Calling on the Name of Jesus
Warren B. Smith
Excerpted from The Light That Was Dark, pp. 129-132
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
—Romans 10:13
In the late evening hours, I was startled out of my sleep by an awful evil presence pressing in upon me. I bolted upright and in a horrified, broken voice called out, “Help me, God!”
Joy sprang out of bed in a flash and was immediately by my side. She knew exactly what was going on. Looking directly at me, she addressed the unseen presence, “In the name of Jesus Christ, leave Warren alone!”
And woosh! It was as if a huge weight had been removed from my throat. Whatever the presence was, it left as soon as Joy called on the name of Jesus.
I sat on the edge of the bed still stunned by the suddenness and severity of the spiritual attack and by the fact that the presence had been forced to leave so quickly. “That’s amazing,” I said. “Something was literally going down my throat, but it left as soon as you addressed it in the name of Jesus!” Now I knew what it had been like for Joy in her mother’s backyard.
Joy and I were both unnerved. We stayed up and talked and agreed that, thanks to all our warnings, we hadn’t been caught totally by surprise. But it’s hard to be fully prepared when everything still seems unreal in the back of your mind. After about a half an hour, we finally went back to sleep.
Almost immediately, Joy was awakened by a spiritual presence. She could hardly speak as it now attacked her throat area. This time I commanded, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to leave!”
When Joy told me the presence had left, we looked at each other in bewilderment. What in the world was going on?
Throughout the night, we were repeatedly harassed by something as it tried to move in on us while we slept. As soon as we became aware of it, we commanded the presence to leave. Although it always left, it seemed to have no hesitation about returning, but only after we had gone back to sleep again. This continued almost all night long.
In the morning we were physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted. But we made it to work. And we were still on our feet. Barely.
We continued to encounter wave after wave of spiritual attack as the mad magician’s fury beat upon us relentlessly and mercilessly almost every night. We were convinced that our “friend” was upset because we had seen through his cover and that the spiritual attack was his way of trying to intimidate us. What he hadn’t bargained on was our surprisingly solid spiritual defense.
Even though Joy and I knew we were being protected by Jesus, in our spiritual naivete we decided to take additional measures. We put a picture of Jesus by our bed and surrounded it with burning candles. And we started having our dog and cat sleep with us. Sometimes the dog would recoil in fear or growl, tipping us off when something had come. We also slept clutching crosses that Trudy Phillips had loaned us, and the Bible was always by our side or on the bed. We even bought a tape of Christian hymns that we played on our stereo all through the night. We quickly found that we had no trouble relating to, even acquiring a fondness for, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” “Onward Christian Soldiers,” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” To top it off, I bought five new lamps, put the highest watt bulbs I could find in each one, and left them on all night long.
One evening in the midst of the harassment and chaos, I realized that our life was so out of control it was almost slapstick. We had become like the people you see on the late-night movie, raising their crosses against approaching vampires and other evil forces. We were caught in the middle of our own late-night drama. I had to laugh as I listened to the hymns playing on the stereo and watched the candles flicker by the picture of Jesus as we lay there in bed with our cat, our dog, our crosses, and our Bible. For two people who thought we were creating our own reality, we were quite a sight.
Although our props provided some psychological comfort, we knew our protection was not coming from them. It was coming from Jesus. The picture, the crosses, and the Bible reminded us who was helping us, but we recognized that they had no real power of their own. Soon the crosses went back to Trudy, the Bible went back on the shelf, and the picture of Jesus was given to the Salvation Army.
Joy sprang out of bed in a flash and was immediately by my side. She knew exactly what was going on. Looking directly at me, she addressed the unseen presence, “In the name of Jesus Christ, leave Warren alone!”
And woosh! It was as if a huge weight had been removed from my throat. Whatever the presence was, it left as soon as Joy called on the name of Jesus.
I sat on the edge of the bed still stunned by the suddenness and severity of the spiritual attack and by the fact that the presence had been forced to leave so quickly. “That’s amazing,” I said. “Something was literally going down my throat, but it left as soon as you addressed it in the name of Jesus!” Now I knew what it had been like for Joy in her mother’s backyard.
Joy and I were both unnerved. We stayed up and talked and agreed that, thanks to all our warnings, we hadn’t been caught totally by surprise. But it’s hard to be fully prepared when everything still seems unreal in the back of your mind. After about a half an hour, we finally went back to sleep.
Almost immediately, Joy was awakened by a spiritual presence. She could hardly speak as it now attacked her throat area. This time I commanded, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to leave!”
When Joy told me the presence had left, we looked at each other in bewilderment. What in the world was going on?
Throughout the night, we were repeatedly harassed by something as it tried to move in on us while we slept. As soon as we became aware of it, we commanded the presence to leave. Although it always left, it seemed to have no hesitation about returning, but only after we had gone back to sleep again. This continued almost all night long.
In the morning we were physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted. But we made it to work. And we were still on our feet. Barely.
We continued to encounter wave after wave of spiritual attack as the mad magician’s fury beat upon us relentlessly and mercilessly almost every night. We were convinced that our “friend” was upset because we had seen through his cover and that the spiritual attack was his way of trying to intimidate us. What he hadn’t bargained on was our surprisingly solid spiritual defense.
Even though Joy and I knew we were being protected by Jesus, in our spiritual naivete we decided to take additional measures. We put a picture of Jesus by our bed and surrounded it with burning candles. And we started having our dog and cat sleep with us. Sometimes the dog would recoil in fear or growl, tipping us off when something had come. We also slept clutching crosses that Trudy Phillips had loaned us, and the Bible was always by our side or on the bed. We even bought a tape of Christian hymns that we played on our stereo all through the night. We quickly found that we had no trouble relating to, even acquiring a fondness for, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” “Onward Christian Soldiers,” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” To top it off, I bought five new lamps, put the highest watt bulbs I could find in each one, and left them on all night long.
One evening in the midst of the harassment and chaos, I realized that our life was so out of control it was almost slapstick. We had become like the people you see on the late-night movie, raising their crosses against approaching vampires and other evil forces. We were caught in the middle of our own late-night drama. I had to laugh as I listened to the hymns playing on the stereo and watched the candles flicker by the picture of Jesus as we lay there in bed with our cat, our dog, our crosses, and our Bible. For two people who thought we were creating our own reality, we were quite a sight.
Although our props provided some psychological comfort, we knew our protection was not coming from them. It was coming from Jesus. The picture, the crosses, and the Bible reminded us who was helping us, but we recognized that they had no real power of their own. Soon the crosses went back to Trudy, the Bible went back on the shelf, and the picture of Jesus was given to the Salvation Army.