Demonic Attacks Are Real – A Few Stories & What Scripture Teaches Us to Do

Demons.

I grew up very unaware on this topic. I lumped it in with the miracles that I no longer thought happened like they used to.

But boy was I wrong!

And if you don’t understand what I am about to share (not that I am an expert) a few things will likely happen:

1. You will get blindsided by a spiritual attack that you have no idea that is what is happening.
2. If you have no idea that is what is happening, you won’t fight it appropriately. You will fight it secularly, meaning you will try fight the wrong things the wrong way. You will fight by your own strength.
3. That means that often these attacks go on much longer than they might otherwise if you had eyes to see it for what it is and then the means to fight it appropriately.

Five Experiences

First, some experiences and then some scriptures to help prepare you. This will be a longer read, so buckle up…it will be worth it if it can even save you one or two go arounds in these battles.

The first experience I had that I knowingly understood to be a demonic attack was with a young lady who came to our church in Bakersfield. One day, she was in the church office and our office administrator Pam asked me to come and help. This young lady went off the rails…screaming, going crazy…speaking in weird ways. I was pretty stunned, having never seen anything like this. If she was faking, she deserved three two oscars – one for her and one for her fake demon personality impression.

We began to rebuke this demon in the name of Jesus, telling the demon to leave and leave her alone. She calmed down. She was eventually baptized and to my knowledge never had this happen again.

Second, was when N.T. Wright came to Pepperdine in 2016, I asked him his view on the essentiality of baptism and one of his key points was that people who undergo demonic attack no longer do once they are baptized and that aligned with my above experience and also got me thinking that either he has seen some things or knows of things but either way, he believe this happens.

My third encounter is one I am not yet comfortable to share due to the people involved out of respect to them but it was a very rough few years of persecution that we went through.

Fourth, a few months ago Missy went on a retreat and that Tuesday night, I was in bed and the room felt dark…not just the absence of light…just bad dark. Heavy. Spiritually bad. It is hard to explain but the hair on your arms goes up and something is off. I realized this felt demonic and all of a sudden out of my mouth came the words, “What is your name?” Well, that got me stressed…what would happen next? Would I hear a name or what I? I decided to go right to sleep and avoid the whole thing. Well, 6am I awoke with a very loud word in my head, “Delilah!” It was so loud and strong that it woke me up. I thought, “Oh no…nope…go back to sleep.” Then I heard, “Hey Matt!”

Missy came back from her trip and was telling me about it and said that one weird thing was that on Tuesday night (same night) she felt that the room felt heavy and dark and realized that maybe it was demonic.

Something happened a few weeks after this that I am not quite ready to share that tied into all of this that was quite frightening. Maybe I will share that one sometime.

Last story. When we started the second home church we had prayed for God to send us a leader for the second church. Within a week I got a call from a local person asking for help starting a home church. We prayed walked his neighborhood and when we finished I felt a strong need to warn him about spiritual attack. I told him that working for Jesus in his neighborhood is like Mark 3 – the strong man, taking people from Satan’s house and that Satan won’t like it and be prepared to have a bullseye on your back. That was a Saturday in February of 2023. The next Wednesday he texted me “I think I’m in trouble.” I called him and he said that he had regular scans and this scan picked up something that showed a tumor on his liver and pancreas and that he thought he had stage 4 pancreatic cancer. It turns out that is exactly what he had and it was aggressive. Long story but lots of fasting and prayer and now, over 3 years later he is doing really, really well. The doctors have no explanation for how well he is doing!

Why does this matter and let’s point to some scriptures:

1. I think we are going to see more of this as the West wakes up! And as the churches/Christians in America wake up, we will be more dangerous to Satan. So far he has been able to be sneaky and subtle. But as we get more in tune he will be more direct.
2. If you don’t believe in this stuff and it happens to you, you will have no idea what it is or what to do.
3. This can mean we are on the right track…that Satan sees you as a threat.
4. If you haven’t experienced this or didn’t know what it was that doesn’t make you any more or less than anyone else.

Scripture teaches us how to fight this.

David Young once said that if you go into a spiritual battle without the help of the Holy Spirit it is like going into trench warfare in WWI armed with a potato.

First, we turn to Jesus.

– Matthew 4 – 40 days of fasting and prayer prepared Jesus for his encounter with Satan. Jesus demonstrated that the path through spiritual attack is fasting, prayer and full dependence on God. Additionally, Jesus was led into that wilderness by the Holy Spirit. Being Spirit led and sensitive to the Spirit is essential. If you don’t believe the Spirit does anything anymore, you are going to be toast in this area. Not helpless but in real trouble and possibly for much longer/intense than would be otherwise.

– Transfiguration – when they come down the mountain a spiritual battle had been going on. A father had a son who had a demon the disciples couldn’t cast out. Jesus said some only come out through prayer, some manuscripts say fasting and prayer.

Next, Paul

– Ephesians 6 is key here. Expect a fight. God gives the armor. Stand firm.

Last, there are no magic words to say in these moments but I will say speaking in the name of Jesus is powerful…demons have no authority over us. They don’t have God’s power. But we can welcome them into our lives and harbor them for a very long time, especially if we don’t believe this sort of thing goes on.

Ever had any experiences? What light can you shed on this? What advice would you give?