Bible Study ESV
Ephesians 4:27-29, “and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”
Dreams and Manifestations of Demons
I wasn’t going to tell anyone about these experiences, until I watched a sermon about Jesus casting out a legion of demons into a herd of pigs from a man they possessed. This story is in Mark 5:1-20, Luke 8:26-39, and in Matthew 8:28-34. What changed my mind about telling anyone what I experienced was after the man was in his right mind, he begged Jesus to go with him. In Mark 5:19-20, Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.’ So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him.” And so, I want to tell others what I experienced and of God’s mercy on me.
The Cold Dark Musty Basement
First, I want to say that I spent most of my life not believing in demons or monsters. This really began for me at the age of 15. We lived in a house that had a cold, dark, musty basement and the door to the basement was next to the TV. I would often think that something would come up out of the basement to attack me, while I tried to watch TV. One night, I just got fed up. I went to the door, turned on the light, closed the door behind me, went downstairs to the middle of the basement, where the chain pull string was for the light and yanked the light off and waited. I put my hand in front of my face and I couldn’t see it. I though, "if it’s going to happen, now is the time." I waited and there was nothing. A few days later, I repeated my experiment and there was nothing. After this, I had no fear of the basement, and I have spent most of my life believing the things that go bump in the night were make believe, fueled by movies and the stories of ghosts and monsters told by people. Before you admire my courage to face my fear, know that I tricked my little brother to go down that very basement, and when he did, I turned the light out and closed the door and sat on the couch smiling and laughing to myself while he eventually found the chain link pull string to the light and made his way back upstairs. His story is one of courage, not mine.
Atheism
Also, I was an atheist for several years. Not only did I believe that demons were make believe, but I believed that God was make believe. I even doubted that Jesus ever existed. I believed that when a person died, there was nothing, just annihilation. In 2020, I had a mini stroke, and as the nurse was running down the hallway, pushing me in a hospital bed, to get me to X-ray for a PET Scan, I could only think of my wife and daughter and I was waiting for nothingness to over take me. For several months afterward, I developed and intense fear of dying because I believed I would end soon. I found it difficult to sleep because sleep was like dying in my mind. I thought to myself that life was meaningless and there was no purpose to life, but I didn’t want my life to end. Gradually, I started to recover from my intense fear, but a sense of dread was with me everyday. The dread that my life was ending and there was nothing I could do about it.
Opening Up to God
Then in May of 2024, a You Tube video popped up on my feed and it was Joe Rogan interviewing Stephen C. Meyer about the existence of God, and it was like my mind opened. In the following weeks, I kept thinking to myself, “I think I believe in God. I think I’m coming back to God.” Then I watched another video with an Atheist debating a Christian and I believed. I broke down weeping and I knew what I had done and I asked God to forgive me, but there was something else, like I knew God’s presence was with me and he was happy to have me back. My sense of dread disappeared, and my life has been changing ever since.
Before God brought me out of the darkness I was in, I just wanted people to leave me alone. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, and at times, even my wife and daughter. I harbored resentment and anger and hatred toward just about everyone, but that all changed. I wanted to love everyone. To help anyone I could, even in small ways. And I wanted to forgive everyone and to make peace with everyone, and so I did, and I still am. I used to have a step mom and two step brothers who were cruel to me when I was a kid. I sought to find them, and I found one of the brothers, so I wrote him a letter and told him I forgive you for how you treated me when I was a kid. And the reason I am writing you is because Jesus saved me and I hope you seek Jesus and that you are saved.
The Dreams and The Demons
A few nights after I mailed the letter, I had this dream where I was standing at the top of the stairs and there were two skinny, human-like creatures with leather-like skin raging in anger and running up the stairs, reaching out to grab me. I flicked the light switch on and I woke up instantly. I sleep on my left side, facing the far wall. As soon as I opened my eyes, I felt intense hatred from a presence that was hovering over me. Hatred was emanating from this presence onto me, and I could feel it, and I could hear a sound from the presence, which was like a hiss. You may have heard stories of how people felt intense love from God when they died and went to heaven, but returned back to their body. Well, I would describe this experience was like that except what I felt was intense hatred. It was the oddest thing to feel hatred, like it was being poured out onto me. This happen as soon as I opened my eyes from sleep. As soon as I felt the hatred and heard the sound, I felt no fear, but determination and without thinking, I moved to sit up saying, “In the name of Jesus, leave me alone.” It was gone even before I had begun to sit up in bed. Afterward, I spent the next few hours of the night praying for everyone I knew and reciting to myself every bible verse I could think of. I felt the chills. The hairs of my body stood on end, but I knew I could call on Jesus to protect me, which is something I had never done before. The only reason I can think that I called on Jesus was that he put it in me to say it.
