A Watchman’s Walk
Some of you, (I speak of Christian brothers and sisters) will immediately know what I am talking about here, some will think it nonsense, or at the best, a misunderstanding of God’s Word and what I had happen to me. You have that right; God gave the right to determine to all of us. But, this is my testimony, and as such, not open to debate with me on theological matters as I have come to know them on my own.
I seek only to tell the truth in how I came to know and serve my King as I see it, and my understanding of my experience through prayer and the use of God’s Word. At almost fifty-two years of age, I testify to my salvation story in the hope that you may realize who you are in Christ Jesus the King, and how each of you have a uniqueness designed by God, that you will either use to serve His blessed purposes, or have twisted to serve the enemy of your soul. In my book (and in God’s)… there is no in between ground to stand upon.
I was blessed to be brought up in a Christian home with loving and approachable parents, grand-parents, uncles and aunts. We were all church attending Baptists and I don’t ever remember a time when I wasn’t aware of the presence of God. I mean REALLY aware of His presence. I was an avid Bible reader from early childhood. I talked with God continually. In fact I was aware and experienced the supernatural world for as long as I remember. It was as real to me as any other aspect of this existence. And it’s that fact, more than any other, which led me through strange waters for the majority of my life.
At sixteen I had been baptized three times, having walked the aisle repeatedly in an attempt to experience the freedom and power in Christ that I knew that His Word spoke of. But each time I was left feeling as if something was missing. At that young age I sat on my bed and wept, reading my Bible and crying out to God, who in His mercy answered me and told me I was saved. I couldn’t tell you whether I heard with my ears or my spirit that day, it was so real, but I never doubted being saved again. When God tells you something it sticks!
I won’t give the enemy any credit, but suffice it to say that even with the knowledge of being saved I still was drawn away into the world. I still experienced the supernatural in ways that remain hard to explain. I won’t give Satan any credit here. Yet, it was like walking with one foot in reality and another in a place few would believe even existed, but the Word speaks very loudly on. I felt that I was caught between, not being able to fully understand what I saw and heard, or being able to really tell anyone for fear of being thought crazy. But I maintained my love for God’s Word and my conversations with Him. It was a life line for me and helped me to at least give a frame work of truth to what I was experiencing. But still I fell into a myriad of sins, aware of my failures, but unable to rise above them.
Now hold on to your rosary beads for this one. Through all of this, because I had the ability to, for lack of a better term, “discern spirits,” I knew that I had a demonic presence following me since I was a kid. It wasn’t my imagination, or my excuse. The “devil” didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to. But I could not deny that an entity had been very real to me since early childhood and I couldn’t escape its influence. Swallow what I’m telling you or don’t. That’s your choice. But whether you believe the truth of it or not, I did and do to this day, and can you imagine what that was like for me? It’s a type of spiritual harassment that you can’t just run out and find counseling for. I think my case may be true for many others, but they just don’t realize it. For me it was real enough that although I managed to push the thought of it aside from time to time (in fact they prefer that), the truth would exert itself often enough to magnify the shame and indignity of it all.
There I was, a professed Christian, full of the love of Christ and chained to His enemy. All the while God’s Word was saying to me that I could be free, I could live a different life. But how? I couldn’t be possessed by the unclean spirit because I was Christ’s, and I believe, the prayers of my mother and grand-mothers stood in the gap for me many times. God spared my life so many times, often miraculously. But the enemy could oppress me… and I was sick of it. I wanted free!
Where was the power to make that happen? I saw it in the Word, but I didn’t know how to make it happen, and not many Baptists, or other denominations for that matter, are writing Sunday School lessons or sermons on “How to Free Yourself from a Demon,”… unless I missed that Sunday. I missed a lot of Sundays during those days, so I guess it’s possible.
In my forty’s, convinced of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the resulting things that accompany it, I began to plead with God and I was instructed by Him to make my way to a certain church, to go down their aisles, and to have someone lay hands on me and pray for me. That’s a BIG thing to ask of a Baptist boy! No one had told me of this church, and although I had studied many beliefs in my time, I had never experienced anything like this type of Christian worship.
When I got there they were praising God with their voices and songs and clapping their hands! In my particular church we never clapped or raised a ruckus! Not even if you wanted to after someone had sang a particularly good song… never.
I don’t mean that there was any disorder to it. No one was running around barefoot on the back of the pews or anything. No one was screaming out stuff. But people were talking and singing in tongues and such… I didn’t want to be there. But I knew enough from my Bible study that God desires obedience above all else and it was He who had told me to come there.
So I walked down that aisle and stood there waiting… and waiting… and waiting. In my old church someone would have pounced on me the moment I came down that aisle. They would have had a pencil and paper and would have wanted to know my name and why I had come down, etc. But not these people. They just kept praying and singing and worshipping until I told the Lord, “Okay, I’ve done my part. I’m down here and no one is coming forward to meet me and I’m sure not going to chase someone down up here and tell them that YOU sent me to get prayed all over.” And I started to turn away and go back up the aisle and out the door.
