The Confessionals - RELOADED | 104: Breaking Demonic Bonds

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas! In last week's episode, we offered a sneak peek into Episode 104 with a snippet from our interview with James. Get ready to delve into James' riveting encounters with the demonic in this upcoming episode! Join us as he recounts the unsettling stories involving him and his wife navigating their spiritual journeys. Strengthening their faith over time, they discovered profound demonic entities hiding in the shadows, poised to strike. James candidly shares these tales and sheds light on how he and his wife triumphed over these malevolent forces.Become a member for AD FREE listening and EXTRA shows: theconfessionalspodcast.com/joinWatch The Shape of Shadows: https://www.merkel.media/stream-nowWatch Expedition Dogman: https://bit.ly/3CE6Kg0SPONSORSGET EMP Shield: empshield.com Coupon Code: "tony" for $50 off every item you purchase! Listen to this episode for more information! Link: bit.ly/3YaMD1NCONNECT WITH USWebsite: www.theconfessionalspodcast.comEmail: [e-mail] to the Newsletter: https://www.theconfessionalspodcast.com/the-newsletterSOCIAL MEDIASubscribe to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/2TlREaIDiscord: https://discord.gg/KDn4D2uw7hShow Instagram: theconfessionalspodcastTony's Instagram: tonymerkelofficialFacebook: www.facebook.com/TheConfessionalsPodcasTwitter: @TConfessionalsTony's Twitter: @tony_merkel

Merkel? Medias. I guess it's time to go back in time. Are you telling me you built a time machine? Kind of a Dolion? Time is but a stubborn illusion. I have a lot of memories of the past. People are time traveling within themselves.

Time travel is possible. This was my first known demonic. encounter. This was in a church, actually, in my town. It was a community church meeting. So all different churches and denominations would get together and they had these community meetings. Well, I'm sitting in there with my wife. And this is the first time I really saw a spirit of any kind. I don't know if this was an angel. I don't know if this was a demon. All I know is what I saw was a giant. It had to be nine feet tall. What happened was I were sitting there listening to the speaker and I see some motion in my peripheral

vision on my left. And so when I see it move in, I actually looked over and I looked right at it. And it was this, like I said, probably an eight and a half, nine foot silhouette is all I saw of a man, a giant. It looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but jacked up ten times. And it was just a silhouette, kind of like a night. predator where you just see an outline of his body. I see this and he's standing there with his arms folded facing the speaker. He doesn't have wings. And all I can tell you, I mean, it just looked like

an outline of a giant bodybuilder with his arms folded standing there. And then I looked again, like, did I really see that? And then it was gone. It disappeared. And immediately, I got sick at my stomach. I mean, like, I've got to go now. So I get up and I go to the bathroom and I'm expecting to really be sick. Number two. And I go into the stall and nothing's happening. I'm not sick feeling anymore. I'm just sitting there and I hear two voices in the stall next to me. One of a little of a boy, he's actually, he was about 16 at the time. And I recognized his voice. He was mentally handicapped. And the other voice was a male voice, but it wasn't his dad, because I know because his dad came

in a little later. So I hear this other voice in there just cussing this kid out and calling him a wimp and he's pathetic and all this. And the boys just crying, leave me alone, leave me alone, go away. And I kind of look over under the stall and I only see this boy's pair of shoes sitting under there and I kind of freaked out. Well, I shut my eyes and I didn't say anything out loud, but the only thing I said in my spirit, I guess, I said, in the name of Jesus, leave that boy alone. But like I said, I didn't open my mouth. This was all I thought in my mind. And the boy,

the male voice, screams, no. And I kind of opened my eyes and went, did that thing hear me? I mean, I don't know. This is like playing with a new toy. I'm like, I don't know how it works. So I shoved my eyes and I did it again. I just said in my mind, it was in my spirit. I said, in the name of Jesus, leave that boy alone. And he starts screaming now and starts bashing the wall. I thought the divider between us was going to come down. So I'm sitting there. What, at that time, his dad walks in and goes, what's his, I know the boy's name. He asked him, son, you okay? And he's like, Dad, I'll be out of a minute, I'm okay. And the dad walks out.

And then I just hear this laughing just like that. And I, you know, yank my pants up and I was out the door. That was the first real demonic experience I've ever had. Hey, I reloaded. This was all circulating around the base that a giant had to kill, but no one was supposed to talk about it. I saw three. boning fingers reach up underneath the door curl up to grab it and then disappear

when he came over to me dude he slithered over to me and this giant comes out of the cave and they're all frozen and he starts running and firing at this giant with a giant move he's got a spear in one hand and he's running really fast and spears Dan and holds them up like this somebody else shoot him in the face shoot him in the face they basically decapitated. And there are two. Because I know I'm seeing a monster. Welcome to the show, everybody.

