Requiem For A Pharisee

Frantically I searched my contact list in my phone, “Who can I call this late!?” I interrogated myself. “I have to tell someone!” I have never before seen this, was I crazy!? So many thoughts chased each other through my finite mind. “Ah finally, Christian will be up!” No answer. “Josh will be awake!”, barely able to hit his contact on my phone. No answer. I passed by Matt Smith, the Pastor of Vintage, “yes…yes he should definitely know as a pastor!” He picks up, and I begin to explain exactly what I had experienced. Man did it ever change me! This war we rarely see, but always feel!

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” -Eph. 6:12

<span>Paul warned us this fight was not of ourselves, not against ourselves but against the unseen. That night I was given a glimpse, a manifestation, if you will. I swore Matt to secrecy that night. Not because I wanted it hidden, but simply because I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand what I saw, what I felt. There was only one explanation, and I wasn’t ready to accept it. I didn’t want people to think I was going crazy after sleepless nights on the graveyard shift. Driving long nights your eyes begin to play tricks, cruel tricks. That night I not only saw it I felt it. It crawled my skin like an unwanted insect. Goose bumps and chills raced my arms and spine as my mind played roulette with reality and fiction. 

<span>This war is not with flesh and blood, do we really understand this!? I think that night my mind changed on this matter. I believe we are so wrapped up in the physical we ignore angels clashing the dark campaign above our heads. You know the feeling? The feeling when you are alone in an empty, dark church. It’s uneasy, like there is someone watching you or even following you. Why do you think that is? Why is it that in our own houses we are comfortable curled up in our beds in a pitch black room, but in a church where we should feel safest, the emptiness screams from the darkened silence. It’s simple, because there is a war going on. A war we don’t see, but a war we feel. A war over souls. A battleground littered with the fallen and the victorious and we are caught in the middle.

My hand propped comfortably on the steering wheel as I cruised the parking lot of an apartment complex, looking for riff-raff. That night man I was on fire! God had wrecked me! I mean I was ruined, just in awe of Who God was and what He had done for all of us. There was church going on in that patrol car! Tears and open prayers wafted sweetly past the roof of that car to the sky! I got courageous! “Devil”, I challenged, “Are you ready for this! We will take souls from you because vengance is His, YOU WILL BE CRUSHED!” I cried. Feeling good about my challenge I rounded a building I had many times, but I was suddenly startled. 

There before stood a woman in a white night gown. I slowed down, to see what a lady was doing out this late in her pajamas. As I began to pass her, just arms length from my car on the right side, my stomach began to hurt and chills ran my body. Her night gown, as I closed in, looked as if it were handmade from the 1800’s. Large puffy sleeves with frilly ends complete with a matching bonnet. Her face wide and weathered, she looked elderly and young in the same sense. wrinkled face and hands, in her hands she held a stuffed animal. Teddy bear or a bunny, I could barely see the top of it as I passed. Still chills were attacking my skin in a war for my comfort. I wanted to run from the lady for some reason, but trying to be professional I smiled and waved. She looked straight in my eyes and didn’t wave, but just as she passed over my shoulder she cracked a smile that would make the cat from Alice in Wonderland or the Grinch envy her. I could not see her teeth, but her grin went almost from ear to ear, literally. I couldn’t believe what I had just seen I kept her in my rear view as I quickly spun the car around but in the few seconds it took to turn the car around she was gone. For almost an hour later I felt chills and the sick feeling. 

I believe the devil answered my challenge. What I saw could not be explained other than the demonic. I tell you this all, for the simple fact that the war that rages in the unseen is very real. Whether it manifests itself to you in the world or you feel it from the next Ephesians 6 tells us that we are to ready ourselves for attacks from the demonic. This doesn’t make you charismatic or crazy just prepared. If we want to see revival we must understand the more we plunge ourselves into the Holy Spirit and His work the more the demonic wants to stop our efforts. We put ourselves on the frontlines, but we are not alone! Nor are we defeated! 2 Sam 5:20 is an excellent example of the power we have with God! We are victorious in the name of Jesus Christ! The more soak ourselves in His power the more we will face oppression! Be not concerned with the enemy, but understand his defeat!!! Psalm 119:9-11 RISE UP oh ye children, shod your body with the armor of the LORD!!!! Grip with white knuckles that death is glorious victory and wage war for the KING OF KINGS, no matter what the price!! The time is now!!!! Will you raise the SWORD of TRUTH in a battle cry for LOVE to overcome this world!?