I was raised that one should be in Church and as a child we went to Dalewood Baptist, but it
didn’t take.
By the world standards, I was a normal kid but I had gotten into Heavy Metal music and all that
follows that type of music. Although unknowingly at that time, I had gotten into some stuff that
had caused me to be possessed by devils. And no, I didn’t wallow around on the ground and
foam at the mouth. If that is your only view of demon possession, you have highly deceived
yourself.
As a teen, I would go listen to my mother sing at different churches. The Woodard Singers. Going to
many different churches, I remember one would preach that Tongues was of the Spirit of
God and go to the next church and they would preach that tongues was of the devil. I thought all
these people are crazy, they don’t know what they believe.
At the age of 18, I was getting married because my girlfriend was pregnant. I found a job at a
Gas station and she had to quit school. We had a son, and a couple of years later a
daughter. I did all I could at the time but when your full of the devil and your marriage
also, everything falls apart. He is the master of destruction and the evidence in our lives was the proof of it.
I can see these things now, but at the time was oblivious to it. We were young and immature, full
of selfishness and deceit and our marriage was over after 3 years.
I found myself divorced and raising 2 children on my own. Not knowing any different, I would go
out on the weekends and party, trying to live and find something to fill that void. I was lost and
lonely. Everything I touched seemed to fall apart.
I did manage, with the help of my father, land a good paying job at an Automotive Manufacturer but that did not
change the troubled person I had become. I remember one night laying in my bed, crying out to
God with everything in me for help. Yes, I believed in God but did not know Him. Ya know the
Bible teaches that even the devils believe and tremble, so it does no good to believe if you don’t
enter through the door.
Months later, in 1993, my mother started talking to me about my children needing to be in
church. And I knew she was right. She told me of a church that she had heard of that she
wanted to visit, so one Sunday we loaded up and went to church. The kids loved it. This church
had a great children’s ministry and my kids wanted to go to church. And I was ok with it. I
would go in and sit on the back row and stay to myself, get my kids afterwards and go home.
I remember sitting there during the invitation and would feel (the way I described it) pressure.
This went on for weeks. Then one week, in particular, my children, especially Rachel, could not
wait to get into church. She had just turned 4. She was saying all week long, is it time to go to
church yet? So I made her a promise that we would go to church that Sunday.
Well, I was in a friends wedding that weekend and partied each night, so come Sunday morning,
there was no going to church. When I went to pick up the kids, it was midday and she was taking a
nap. When I went to pick her up, she woke and the first thing out of her mouth was, is it time to
go to church now? I felt so bad that I told her right then, we will go tonight.
So, that night we went to church. I thought that church started at 7pm, but it started at 6:30 at
this church. So we were late. Walked in and an Usher caught me and stated that I should wait
for them to dismiss the kids and then take them to their class, then I could slip into the sanctuary
without much bother. So I did and walked into the sanctuary and the back row seat that I was
used to was roped off. The whole back half of the church was roped off and everyone was
sitting in the front half of the church and I didn’t know what to do. There was a little Usher
standing there that grabbed my arm and with a big smile said, come on I’ll find you a seat and to
the front we went.
ya know, I was looking for a seat in the back of the seating section, but that little usher took me
all the way to the second-row center. I was immediately uncomfortable. Totally out of my comfort
zone, but I moved down away from everybody and sat down. They had a music
ministry going on that night with a good playing band, so I thought, ok, this will not be so bad
after all. I sat and listened to the band play and everything was fine, until…they started to
worship. Once the church started to join in and worship a rage began to rise within me, a great
rage. In my mind, I didn’t understand what was happening to me. The one singing began to give
the invitation to accept Jesus as Lord and this rage was all on the inside if me messing me up
bad, but I wasn’t going anywhere. Three men went to the front and the singer stepped down and
said “something is not right”, I want everyone in here to ask the person next to them if they are
saved. So everyone started and laughed as they asked one another, and there I stood, staying
to myself the best I could with this rage going on inside of me. Everyone started to calm down
and it was almost over, then all the sudden I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned and there
stood a woman that asked me if I was saved?
With all that was going on inside of me, I was becoming a mess. At this point I was caught and
knew that I was going to hell. So I answered her, no. Tears started to pour out and I began to
shake all over and this rage was messing me up bad. I went to the front and looked at the singer
and said man, this is hard. He just gave me this pitiful look. He had no idea what was going on
inside of me.
He said for us to go with the usher, so we went to a side room. Once inside, we were asked to
fill out a card and I was shaking so bad I could not even write my name. The usher told me to
wait and calm down, then we could go back to our seats. No-one, not the singer or usher prayed
with us to accept Jesus as our Lord.
