Next to last, but far from the least, it was, and is still, the most incredible experience of them all, and this is the casting out of demons.

      The subject for my college degrees is psychology. My masters lead professor had me set up to be a high school psychologist in Sacramento, CA. However, just in the nick of time, I changed my mind and decided I wanted to go to a seminary and become a pastor. Then in February of 1967, as I have already presented, I started doing street ministry in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. After graduating from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley and moving my family to my family home in Sunland, California, a northern suburb of Los Angeles, I travelled back and forth from the City and Sunland, two weeks up, two weeks down.

       Part of the time while doing evangelism in the Haight, I lived at the Anchor Rescue Mission, on Fillmore St., which was run by two black ladies. They let me live there and I served as cook, dish washer, and more, plus preached to the hippies who showed for the evening meettings, at which I routinely preached the sermon. One of the ladies, wish I could remember her name, warned me about a guy who was, she said, demon possessed. She pointed him out to me later on.

      Time went on, then late one night, thinking I was the only one in the building, I heard someone walking in the back of the place. Yep, it was him. I thought I would test to see if maybe this guy had a demon. Then I saw him, walking toward the front door. I called out, “Jesus.” Without looking at me, he jumped straight up in the air, maybe a foot high off the ground. A few more steps and again, “Jesus.” Again, jumped in the air. I did it one more time, and the same thing again. Then he was out the door.

      This shattered my conviction that there were no demons much less that such indwelt people. All through my six years of seminary, I did not accept the idea that demons could possess, and indwell, people. My psych position now was challenged.

      To shorten this piece, let me say that over the years, I have been involved in what we call “deliverance ministry.” In 1973 Zondervan Publishing House put out my ThM thesis titled, A Manual of Demonology and the Occult. As a result, Christians from all over, even foreign countries, made their way to Marin County hoping the demons they were convinced they had could be cast out. Fairly quickly we developed ten teams to do this ministry. Two men, two women, a man and a woman—covered the bases. Mark Buckley and I did deliverance every Thursday night at the Christian House, The Solid Rock, on Wilson Street in Novato. Oh, I could tell you some stories. Mark and I did this for many years. The managers of our Christian bookstores usually controlled the traffic.

      Yes, I was wrong about the demons, but with the blaring realities, I changed my concepts and continue to do this now. Very simple, not complex, just confession of error, prayer for forgiveness, and we go to the work of commanding demons to come out in the name of Jesus. Could I tell you some stories!