Dire Need for the Liberating Truth of God's Word

I stood about 24 inches from her face, praying for freedom from horrible dreams and demonic manifestations, grasping one of her arms with all my strength, knowing at any moment I could be thrown around quite unnaturally. We’d prayed for Loveness many times over the last several months, always for the same problems and always with the same manifestations of demonic inhabitation and control. As we prayed this time, Loveness was surrounded by 3-4 members from her “church” called “Hambakuk.” Loveness began manifesting violently, thrashing back and forth, spewing profane statements and promising to hurt us for “trying to make her leave this body.” We just kept praying, telling the spirit to leave in Jesus’ name, because Loveness, when she’s completely in her own mind, doesn’t want these spirits at all. To this point, I’m writing a very common experience in ministry here in Doma. Weekly, if not many times per week, we experience this reality of demonic possession and deliverance in Jesus’ name. This time, however, something different happened. While we were praying, Loveness’ friends from “church” began singing one of the songs from their church. Amazingly, this demon wrenched violently, got free from our hands and began vehemently dancing and reciting the words of the song, pausing only to include bold assertions that it would “never leave, because this is my home.” Eventually, Loveness was released from the trance or possessive power of the demon enough to pray and the manifestation stopped entirely. Jesus reigned victorious, again, as He always does. Hallelujah!

Lovness’ story is shared here to illustrate an increasingly common and concerning reality that we face in ministry in Doma. People are attending Bible-less churches that teach any array of doctrines and encourage the reception of the Holy Spirit as evidence of salvation (which could be defended Biblically, not by these manifestation, but by Romans 8:9 “You however are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” Rom. 8:9 ESV Emphasis added) The problem comes when these churches don’t have or use the Bible as the authoritative measuring rod for determining the legitimacy and holiness of the spirits that manifest. This month we’ve seen more than 5 people manifest spirits that they think are the Holy Spirit, but come with violence and striking similarity to the inherited, ancient practice of welcoming “ancestral spirits” to communicate on behalf of the dead. To make a long, very complicated story short, there are demons masquerading as the Holy Spirit, keeping men and women in bondage to lies and needless activities that won’t ever endear someone to our Wonderful Father. Our hearts are weighed down with the deep love God has for these people, while many of them think they are walking in light, untransformed, still living in constant fear, receiving demonic spirits with joy and excitement, because any power “must be from God.” There is one common denominator between all the churches where we’re seeing these manifestations of lying spirits, they all either reject the Bible fully or refuse the presence of the Word at their meetings. Brothers and Sisters, we need  to get the Word into the hands of God’s people out and about in this region! Zimbabwe is not a Christian nation in the rural! She’s a deceived mass of very religious people, many of whom have no faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, but are following the doctrine of demons, cleverly devising generations of bondage and decay as the Gospel remains veiled, keeping these beautiful people for whom Jesus died in darkness unending. As I write this, fire burns in my stomach and makes we writhe in loving anguish to see Christ formed in Loveness and all those, just like her, who want the reality of God but have no grid of truth to test the spirits and make sure they are not being deceived! Pray for us, Christians! Join us, please, and help us get more laborers in the Harvest! We’ve got 72 farms in Doma and we’re  currently laborering intentionally in 11 of those farms! That’s too few, and yet we can’t do much, if any, more until God moves more disciples into our community. Not just baby-Christians, but men and women ready to rightly divide the Word, to radically love and obey Jesus and surrender all to Him! Pray with us, Christians! We are hungry to see breakthrough here…total transformation…a genuine revival, where the fear of God and increase of holiness meets the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, but the most marked characteristic is reverence! Pray! Pray! Pray! Please don’t treat this lightly!

Even as I write this, I realize, I’m talking about a “Christian” nation according to numbers! How much more those unreached, unevangelized, unbelieving nations of the earth. Rise up, Church! Let’s get our eyes fixed on eternity and use our brief vaporous lives to make a real difference! Don’t just talk about Jesus and go to Bible studies, by all means do that too, but GO and get the lost exposed to the King and His Kingdom, in your life! Sorry for the little sermon, but it’s genuine and heartfelt! Let’s go after the reality depicted in the New Testament and see our Jesus do it all again in our time. That’s what we’re going to do here in Doma. I hope you will wherever you are when you read this.