So, once I had calmed down, I went back to my seat. I was a mess, but the rage had stopped
and i was just confused as to what was happening to me. Well, they started singing again. Then
the worship started again. Then the rage on the inside of me started again. But this time, the
worship became more intense and with it the rage became more intense. They came to a part of
the song where they were repeating the words of worship and that’s when the rage became
more than I could handle. I threw my hands up into the air and cried out with everything in me,
JESUS FORGIVE ME… and BOOM…I felt the rage (devils) go out through my back in an upward
angle. All at the same time, the Love of God fell on and in me, so great, it’s indescribable. I was
totally filled within and all around with the Love of God.
At the same time, I saw four words go up in front of me but I only focused on the two in the
middle which was “KISS”. A heavy metal band that I had worshipped in my youth and the other
word was “Guilt” from the things I had done in my past.
I saw up in front of me a man in a white robe. But because he was above me off the floor, I only
saw the bottom of the robe, just below the knees, to the feet. It happened so fast, it was like I
didn’t have time to look around to really catch all that was going on.
I found myself standing with my hands raised high, tears pouring out, totally saturated with the
Love of God. I was completely delivered and set free!
All I wanted to do at this point was to shout praises to God. Immediately I felt intimidation come
to stop me from doing this, but then remembered all the times I spent at concerts singing and
shouting with my hands raised and made a decision that I wasn’t going to give God any less
than I gave the devil. So I began to sing louder and louder.
At the end of the song, the singer was closing and I sat there shaking, overwhelmed by all that
had just taken place. When it was all over, the lady that had asked me if I was saved was sitting
nearby and I thanked her. She said that she was happy for me and that I had a lot to look
forward to. I just looked at her and thought, what else could there be, I had just received God.
Still, in tears, I walked over to the singer to thank him, but he wanted nothing to do with
me. I didn’t care, I was free.
As I walked out, I began to examine myself on the inside, there was nothing there, I was
clean. Everything I thought I was, the love for rock’n roll among other things, was gone. I
was clean, I felt so clean.
I went to pick up the kids and walked into my daughters classroom and I fell to my knees and hugged mu daughter, crying again. My son came up to us as well. My daughter was
patting me on the head and said what’s wrong daddy? Her teacher spoke up and said it’s
ok, this is not a bad cry, it’s a good cry. I said “I just got Jesus” and My son took a step
back, looked at me and said “you didn’t know Jesus?” and I said no, but I do now.
As we left church that night, I remembered that a guy (that I used to work with) told me of
a Christian radio station (Way FM). So I searched the stations till I found it. There was
nothing in me that wanted to hear any of the stuff I used to listen to.
Now this is silly, but I began to think I was the only person like this, because I knew a lot
of people that called themselves Christians, but did know any that lived what I knew I had
just become. Until on the way to work Monday morning, listening to Way FM, someone
called in to the radio station and I instantly knew, they were like me. I was so relieved that
I wasn’t alone.
As I went to work the next week, I just pretty much stayed to myself. There was nothing
in me that wanted to be part of anything I had to do with before. I didn’t know how to act
towards others now that I was not the same person they knew before. I just praised the
Lord and kept to myself. A week or so went by and the presence of God had been with
me the whole time, until it seemed to lift all the sudden. And I thought, uh oh…did I just lose what i
had. I was troubled. Well it just so happened that there was a man working across the
aisle that was a good Baptist Christian named Lynn. So, I turned to him and said, hey Lynn,
can i ask you a question? He said sure, and I hesitantly asked, if a person gets God, can
they lose it? He looked at me and said, wait a minute…are you trying to tell me you got
saved? I very sheepishly and kinda quietly said yes…and he came unglued. He jumped
up with excitement and said I’ve been praying for you! And this started Lynn teaching me
about Salvation, what had happened to me. I remember once in our conversations, I told
him that I believed that a person could move objects with their mind. (see, I told you I was
messed up before) Lynn started saying no, no man, you don’t know what you are dealing
with. I replied, oh yea, if a person focus’ enough, he can move objects with the power of
the mind. Lynn was strongly trying to tell me that this was bad stuff. Then as I turned
away to work, the Holy Spirit said (on the inside of me in a stern voice) “Don’t challenge
him, you know better”! And then all the sudden I realized, that I did know better.
The Holy Spirit had just corrected me. I got so excited because I just heard the voice of
God. I turned to Lynn and told him what had just happened and his jaw dropped. He knew
that the Holy Spirit had just talked to me. He responded that he doesn’t ever hear the
Holy Spirit speak to him like that.
Every time we worked together our conversations were about Salvation, hearing the
voice of the Holy Spirit and then on to speaking in tongues. I had a lot of questions about
a lot of stuff.