You're listening to The Confessionals. I am your host. Tony Merkel, thank you for being here. If you've had an encounter or a story you'd like to share with me on the show, go ahead and shoot me an email. Or go to the website, the confessionalspodcast.com. Hit the connection section, and you can reach me that way as well. Either way it works for me, just get a hold of me.

Now, I want to wish everybody a merry, merry Christmas. It is Christmas Day that our show has landed on. So I hope everybody's having a great time, spending time with the family, enjoying the holiday, and just taking a load off. Listen to the show. Sit back and relax and just enjoy yourself. Now this week's show, we have James coming on, and James is actually going to be sharing a lot of demonic things that he's gone through throughout his life. And these things are things that he went through with himself, but also as a couple with his wife. And so he goes into all the detail from start to finish.

And I really think that you guys are going to really enjoy this show. So let's sit back and relax on this Christmas. day and enjoy an interview that we did with James. Okay, today I have a great guest coming on. I have James, and James has some more spiritual things to share today, and I'm really excited about talking with you, James. So how are you doing, man? Hey, Tony, I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on. Now, don't lie to me. You're getting over a cold.

Well, I'm doing okay. We'll see how it goes. Yeah, man, it's okay. So, listen, James, you have a lot of different experiences. is here. And I just want to kind of kick things off with 1980. I almost sounds like a song or something, you know, 1980. But you were a fighter and you had blackouts during fights. So talk to us about this experience that you had. Well, I wasn't a fighter by choice. I grew up kind of having to fight. I was kind of smaller from my age. And so I got picked on quite a bit and I had to fight quite a bit. but this was in the ninth grade 1980 and actually it was a friend of mine was getting picked on in the hall and he's he was six three six two or six three at the time he was a giant but he could he told me he

couldn't fight because he'd already been kicked out of two other public schools and these guys were shoving him into his locker and and I'm like you know I just shoved them told him leave him alone they're like here are you his little bodyguard and I shoved one of them. him and he cut me with, I guess, a pin knife or something he had in his jacket. But I had a little cut on my cheek and I wiped it. And when I saw the blood, I don't remember anything after that. I didn't faint. I did not faint, but I blacked out. And when I came back to consciousness, so I guess it was the only way to describe it, I was at the other end of the hall with a whole crowd standing around us. And I was behind this kid, one of the two guys. And I was behind this kid,

one of the two guys, and I had him in a chokehold from behind, and I was punching his kidneys and his ribs, and I just, it scared me because I didn't know what had happened, and how I got to the other end of the hall. I had no recollection of anything. It was just like a total loss of memory, but I was evidently, apparently in the middle of a fight. I don't know what happened to the other guy, but I ended up actually punching a librarian. It was a guy who was trying to break the fight up and that's when I realized, you know, it scared me more than anything because I didn't, I didn't remember any of it. So I ran to the office. The other kid came in the office and the parents were called and that happened in 1980. And a similar thing happened again and

I'm getting them backwards. I'm sorry. That first one in 1980, I was in the sixth grade. I've got my stories backwards. I'm in the dark and I'm trying to read my paper. Sorry. That's all right. That was a sixth grade. Let me backtrack a little bit. The first time that happened was a sixth grade and somebody had stolen one of the kids in my classes, mongoose pads from his bicycle and stuck them in my desk. And we had this desk with a little hollow, was a wooden desk, with our metal frame with a wooden seat and a wooden desk on it and a little cubbyhole underneath your seat for your books. Well, this other kid stole his pads and hid him in my desk.

I didn't know they were there. And the teacher went from desk to desk looking for them. And when they got to mine, he pulled them out and punched me in the face. And I fell out the backside of my desk. I didn't even realize they were there. And the next thing I know, I'm standing in the doorway. All of the kids in the classroom are in the corner terrified. there's blood all the way down the lockers on the back wall of this classroom that was lined with lockers,

and there was a streak of blood all the way down it. There was blood on a big construction table, and the kid was laying in the floor that punched me in the face. He was laying in the floor with evidently a broken nose, and I think he was unconscious. He wasn't moving. And I had blood on my hands, and it scared me because I had no recollection of anything that happened. All I knew is he punched me, and the next thing I know, the teacher's gone, and I come to this horrible scene, and I turn around and hit the door. All of those classrooms had exterior, all of the doorways led out to the outside, so they were just a breezeway. And when I went to run out the door, the teacher had come back with the principal, and I just pushed both of them aside and ran out to the playground, just started crying.

