Snakes and Baptismal Tanks
Recently, I ministered to a group of pastors in Tanzania Africa. I shared on the subject of “The Spirit of Python’ from Acts 16 and the deliverance of the demon possessed girl by the Apostle Paul. When I finished, the leader of those pastors told a story of one of the churches they had started. The church kept struggling to move forward and no one could understand why. One day, the pastor was praying in the sanctuary and suddenly a snake came out of the baptismal tank. He killed it and the church began to grow after that encounter. I was again reminded the warfare we are in is not natural but supernatural. We cannot give lip service to Paul’s words in Ephesians 6 if we are to have breakthrough in our communities.
One night after fifteen years of pastoring in my city and region, I had a prophetic dream. I was in a very large, three-story house. I needed to get to the third level because the person I needed to speak with was on the third floor. I kept searching for a stairway or elevator but there was none to be found. As I walked around looking for the way up, there were others on the same level who were disrespectful to me. One man kept hitting me with a switch. Most old- fashioned switches are made of wood, but this one was made of metal. Every time he walked by, he “switched me.” I finally decided to find out where this man was from. As a pastor, I figured this person had been hurt at a prior church or somewhere in life, and that was the reason he was trying to hurt me.
I approached him in the dream and asked. “How long have you been here?” I thought if I could get some information, I would be able to help him. He said, “Three thousand years!” Suddenly, his face twisted. I began to rebuke him in Jesus’ name, realizing I wasn’t dealing with a man but a demonic entity. Then I woke up. I knew I had had a divine encounter. Every personal, financial and ministry “switch” that I had personally experienced was not just life’s normal occurrences, but had been a spiritual attack. Demons inhabited the world long before people. God showed me there was a 3000-year-old entity that had staked its claim over my area and now felt threatened because we were having regular awakening prayer meetings, calling out to the Lord for real revival. I told my church that following Sunday that many of the issues they were struggling with were not just everyday life’s coincidences, but the result of a spiritual being, attempting to keep them from complete freedom in Christ.
America is being “switched” by unseen entities and some of you reading this right now have been dealing with personal, family, business and church issues and can't understand why there isn’t a change or breakthrough. You have been caught up in political arguments and the friction of a nation that has drifted away from the Lord. Put your gaze a little higher to the One who holds all victory in His hand.
God is standing at the door! Use His weapons and declare that “greater is he who is in you than he who is in this world!” Your breakthrough into an Elijah anointing to affect the nation with the power and presence of God is coming in Jesus’ name!
