My Second Encounter

In 2001 the Lord led my family and I to attend a church in southwest Ft. Worth. Right after I started going there the Lord spoke to me in a dream and showed me that several things would happen to us while we were there:

• He would place us in a leadership position in the church.
• He would give us a strong voice amongst the body.
• He would use us to teach others to know the Lord.
• He would use us to confront a control spirit in the pastor of the church.
• We would be persecuted by the Sr. Pastor.
• I would be tested to see if I would stand in the truth as Christ had shown it to me.

I saw this very clearly from almost the beginning. And everything happened just as I was shown. Within 6 months of being there we were leading a home group that had 45 kids/adults in it. Of the 17 cell groups in the church we were pretty much the only one that had a consistent display of signs and wonders, prophecy and deliverance. This caused us to stand out a little more and made us easier targets for the enemy.

Right from the beginning we noticed that two of the married ladies in our group had a real problem with gossip and slander. Over the course of time the enemy used them and divided our group in half. Among the collateral damage was the wife of one of the the wealthiest families in our church. And at the same time that all of these problems were occurring the donations to the church were starting to drop off.

Long story short, the Sr. Pastor and three of the elders accused us of being divisive and stripped us of our position. The associate pastor did side with us however and he ended up resigning from his position in the church, partly because of the way we were treated. His wife also resigned from her full-time position at the church after they accused her of extorting money from the church. She was later exonerated and found innocent. But not before her reputation could be slandered to some degree.

The root of all of our troubles went straight back to a divisive spirit that was operating in several women in our group. Not only were they gossiping and slandering but much of it was rooted in false accusations and lies. I kept detailed records on the groups meetings from week to week. Records of prophecy, deliverance, who took part in what in the meetings and throughout the week; who was in attendance at each meeting. I kept detailed records not because I needed something else to do with my free time but because I believe the Lord compelled me to. And so when I sat down with the pastor to sort through the facts, instead of him looking at the way things were, he saw things the way he wanted them to be and he let a certain spirit push us out of the church in hopes that things would get back on track for them financially.

We in essence became expendable. When I appealed to him to have others stop gossiping and slandering us his response to me was, "Jay, people talk." That's all I got from him. He let a demon go unbridled in the congregation and let it push us out the door. This was the same pastor that refused to confront the aforementioned rich woman's husband who was engaging in witchcraft. He was going to his grandmother's grave site and speaking to her and getting instructions from a voice that would speak to him at her grave. Unbelievable. This kind of stuff does go on in churches.

Right as we were going through all of this we found ourselves going to Mardels on day to find something to read. We prayed and the Lord led us to The Three Battlegrounds by Francis Frangipagne. Through it the Lord began to formalize our education in dealing with a Jezebel spirit. As we were driving away from a bookstore one of my good friends in the Lord called me on my cell phone and said: "I was just reading Jeremiah 31:2 and the Lord showed me to share it with you."

"Those who escape the edge of the sword (persecution) will find favor in the desert." Jeremiah 31:2

My education in dealing with this demon wouldn't pick back up for another 2 years and 5 months. Fast forward to February, 2005.............