The Pastor's Soul Volume 4: Listening to the Voice of God

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I HAD NO PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE with demons or spiritual forces the day my future wife and I went to visit Harry in a small rural hospital near the church where I pastored part time during college. He had suffered a serious heart attack and been in a coma ever since. We arrived near lunchtime, and encouraged his wife to take a much-needed break while we stayed with her husband.

After talking to Harry, Julie and I decided to pray for him. Shortly after we began, he moved his lips and said, "Jesus Christ did not come in the flesh."

Stunned, Julie and I immediately thought of 1 John 4:2: "Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist." Julie began to cry. I wanted to.

Perhaps by divine design, we had studied about the Gadarene demoniac in a "Life and Teachings of Christ" course just that morning at Baylor University. The professor said, "Jesus always found out the demon's name before casting it out."

I said to Julie, "Let's pray, and ask for a name." We bowed our heads and demanded in the name of Christ that if we were dealing with a demonic spirit, it must reveal its name.

Much to our surprise, Harry spoke: "My name is Clarissus."

We were speechless and terrified. After calming down, Julie asked, "What do we do now?"

"I don't know," I replied. "The dismissal bell rang this morning and that's as far as we got" (which was the truth).

"Then why don't we do what Jesus did?" Julie suggested. "Let's pray for Clarissus to come out."

So we bowed our heads and prayed for Clarissus to come forth. Nothing happened.

Shortly afterward, Harry's wife returned. "How did things go?" she asked.

Julie looked at me, ...

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