Spiritual Warfare

We’ve noticed that when we do shows where there is a lot of outreach, Satan comes out fighting. We do a crusade in which over 80% of the audience are unchurched. One night of the crusade, Brock came to me backstage before the show and said that there was a girl in attendance that night that the leaders were worried about. She was coming to cause trouble. Shortly after that, one of the guys traveling with us at the time came backstage and said that something was troubling him. He felt that there was some sort of opposition. I told him about the girl that was in the audience. We were all praying that she would not disrupt what went on that night.

The show was in a high school gym. The girl who we later found out was into witchcraft sat in the back against the wall. Some of the leaders kept an eye on her the entire night. She sat up in the stands and cast spells on us during the show. She even took out voodoo dolls. However, we could not hear her disruptions because there were almost 2,000 people in the crowd and she was in the very back of the room. One of the leaders informed us that when it came time for the invitation in which Brock invited people to become followers of Christ, she passed out against the wall and was quiet. After the invitation time was over, she came back to consciousness.

I remember at one show during the most intense part of Brock’s message. A girl in the crowd began to laugh in a way that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Brock stopped what he was saying and addressed the girl. She continued to laugh uncontrollably. Finally, Brock commanded her with much authority to be quiet. She instantly stopped. We knew without a shadow of a doubt that this girl was possessed by a demon. We’ve seen a few demons manifest at our shows and they always seem to have one purpose…to distract. They want to get the attention off of the Lord and place it on themselves.

I’ve noticed that Satan uses the same tactic in my life. He seems to make the same thing go wrong over and over again in order to really push my buttons. He doesn’t just allow our trailer to be stolen, it’s got to be 2 trailers, several tools, our laptop, 2 mini disc players, cash from Brock’s wallet, $2,000 worth of stuff from our rental truck (the one we were using after our truck caught on fire).

We do a three day crusade in which we use a band and a bmx team. I can’t tell you how many times he’s made the same thing go wrong in each of our ministries. Once, all three groups were stranded at an event because of vehicle problems. After one crusade, we all went our separate ways and every single group had brake problems. We were all in different states at the time. Everyone was sick at one show.

In one city, something would go wrong every night right before the show began. One of those nights, one of the bmx bikes broke in two pieces during practice. Nobody even knew how that was possible. Brock welded up the bike in the trailer as the band had already begun playing. The rider took to the ramps with his bike still glowing red from the welding.

We’ve had girls flash Brock, people flip us off, and others literally turn around in their chairs in order to turn their backs on us during these kinds of shows.

I was beginning to get so focused on Satan’s tactics and how to combat them that I was getting distracted. I would take my focus off of the Lord and put it on Satan. Even though Satan did these kind of tricks time and time again, I would let it get to me.

I’ve learned to expect this sort of thing. If we do outreach and we’re seeing so many people become Christians, Satan is going to come and harass us. Now, when something goes terribly wrong, I think that the Lord is about to do something incredibly good because Satan is on the prowl. Instead of letting it get me upset, I get excited about what the Lord is going to do. Tomorrow, I'll tell you a story that showed me that the Lord has His side in the battle as well!