The second week at work I decided to bring a Bible to work. I was so hungry for the
things of God, I had to know more. I had a pocket Bible and decided that I would read at
lunch. Now keep in mind that nobody else knew what had happened to me. I sat down at
lunch with the same group of folks that I had always sat with and slipped the Bible on the
table with me hand on top of it and already feeling intimidated thought, oh well, this is me
now and lifted my hand from off the Bible. As soon as I did, the whole table became silent. Everybody
stopped everything and the intimidation grew. And when they did start talking again, they
would not even look at me. I even tried bringing up football to the guy sitting next to me
and he ignored me completely. No-one at the table would even acknowledge that I was
there. So, i just started eating and reading my Bible. For at least the next week, no one would
even look at me much less talk to me, accept Lynn.
Over the next few weeks at church I was hearing about praying in tongues. So I began
talking to Lynn about it and he regularly tried to talk me out of it. Telling me things like,
he had a minister friend that was involved with casting out a devil and the person that
had the devil started speaking in tongues. That was their assumption anyway. So in
Lynns mind, tongues was of the devil. He also began telling the doctrine that the Baptist
have about the subject of tongues. He stated that in 1 Corinthians 13:8-10 it says that
Love never fails, but prophecies shall fail, tongues shall cease and knowledge will vanish
away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect shall
come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
Lynn stated that the word “perfect” in verse 10 was the same word “perfect” used in
James 1:25. Saying that the “perfect law of liberty is the word of God. He said that the
perfect law of liberty is the new testament and when the new testament was written, then
“that which is in part shall be done away with”. He stated that tongues was used to gain
revelation from the old testament to write the new testament and now that it was written,
tongues is no longer needed and was done away with.
All of this sounded very logical, but something on the inside would not let me accept it.
(John 2:20)
So I turned around to my workstation and opened my Bible to 1 Corinthians 13 and I said
to the Lord, Lord I don’t know what to believe. Whether tongues is for today or not for
today. I’m asking to you to show me the truth.
And I started reading through 1 Corinthians 13.
As I was reading through and came to verse 10 that says but when that which is perfect
is come, then that which is in part shall be done away, and then something on the inside
came up that happened to me when I was in 6th grade in Mrs Deans class at Inglewood
Elementary.
Mrs Dean made a statement and said, the word “that” in a sentence always refers to the
subject being talked about. And the reason i remembered it so vividly is because when
she said this, i felt it shoot into me. They went right through my chest on the inside and i
remember as a kid, being surprised at what had just happened.
With this, i read 1 Cor. 13:10 and realized, the word “that” in verse 10 is referring to the
subject being talked about, which is love. Not the written word of God as in James or the
New testament, verse 10 was talking about Love.
So then, when that which is perfect, being Love, then that which is in part shall be done
away with. As explained in verse 11, Paul is referring to maturing on God’s love and that
when you mature in the fullness of God’s love there will be no more in part, because we
will know Him as we are known. Therefore tongues is not done away with, and more so,
the statement Lynn made about using tongues to gain revelation of the old testament to
write the new, (which is true by the way) how much more do we need tongues to gain
revelation to understand the word of God, old and new testament.
So the question of whether tongues is for today or not was settled in me forever.
After this I began to seek the Lord for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. I would get caught
up in worship at church and and tongues would start coming up on the inside of me. I
would yield to it and start speaking in other tongues only to hear myself and because I
didn’t understand it shut it down. I thought because I didn’t understand it that it wasn’t
right. This happened over and over for about a month or so. Then one day when i was
leaving work, i walked through the office to leave and several Japanese men walked
passed me speaking Japanese. All the sudden the Holy Spirit spoke up on the inside and
said, see, you can’t understand them either. That is when i realized that tongues was a
foreign language and that i didn’t have to understand it to speak it. And i’ve been yielding
over and praying in it every since. As for Lynn, well he taught me well on the issue of
salvation as any good Baptist can, but his belief of the word stopped there. So we went
our separate ways.
As i grew in the things of God, i began to pray in the Spirit while working on the
assembly line. If the line was running, I was praying. But not out loud so that it did not
draw attention, but in a whisper, under my breath. Some people need to realize that God
is not deaf, so you don’t have to yell for God to hear you praying in tongues. And no,
your not yelling or warring at the devil when your praying on other tongues. The Bible
says that your talking to God and that it is for your personal edification in God. That is,
your growth.
I also started reading my Bible on the line as much as possible. I would work hard to get
some extra time and read what i could, then work hard to get extra time again and read
some more. But i always put work first, because i was getting paid to work, not read. And
as long as the work got done, the boss’ didn’t seem to mind.
Although i remained friendly, i pretty much stayed to myself and prayed in the Spirit and
read my Bible. When conversations did arise, it was because someone would ask me
about the word.
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