A few nights later, I had this dream where I couldn’t see the foot of my bed, but something was picking up the foot of my bed and slamming it down over and over. And in my dream, I turned to get out of my bed to turn on the light, but it stopped as soon as I started to move. I didn’t wake from this dream.
A few nights later, I had this dream where I was sitting up in bed and this tall creature of shadows was walking toward the foot of my bed, like it was coming from some place other than my bedroom. The shadows poured from it’s open mouth, like rain falling. I felt no fear and in my dream I said, “In the name of Jesus. Leave me alone,” and I watched it disappear right before my eyes. I didn’t wake from this dream.
A few nights later, as I was about to fall asleep, I felt a sharp jab to the back of my right shoulder. I thought my wife was trying to wake me, which I also didn’t know why she would jab me like that because she had never jabbed me. I turned to look at my wife. When I look at my wife at night, I have to prop myself up to look down in the bed under layers of blankets, but what I saw was a creature reclining on it side hovering just above her. It looked like my wife or rather like it was trying to look like my wife, but did a bad job of it. It smiled at me. I knew it was intentionally doing a bad job of looking like my wife to torment me. I turned away from the sight. I was full of rage and I screamed into my bed. I never felt such rage. I lost all control. Like, all that I was, was rage. Like, there was nothing else in me. Like all who I was, was gone. It was so intense that by the end of it, I was exhausted and I passed out.
I wasn’t going to tell anyone about these experiences because I thought, “who would believe me?” Seven months went by before my wife and I watched the sermon about Jesus saving the man from a legion of demons and telling him to tell others. Then, I decided to tell my wife. It was hard because I didn’t want to scare her. She said she woke up that night when I screamed and looked at me to see if I was okay. She saw I was sleeping and went back to sleep. My wife believed me, and we continue to pray together that God will keep everyone from the dominion of darkness. Two months after talking with my wife, I told my brother in Christ what had happened. He recommended I write about it, which up to that point, writing about it never crossed my mind.
Our Enemy
In Ephesians 6:10-12, Paul said, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” According to Paul, we are not the enemy. Our enemy is not of “flesh and blood.” Our enemy is “evil” and is in the “heavenly places.” Our enemy is an enemy who hates us with such intensity and yet, we are oblivious to them. Instead, we hate one another. Our hatred of one another fills our lives. No matter where you look, you will see someone hating another or someone hating you or you hating another. I’m here to tell you that “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” are real. And they want to destroy you. And they want you to hate one another. Instead, I encourage you to forgive one another. To own what you have done and not give any excuses. Even if the other person does not forgive you or ignores you. Forgive them and don’t retaliate. Pray to God for forgiveness and turn away from sin. Write a list and forgive each person. Ask God to forgive them. Let go of the anger and hate, no matter what they did. Leave vengeance to God. Instead, forgive them and love them. And I don’t mean emotional love. Be kind, patient, understanding, and gentle, but that doesn’t mean you have trust them or you have to put up with them. Help them in anyway you can, but keep your distance from them, even avoid them if need be, but in your heart, harbor no resentment no anger and no hate.
Why Me?
Why did I experience these dreams and manifestations? I think there are a few reasons. One is I think God showed me what separation from him will be like, and I believe I should tell you because of what I experienced. Hell is separation from God’s presence as seen in 2 Thessalonians 1:9, “They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.” God’s presence is with us now, that is why we can love one another, but separation from God’s presence and “the glory of his might” is the absence of God’s love. In the absence of God’s love, we will become hatred, and we will become rage, and we will become unrecognizable from the people we were in life. We will become whittled down to nothing but hate. Jesus said in Matthew 13:41-43, “The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.” The “fiery furnace” and the “weeping and gnashing of teeth” are figures of speech that show what separation from God will be like. The “fiery furnace” is like burning rage. The “fiery furnace” is like burning hatred. That is what the fire of hell will be. The “weeping and gnashing of teeth” is what burning hatred and burning rage becomes. There may be fire in hell, but I think that fire in hell comes from what we become in the absence of God. In the absence of God, you will become unlike anything you were.
Another reason I think I experienced these dreams and manifestations is God showed me what I had attracted in my life because of my sin. Before God brought me out of the darkness I was in, I was full of hatred and anger. I rejected God. I believed lying was necessary in certain circumstances. Essentially, I followed the will of my father, the devil. To look at me, you never would have thought I was evil because I seemed fairly good by our standards. For example, I was full of anger and hatred, but I rarely showed it. I kept it inside, stuffing it down, often simmering on the surface, so I would have to lie and say, “No, I not mad.” My hatred and anger opened a door for the dominion of darkness to enter into my life and influence me. Jesus said in Matthew 5:21-22, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” According to Jesus, anger and murder are the same and they both are “liable to judgment.” So, to have anger and hatred in your heart, you commit murder in your heart and you are in danger of the fire in hell.
