JULY 11, 2024
Katie and I returned home from filming two programs of “The Bible Study” at Marin TV in San Rafael around 4:10pm, Thursday. Part of the first program was the story of Jesus casting a demon out of a young boy, which is in Mark 9:14–29. As I approached the ending of this episode, I talked about the deliverance ministry I had engaged in, going back to 1969. Then, though I hadn’t previously planned to, I talked about how our culture had so embraced the occult/psychic practices like astrology, crystal healing, tarot, channeling and so on, that there is now a great need for a renewed emphasis on Christians doing deliverance ministry, meaning casting out demons. Yes, involvement with these now popularly condoned practices will attract demonic spirits.
Back home then from filming, Katie got busy on the computer in her office, and I decided to see if there were any radishes I could harvest in one of my planter boxes in the back yard. (Nothing like a radish freshly plucked up.) I opened the sliding glass door in the dining room, unlocking the door and taking up the wooden pole along the lower track, which is my usual way out to the backyard. I found a nice radish and headed back to the house to wash it off. When I got to the sliding glass window, I tried to pull it open, but it would not budge. I looked in and saw the wooden pole was back lying in its track. But I know I had moved it just prior to my exit into the back yard. Not only that, but the latch that locked the slider was now pushed down into the locked position. Hmmm.
Okay, I thought, maybe I forgot that I came out the door from the garage, so I headed back to it but found that door locked also. That makes it very clear, I did not come outdoors that way.
Now I was confused. I checked the side gates on both sides of the house and found them secure, with the locking devices in place. Going back to the sliding door I tried again, and I again saw the wooden pole in place and the lock on the door pressed down.
Now I rapped on the window hoping to have Katie come and open the slider. It took a couple of sharp series of bangs, but she arrived and opened the heavy glass door. There I stood, dumbfounded, and I told her what had occurred, and we both tried to look at the events and hopefully figure out what happened.
Exhausting all possibilities, we had to arrive at a conclusion that I am not unfamiliar with. Had this been a demonic event? The story is too long and involved, but I had experienced a weird event the evening prior to the first time I was involved in the casting out of demons. Was what happened with the slider something similar, and perhaps was it linked to what I said about the need for deliverance ministry earlier that afternoon at Marin TV?
When I woke up this morning, I began to think about what had happened the previous afternoon. Could the slider deal have been of a demonic origin? Later on, now just 30 minutes or so ago, Katie and I took another look at it, considering possibilities, but the reality struck home again, that the slider door had been locked and its pole in place, and neither of us did it. This was an attempt by the forces of evil to dissuade, scare, and maybe prevent us from encouraging, engaging in, and supporting the very biblical ministry of casting out of demons.
To close this short essay, I want to set out the third verse from Martin Luther’s great hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is our God.”
And though this world with devils filled, Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us.
The prince of darkness grim, We tremble not for him,
His rage we can endure, For lo, his doom is sure:
One little word shall fell him.
“We will not fear” I love these words. Indeed, we go forward with a most important aspect of Christian ministry—casting demons out of those who come to us seeking this mighty work.