Getting Less Believable
Next Part Demonically-Inspired Sexual Dreams
As we continue our thorough search for every possible source of upsetting dreams, the possibilities will become increasingly bizarre.
I am acutely aware that in the eyes of many readers, I could make this page more credible if I omitted much of the following. I am strongly tempted to do just that but my conscience will not let me. To omit controversial or unlikely possibilities would be treating every reader as shallow or even spiritually incompetent. I proceed under the assumption you have the maturity to be spiritually discerning. Reject whatever you wish. All I ask is that you do not dismiss anything without first genuinely checking with the One who alone knows all things, to ascertain whether it has any relevance to you.
Demonic Guidance
A man contacted me, desperate for help. He was convinced he was a born again Christian and believed that God kept telling him to do ridiculous tasks in order to free himself from demons. His “guidance” came in the form of what he called prophetic dreams, visions and internal voices.
After doing his utmost to perform each task he would receive further “revelation” that he had not done it well enough and so the promised deliverance would only occur if he performed yet another task. This continued without let up for years. Space permits just a brief outline of a few of the tasks, but before I do so, let me point out what may seem unbelievable after reading the list: he is an articulate college graduate who works as a professional. “Especially with the presence of the Holy Spirit,” he said, “[I] would like to think of myself as one with a sound mind.”
Before my counselling brought me into obvious contact with demons I had expected them to have superhuman intelligence. To my surprise, I have so far not seen this. What I’ve found in them is simply an amazing ability to delude and make foolish things seem feasible. (Incidentally, this is what happens in most dreams, does it not? Demons, however, seem to be able to fog minds even when their victims are fully conscious.)
If this man fully obeys the dreams, voices, and so on, they have promised him immense blessings. If he disobeys, however, he is threatened with cancer and financial ruin and even his salvation is said to be at stake. He feels “overwhelmed with guilt” if ever he resists the “guidance” provided by his dreams. Then follows “anxiety, loss of appetite and the feeling in my stomach as if I’ve just done a hundred sit-ups or something. It’s pretty intense.” Sometimes his supernatural “guidance” has led to such a state of anxiety, panic and confusion as to make him angry at God.
Of the many fasts he had felt led to endure, one lasted twenty-one days, drinking only water. Two days later he was told to start again, this time without water. He lasted thirteen days and then felt led not only to continue but to fly to another city and live off the streets there until told to come home. In his weakened, dangerously dehydrated state, barely able to swallow, he never made the flight. On other occasions he took time off work to follow the supernatural leading and travel to various cities in the US and Canada, usually fasting along the way, sometimes sleeping on the streets with homeless people. At times he was told to shave his head and in a dream was told, “Don’t expect others to understand what you do to shock demons.”
Several times he has been directed to swim a sort of obstacle course at his local lake. Sometimes he has had to do it naked, sometimes wearing women’s underwear, sometimes it had to be done at four in the morning in the middle of winter. This, he thinks, might be God’s clever way of curing him of his lusts.
Another time he had to crawl naked across a mud flat filled with rocks and barnacles and then swim across a short channel to a boat marina and back. His legs sank knee-deep in the mud and he was badly cut by the barnacles and rocks.
“I have spent the last ten years in solid, Bible-teaching churches . . . So you would think that doctrine should not be my problem,” he claimed.
“The tasks are strange, but perhaps a legitimate way for the Lord to drive out sin from within me and train me. . . . In the dreams, visions etc. I’ve been told that this is a great story or movie being told and that I’m the actor. . . . I’ve been shown that I’m winning keys of some sort.”
Hopefully, you do not need me to tell you that these dreams, visions and voices were not of God.