Our Adversary
The devil and the dominion of darkness rule our world. We just don’t see it. We believe we rule it. In 1 John 5:19, John said, “We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” We have lost control of this world long ago because of sin. The dominion of darkness is here with us and when we sin, we open a door for them to influence us. When we sin, they gather to us, and are intent to fill us with their hatred and rage and even more than that, also pride and envy, and even more than that. Peter said in, 1 Peter 5:8-9, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.”
Our “adversary” is not one another. Our “adversary” is the “devil.” Our adversaries are “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” And they prowl around looking for victims. When we sin, that opens the door for them to influence our lives. When we let them into our lives, we move anyway from the love of God and toward hatred. Paul said in, 2 Timothy 2:24-26, “And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.” When we are “captured” by our adversaries to do their will, our will becomes their will and we don’t even realize what we are doing. We come to our “senses” not through quarrels, but through kindness and correction, and if anyone is open, then God leads them toward “repentance” and “truth.”
A Brief Study of Our Adversary
If we want to know our adversary, then one place to look in scripture is when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by the devil. In Matthew 4:1-11, we read, “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, “It is written,
‘Man
shall not live by bread alone,
but by
every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Notice that the devil is the “tempter” and in this situation he is speaking to Jesus. Here the devil is targeting Jesus’ physical vulnerability, which is severe hunger. The goal of the devil is to get Jesus to think about himself. The goal is less about the food, it’s more about getting Jesus to follow his own will instead of following the Father’s will. But Jesus, instead of taking matters in his own hands to feed himself, he looks to God. It may be that the devil speaks to us, whispering to us in the spirit, but the devil’s goal is to lead us away from God. It may be that he targets our vulnerabilities, such as anger, lust, pride, envy, power, depression, and etc. The reason the devil tempts us is because our sin leads us away from God, and toward the belief that we are god.
“Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you,’”
and
“‘On
their hands they will bear you up,
lest
you strike your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus said to him, ‘Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’
Notice the devil quoted scripture. He changed his tactic to use scripture in an attempt to persuade Jesus to jump from the “pinnacle of the temple.” Here, the goal of the devil was to get Jesus to test God, like the devil wanted to see the angels bear Jesus up or even down to the ground, where many Jews would see Jesus float down from the temple. The Jews often asked Jesus to give them a sign, even though Jesus showed many sings, but this sign probably would have convinced the Jews to follow Jesus. However, this sign would not have been from the Father, but from pride.
“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written,
‘You
shall worship the Lord your God
and him
only shall you serve.’”
Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.”
Notice that the devil knew the goal of Jesus was to save the world. The devil rules the world and he was willing to give it to Jesus, if Jesus would “fall down and worship” him. The devil knew who Jesus was, and he knew Jesus wanted to save the world, and he knew Jesus loved the world. By offering Jesus the world, it may be that the devil saw this as an opportunity for himself to become god, which is what he has been seeking since the beginning. The devil knew that Jesus was here to save the world, but he didn’t seem to know how Jesus was going to do it. I think if the devil knew how Jesus was going to save the world, he wouldn’t have offered him the world. This shows that the devil has limited knowledge and cannot read our thoughts.
The main goal of the devil is to lead people away from God by getting them to focus on themselves. The goal seems to be to get anyone to question something greater than themselves, like the truth, and then to persuade anyone that something greater, like truth is within themselves. Also, it seems that he tempts us when we are most vulnerable, such as in a hardship or tragedy, but it’s not the hardship or tragedy in of itself, it’s how we react to the hardship or tragedy.
Open Doors
I ask myself? How does the dominion of darkness “capture” us and influence us after we let them into our lives because of our sin? I truly don’t know, but I have an idea of one possible way. I felt intense hatred emanating from the presence that was hovering over me. It was the oddest thing. Its hatred felt like energy that had movement, like being close to a radiator emanating heat. I think they influence us by emanating their hatred and rage or pride or envy or whatever else into us. They want to fill us with it, which leads us to sin more. I think this happens because we open doors to them when we sin. And once they find a door that is open, they influence us, so that we become “captured.” My door was anger and over time they cultivated it into hatred. And in my anger and hatred, I planted seeds of anger and hatred in many people throughout my life. In Matthew 6:22-23, Jesus said, “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”
These creatures of destruction are removed from God’s love, and they are in the world with us. They are in the spirit. We cannot see our own spirit. We see the material world, but they can see and interact with us. Many are not in hell. They are here with us. They are the absence of love and are full of hatred and anger. And because they are full of hatred and anger, they want us to be full of hatred and anger. In this way, they want to destroy us. They are blinded by their hatred and anger, and they want us to be blinded by our hatred and anger toward each other and God. They hate God. They know God loves us, so they want to destroy us. They want to destroy as many of us as they can before they will be thrown into the pit for eternity. They know that their time here is ending. When I say destroy, I don’t mean annihilation. I mean we become like them.