But then I heard my name being called… real loud. It would have had to have been loud to carry over all the worship and praying that was going on in that place. I mean… they even had a horn section with trumpets playing for Pete’s sake! And it was from this horn section that I turned to see an old school mate of mine laying down his horn and running off the stage toward me calling my name. I didn’t know that he was a deacon of the church. In fact I hadn’t seen him in years.
When he reached me he asked me why I was there and had come down the aisle… I threw caution to the wind. “The Lord told me to come here and to have someone lay hands on me and pray.” It seemed to me at the time that blurting out that I had a demon oppressing me might have been a bit much. But now I know that he would have accepted that explanation just as matter of factly as what I had said.
In fact, he didn’t say a word in answer; he didn’t even hesitate. His hands flew up and on me before I could blink and he began to pray in tongues with more passion than I had ever heard in a prayer in my entire life. And then the strangest thing happened. I saw the demon that had harassed me for oh so many long years.
The thing took off like it was shot out of a cannon into the blackness of what seemed like space and it took me with it for a ways. Then suddenly it let go and left me as it fled off into the darkness, shrinking until it disappeared from my site. The next thing I knew I was standing back at the church, screaming, “Thank you Jesus” at the top of my lungs! I never would have done that in my old church. It would have been too embarrassing, but I didn’t care any more. I was finally free and filled with the Holy Spirit!
I started attending that church and years later a visiting preacher from Ireland, whom I had never met, called out that there was a “watchman” in the house. He began to describe what I had seen and been through during my life, and how although it had never made any sense, that it would now. The Spirit really fell upon me that night and I was anointed with the gift of being a “watchman” for the King. I’ve tried to walk in that calling ever since, being eventually being called to serve at another church in that capacity.
So now I stand upon the walls and I watch and listen and pray.
This I know:
1) God is speaking to all of His children through the Holy Spirit. We just don’t get still enough to listen. So I’m not “special” in that sense.
2) You make think me blessed to have seen the supernatural and believed the Word, but if you haven’t experienced such things take heart! My Bible says in John 20:29 that you are more blessed if you don’t see and yet believe. Believing what you see is easy.
3) The most powerful prayers are not those of a warrior or a prophet, but those of a “mercy giver” with the heart of Christ. The compassionate prayer, not the passionate one, is more apt to catch the Father’s ear.
4) In my opinion (and personal experience), it is possible to be “sealed” unto salvation by the Holy Spirit through our confession of faith in Christ (Eph. 1: 12 – 14) and not be “filled” with the Holy Spirit. The sign of our salvation, of being born again, is our regeneration (the way we change) through the work of the Holy Spirit upon our lives. We begin to show the “fruit of the Spirit” when we are truly saved. (Gal. 5: 21 -23 & Eph. 5: 8 – 10)
One of the things the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit” empowers us to do in our
lives is whatever the Father’s will is. Ideally this happens at our conversion (Eph.: 4:5). Yet, Hebrews 6: 2 speaks of baptism in the plural, and in Acts 1:5 Christ says: “For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.” But if you never hear of it, it’s hard to have the faith to receive it. (Read Acts 19: 1 – 7, Acts 18: 25 – 27)
And that’s what happened to me. I was saved but felt something “missing.” Something that the Bible speaks of as empowering (Acts 1:8) me to do God’s will. Sometimes, like Paul, (Rom. 7:14 through 8:4), I wanted to do the right thing but found it almost impossibly hard. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit made all of the difference for me!
If you have questions about the “watchman” anointing then you can read more on it by doing a word search in your Bible on the term. Ezekiel Chapter 33 and Isaiah Chapter 21 are good beginnings.
Yours in Christ
Joel
Habakkuk 2: 1-4> What’s God going to say to my questions? I’m braced for the worst. I’ll climb to the lookout tower and scan the horizon. I’ll wait to see what God says, how he’ll answer my complaint. And then God answered: “Write this. Write what you see. Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run. This vision-message is a witness pointing to what’s coming. It aches for the coming—it can hardly wait! And it doesn’t lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It’s on its way. It will come right on time. “Look at that man, bloated by self-importance— full of himself but soul-empty. But the person in right standing before God through loyal and steady believing is fully alive, really alive. (Message Bible)
April 5th, 2010 at 4:34 am
After being away for many years I met a chinese preacher from Hong Kong.
He told me that I would not only regain my faith but something very powerfull would happen. A month later I was recommiting to Christ in a shopping centre coffee shop.
I suddenly had a type of tunnell vision . As tears rolled down my face I explained to her that everybody walking past me felt like my loved ones. I have been in love with my fellow man now for 9 years. The pesence of God began the next day and has not and will not ever leave me . I never quite get used to the visions and the daily words of knowledge that he gives me. Sometimes I feel like im so strange but it is always worth it
Geoffrey.