over the devil at some specific point.
I shot into the conversation “As the Father has sent me, so send I you.” This is what Jesus did. When he faced an evil spirit He quoted scripture. Jesus never treated the person as though s/he was the devil; He always spoke to the spirit inside.
Another man and wife sat down next to me and he started quoting scripture too. I was not to be shut up. I said, “That is not true and I can prove it.” Weldon took a step backward and away from me. That is how I knew it was an evil spirit. If he had been speaking for himself, he would have immediately replied, “OK, prove it. I’m waiting.” But he was afraid at this point. He had been challenged by two of us, and was not getting anywhere with Mike either.
Mike meanwhile gave part of his testimony about experience with evil spirits. Testimony is nice but it is not what Jesus did. Testimony strengthens you but in no way deals with the devil.
Lessons from this:
1.I was happy to learn my church had leaders in it that the enemy wanted to challenge. It means God is planing to use us in some way and good churches require more than good pastors. They need many more to carry the load of real work of God.
2.Others spoke the Bible out loud without fear. A fearful church has little future.
3. We need to ask God to expose false teaching in the church. Otherwise it hides. It gives us all a way to pray.