Spirit of Fear? Not from God!

As I read over the last blog entry, it seems apparent in retrospect that I was being tormented by spirits of fear.  I had almost panicked when I was alone on the beach with the homeless man, and then was plagued by irrational fears while camping alone.  Both situations called for prudence, but, looking back, there was no reason for fear, let alone panic.  I have never been a fearful or panicky person.  I believe there were demons involved because the fears seemed to have had a definite beginning and end. 

It seemed to have begun last November when a murder took place about 200 yards from me in Tejarcillos.  From that time on, I seemed to lose my nerve and became increasingly fearful, culminating with my experience camping on the beach.  It ended when I took authority over them, first on the beach, and more fully with a pastor in California.  I have not been bothered by fear since then, even when working in Tejarcillos and driving through Northern Mexico.

I fully realize that some will read this and decide that I have finally flipped my wig.  What's a seminary educated, life-long Presbyterian doing talking about being tormented by demons in this day and age?  The fears could easily be explained as a mild form of post traumatic stress, or at least that all the years of violence and flying bullets in Tejarcillos had taken their toll on me, right?

So before continuing with my story, let me begin to make a case for the existence of such beings. 

First there is personal experience.  Martha came back from Ethiopia less than two weeks ago and told me about helping drive a demon out of a man there.  Martha writes, "It was as if he was levitating - his legs were curled behind him and his upper body was raising up with a strength that was not his own   - even with four men trying to hold him down.  His physical strength could not have been his own power/doing as it defied his physical "position" (legs under him) and also his size."  When it was over, the demons were gone and the man freed.  The remedy?  Taking authority over the spirits in the name of Jesus and making them leave.  Combined with my victory over fear and hearing the stories of others, I've found that battles with the demonic are really not that unusual.

Second, it has been revealed to us in Scripture.  The Bible is unequivocal in its teaching that Satan and demons exist and are arrayed against us.  Scripture is really one long spiritual war beginning with the serpent in Genesis and ending with the lake of fire in Revelation.  If you want to argue that demons don't exist, you'll have a hard time doing it from Scripture.

Thirdly, it can be deduced from reason.  Science points to a Creator.  If there is a Creator there is a world beyond.  If the Creator is a spirit, there could be other spirits.  Do you believe in any spirits at all (such as angels or departed souls)?  If so, then why should we assume that they are all benevolent?  If there are evil people, should we be surprised that there would be evil spirits?  If we took a poll, we would probably find that 90% of the world takes such spirits' existence for granted.  If you polled the world's missionaries you'd probably find the number to be 99.9%.

It's mainly just us enlightened Westerners that have a hard time with the idea.  We have made extraordinary advances with science including the apparent recent discovery of the so-called God particle.  But can we really claim to know any more about the world beyond us than the writers of the Bible?  Science points straight to an Intelligent Designer, but can tell us nothing about the unseen world.  For that information, we depend on revelation.

Charles Kraft is an ex-missionary to Africa and professor at Fuller Seminary.  He's the one whose conference I attended in California.  Kraft observes that Westerners tend to believe that every effect has only a single cause.  My fears were caused by emotional trauma.  Kraft writes in Confronting Powerless Christianity that "if a demon is present, there are two causes.  Demons cannot be present unless they have something to cling to.  They are like rats and rats cannot exist unless they have garbage to feed on.  With demons the garbage is usually emotional or spiritual damage...so with demonization, dual causation exists."   So I conclude that a spirit of fear began to cling to my emotional trauma.

The great news is that freeing me of fear was only one of many things that God would work in me on the trip.  I look forward to telling you about it!