Demonic Attack

By David Hobbs

If I asked 100 people if they had ever experienced a demonic attack, how many would say yes? The truth is we all have, probably many times, but usually we’re not aware of it. We attribute it to something else—the blues, a stomach bug, out-of-sorts, worry, anger: the list could go on and on. All of these things could be legitimate in and of themselves, but Satan uses such things as cover for his attacks. What starts out as simple anger can, under the right circumstances, escalate into demonic rage. How else do you explain a person killing someone in a rage over some inconsequential thing, like when the Battle of 1812 was fought? “Oh he has an anger problem,” we say. No, he has more of an anger opening—his anger opens him up to the devil to use for his murderous attacks. In the case just mentioned there are 2 demonic attacks going on. The first comes against the man with the “anger problem” whose anger opens him up to the demonic realm, and the second comes through him against the man he is angry at and ends up killing. Two attacks, two victims: one dead and one guilty of murder.
But this is not an essay on demonic attacks, but rather a story about one. Most of the time the devil attacks in subtlety so that we hardly know the origin of what’s coming against us. But there are times he opens his mouth against us and roars! These can make for some hair-raising experiences.
One Saturday the church family was at work building our all-purpose gymnasium. I had worked there all day with my mentor boy, Kou, and now I was driving him to his home in Olivehurst. I drove through the last signal light in Marysville and was about to start up the E St. Bridge over the Yuba River when I noticed a hitch hiker standing on the corner of the street with his thumb out. Since both the 2 seats of my paint were occupied by Kou and me, I never thought twice about stopping to pick him up. But as I got nearly opposite the hitch hiker, he suddenly looked up at me, making eye contact, and I was face-to-face with the devil! His eyes projected hate, his lips snarled, he was mouthing bitter words, and with the hand that he had been hitch hiking with, he suddenly thrust out at me “the finger.”
It all happened in a moment of time and then I was past, not quite sure what had just happened. “Wow! He’s going to have a hard time getting a ride like that,” was the thought that went through my mind.
I continued over the bridge and picked up speed as the road became a freeway with a 65 mph speed limit.
Just as I got to cruising speed there was a terrible clatter on top of the van. It sounded like the roof was coming off! “What in the world!?” I looked in the rear view mirror just in time to see my 28 foot extension ladder slide off the back of the van with a final crash and plunge into the street. I slammed on the brakes and veered to the side of the road, the ladder still sliding down the road behind me. I had been leading a clump of cars going through town together and now the cars behind me started swerving in panic trying to miss the sliding ladder.
Now off to the side of the road, I slammed the van into reverse and gunned it backward toward where the ladder had finally stopped in the traffic lane. But as the van lunged backward, we were heading right into the path of several cars that had swerved around the ladder on the berm. “Look out!” my brain was screaming as I spun the wheel sharply right and slammed on the brakes yet again to avoid the careening cars.
There were cars in the fast lane, and we had the berm blocked. An SUV came roaring up, unable to stop with no place to swerve. “Crash!” It hit the ladder with a wicked smacking sound at about 40 mph and kept going.
Then, just as suddenly, it was over. No cars stopped, and when the cluster that came through the green light with me was past, the road was empty. “Let’s get the ladder!” I shouted to Kou as I threw the shift lever into “Park.” We bailed out and raced back to the ladder, pulling it out of the road before the next batch of cars could come. Then we secured it to the ladder rack and I drove Kou home, still shaking from the adrenaline rush.
We hadn’t used the ladder that day. In fact we hadn’t used any ladder from the van that day. In thinking back, I realized that it had been weeks since I had last used that ladder, since in most cases the shorter 20 footer is sufficient. I always kept each ladder tied down with 2 straps in case one broke. But there were no broken straps anywhere. (In fact there were no straps at all, like they had just disappeared.) In my 13 years of running the painting business, I had never had a ladder come off my van before. I’d even driven 11 miles from Live Oak to Yuba City once with a ladder not tied down and not lost it!
Then I remembered that strange, demonic hitch hiker. “That sucker cursed me; that’s what happened. That’s what he was doing--mouthing curses and projecting hatred from every pore of his body as we passed!” And it was effective too! “That sucker’s ‘prayers’ had some pop to them.” Only the grace of God kept there from being a multi-car pileup, which would have been entirely my fault.
“The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much (Jas. 5:16).” And likewise: if it’s fervent enough, even an unrighteous man’s prayer can be quite powerful! And I still have a ladder with a broken side-piece to prove it!
The question is, How powerful are our prayers? Are we using live ammunition yet, or are we still firing blanks?