Years ago in England, while praying for sick folk in a 16th-century hall in the walled city of Chester, I found myself unable to minister as usual in the power of the Holy Spirit
The thought came that I should move back and pray for people at the rear of the hall. When I did so, the power of the Holy Spirit flowed freely. As I worked my way back toward the front it grew stronger, and on reaching the spot where I had preached, God’s power was at its strongest. Why, I wondered.
The pastor later told me that some occultists had been meeting in a room upstairs over where I had first stood. and had been doing all they could to hinder the flow of God’s power through me. I realized why the Lord had led me to move from the front of the meeting and minister to the sick at the rear.
I have minimal regard for demonic power, which has its greatest influence in the lives of those who dabble in the occult through the use of Ouija boards, séances, and other dark practices. These things are powerless over those who have been cleansed from sin by the shed blood of the crucified Jesus and who know how to exercise their authority over demonic powers.
Preachers in Britain have to deal with spiritual influences that Australians (other than indigenous people) rarely encounter, likely because our history as a nation is short in comparison to that of Britain. That old hall in Chester predated the arrival of the First Fleet in Port Jackson (Sydney) by more than 100 years!
On beginning to minister to the sick that evening in Chester, I had encountered just a little of the darkness that those first arrivals in Sydney Cove would have felt on coming ashore; and which is encountered from time to time by those who preach in the UK, the EU, and in most of Asia.
But those who preach Jesus Christ know that the Spirit of God is a far better tactician than workers of evil and demonic powers that work in and through them — which they discover in every encounter, much to their dismay.
They may think they can beat us by working out of sight overhead, but we know that Jesus long ago put them under his feet. Not his feet only but ours also; and under his influence alone!