In the Name of Jesus
Who saves us from becoming like the demons in the dominion of darkness? Our savior, Christ Jesus. He is God, who came down from heaven to save us from the horrors of “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” and from an eternity in the pit of hell. That I called on Jesus to save me after waking from the first dream and within the third dream, symbolizes that Jesus will save us. When you believe, you are protected by God. According to John, in 1 John 5:18, “We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.” Jesus protects all “who [have] been born of God,” and the “evil one” cannot “touch” them, but the “evil one” can still influence them. Peter said in, 1 Peter 5:8-9, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.” The “evil one” cannot take away your salvation as Jesus said in John 10:28-30, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” But according to Jesus in the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13, a believer can become the rocky ground or among the thorns and instead of following Jesus, they follow the ways of the world.
The True Light
I think the light in my dreams symbolize Jesus. Turning on the light instantly brought me out of the darkness in the first dream and then showed me what I had attracted. The thought of turning on the light ended my second dream in an instant. My thought to turn on the light symbolizes my decision to believe in the true Light, and since I believe in the true Light, the true Light saved me. In John 1:4-5, we read, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Jesus is life and from him we are given life and that life is the light that shines within all who believe and when we look to his light, we are brought out of the darkness of this world in an instant. Once you believe in the true Light, in an instant, you are saved and you will receive eternal life. The power of the true Light that gives us life is greater than the darkness. The darkness can only exist because of the of the true Light. The true Light doesn’t need the darkness to exist.
Close The Door
I had this dream. I was standing in a room and I was wet and I was drying myself off with a towel. Through the doorway was another space, like a hallway or a room and there was a woman moving about in darkness. I could see through the darkness. I decided to close the door to my room. The door was not a strong door, just a cheap, hollow bedroom door. As the door was just about close, I felt some resistance. I saw the darkness pressing against the door, so I pushed a little more and the door shut. I was in the room away from the door, still drying myself off, when I heard the woman screaming in agony on the other side of the door. I knew she was on fire because I could hear the flames. I moved to open the door to help her, but I stopped and stood there watching the door and listening to the woman scream and press against the door, until I realized that the woman wasn’t screaming in agony. She was screeching in hatred at me in a language I could not understand. I could hear dense scratching and pressing at the door, and I could see black smoke seeping between the door and the frame into my room. I realized in horror, she was not a woman. Then, I woke up.
The door is a figure of speech that represents our decision to bring beliefs into our lives and these beliefs become a part of us. These beliefs make us into who we are. In Revelations 3:20, Jesus said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” Jesus said this to the church in Laodicea because they were not following him. They were following in the way of their heart and the way of the world. They cared more about themselves and about their wealth than they did about the kingdom of God. They believed in Jesus, but they had turned away from him. Jesus wanted them to open the door and return to him, and to close the other doors. Instead of looking to their wealth and not having any cares, Jesus wanted them to leave that way of thinking and living and use their wealth to care for others and to understand that their wealth was given to them by God. We have many doors open to us in the world, but there is only one door that really counts.
His Mercy
I don’t deserve his mercy. I deserve to be cast away from God. I don’t deserve his presence. But God entered our reality in the man Jesus and died on the cross to pay for the sins of all who believe in him. Jesus satisfied God’s justice by taking my punishment. I get what I don’t deserve in God’s mercy. I receive forgiveness at the cost of Jesus taking my punishment on the cross because I am incapable of doing anything to save myself. And because God has mercy on me, I receive his grace, which I also don’t deserve. His grace brings me into his presence and gives me eternal life with him. After the manifestation that tormented me by looking like my wife, I became rage. God showed me in an instant what I was to become. God saved me from an eternity of losing myself and becoming rage in the pit of hell. He saved me from eternal separation from him. Everyone in hell is alone because they do not have God. We were created to be with God. To be with God is our natural state, but now sin separates us from God. Paul said in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” I think what Paul means by “death” is not physical death, but a death that separates us from God forever. Our way back to God is through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The dreams and manifestations are unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I am nothing, but dust, saved by the righteousness of the One who died for the sins of the world. Don’t look to me or to other people, look to Jesus to help you and to save you. If you believe in Jesus, then I praise God because you have received eternal life. Then I urge you to follow Jesus and not this world. If you follow Jesus, then I praise God for your reward is in heaven. I'm writing about my experience not to draw attention to myself. I was an atheist. Now I testify that there are spiritual forces of evil. I was an atheist. Now I testify that there is a God.
May the peace and grace of the only true God, the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit be with you.
