Talk about needing to be prepared for the unusual. Helen and I were in a small shopping centre in Tübingen, Germany. I had left Helen and was wondering around and looking at different things.
Then a guy passed in front of me, now I wouldn’t normally notice but this guy was old, scruffy looking AND ‘barking’ like a dog. Literally “Woof, woof, woof”. I noticed him and also noticed that the hair was standing up on the back of my neck, this was spiritual and evil.
My first instinct was to just turn in the opposite direction and to get as much space as possible between myself and this guy. Then I heard the Lord say to me, “Don’t you love this guy? Don’t you have compassion for this guy?” I thought ‘Oh No Lord don’t ask me to speak to him please!’ Then I sensed the Lord prompt me to follow this guy and to pray in tongues. As I did I noticed that he was staying about 5 steps ahead of me all of the time, whether I walked quickly or slowly he was always about 5 steps ahead, and he hadn’t turned around.
So here we were walking around the shops, he was barking and I was praying. When all of a sudden he walked up to a display rack and stopped. I came up behind him closer, closer. I could hear his noises, “woof, woof, groat, groat, groatley.” Still with his back turned to me, he clearly said “Goatley.”
What!!?? Strike! I thought this guy knows my name! What is this? Confirming my fear that this was a demonic manifestation and once again having ‘fear’ try to grip me, I was ready to make tracks out a there. Again I felt the confidence of the Lord and His gentle prompt to pray for this guy and pray release of breakthrough for him. So I did hesitantly and nervously, but I did.
Spiritual warfare was going on at that time. The Kingdom of God standing in the same space as the kingdom of darkness. I believe this is going to become more prevalent.
We will see MORE of this. Will we stand in faith and victory in Jesus, or we will turn tail and run like my first instinct was to do.
Tubingen is known as a spiritually dark place. The University there has been responsible for some bad and liberal theology, doing a lot of damage globally to God’s bride the church. During Nazi times there was one class in this University that would end up producing every single Death Camp Commandant. They were amongst the first towns to steal from and then kick out the Jews. Uncannily the main perpetrator of this then used the profits of this to build a Christian church.
But what do you do in the face of such darkness? Some would say at a ‘gate way to hell’. You open a ‘gateway to Heaven’, and the light from that overwhelms and drives away the darkness. This is exactly what God has done. There is now a wonderful church in the city, www.TOS.info very focused and comitted to worship on Jesus. They have established a Tabernacle, a place to go and just dwell in the presence of God.
In the same way if I open the curtain in a well lit room on a dark night, there is never any chance that the darkness will come into the room, but only the inevitability that the light will spill out overwhelming the it and instantly driving it back. So it is when we focus on Jesus and spend our time and effort focusing on Him, not the enemy. When you focus on the Light (Jesus), darkness leaves at exactly the speed of light. It has no choice in the matter.