I didn't know what had happened. So that was the first time I lost. I blacked out during a fight and didn't know what I had done. The second time was in 83, and I'm sorry about getting those backwards. That was in the ninth grade, and that was the story of the two bullies in the hallway. And so I didn't think anything was demonic about it at the time. I just thought it was strange and scared me that I didn't recall anything. but yet I was not unconscious.

I had not been knocked out. I was totally handling a situation, if you will, but I didn't remember any of it. So that was kind of all there is to tell about those two stories. Yeah, I mean, do you, so in the email stuff, you said that you don't think a demonic spirit had taken over your body. So do you think that this was more of a just anger and rage kind of thing that you just kind of black out in anger and rage? just, you know, a flip gets or a switch gets flipped and you become a different person? Well, that still could be true, but I don't believe so. I believe that looking back in hindsight, I've had a lot of demonic experiences,

and I do look back at that now and say that was probably demonic. Now, when it, when or how it got in, I don't know. I mean, I was, like I said, in the email, I was into martial arts and into ninjitsu in Eastern meditation, and I think probably during the meditation, I probably opened myself up. I did during those early years, tamper with some dark things, Dungeons and Dragons being one of them. I thought it was just an innocent game, but there's some more to that story I'll tell you here in just a little bit about the Dungeons and Dragons. But, yeah, I evidently had opened up a door to the dark world and allowed something in. at an early age.

Well, I mean, meditation and stuff. I mean, a lot of people are doing it these days, too. You know, it's becoming a very popular thing. And, you know, I don't know much about meditation, you know, like, but I think it's just the, the act of, I don't know, is it, how do you go about meditating? I guess, educate me. Well, what I knew, what I learned back then anyway was I didn't have an instructor. all of this was what I'd read from and learned from books. But it was basically just sitting very still, focusing on breathing, slowing your breathing and your heart rate down, close your eyes.

And you try to empty your consciousness, empty yourself out. But with the ninjitsu that I was learning, the meditation side of ninjitsu, you were opening yourself to the elemental spirits of fire, wind, water, earth. And so, I mean, you're opening an invitation right there for these spirits to come in. So with the ninjitsu meditation, you were willingly trying to open yourself up to these types of spirits? Yes. I would say you probably got the fire spirit. Probably. Oh, man.

Okay, well, that makes sense then. Okay. Because I know it's like I said, it's becoming very popular people saying you should try to meditate. it helps clear your mind, things like that. You know, like I said, I don't know much about it, so I don't really feel comfortable speaking on it. I just know that a lot of people are very open to the idea of meditating these days. I hear it a lot on different podcasts and stuff,

talking about meditating and having that help you progress in life to another level, things like that. So I know when you read things, I'm a Christian. And whenever you read about, you know, the Word of God, in meditate on the word day and night, things like that. He's not saying to empty your mind and empty your consciousness and basically vacate your soul. He's saying meditate and ponder. Think about the scriptures like what you read. Think about it throughout the day. Let it work on you on the inside. He is saying, you know, basically to set your mind on the word of God, not to empty your mind.

So there's a big difference between biblical meditation and Eastern meditation. of emptying yourself. You know, that's a great way of putting it, too, because I say that a lot when it comes to scripture and stuff, and I'm talking to people, I tell them, you know, meditate on the scripture. And what I mean by that is focus in on it. Like, read it and give it some time to sink into your mind and into your heart and give the Holy Spirit room to do some work inside.

Now, maybe that's, you know, maybe some people would say, well, that's a possession of a spirit, too. I'm like, well, I guess. Well, that's a good way. Yeah, you know, we're supposed to be inhabited by the Holy Spirit. Yeah, I welcome that one. But the thing is, a human spirit can be, if it's not filled by the Holy Spirit, can be indeweled by many, multiple spirits.

I'm a living proof of that. And the accounts you read in the Bible, like Legion, you know, we are many. There's, I don't think, a limit to how many spirits can get into your human spirit. But when you're not born again, you're open, you're free game. and they do, the demonic spirits do crave a body. They, that's, that's the biggest thing they desire is to be in a body so that they can carry out and have you carry out their will. Right. I agree with you.

So, uh, in 95, your first out of body experience, what happened there? Had that happened? What was going on? 95. I, I, I had, was living with my parents and I don't recall, I didn't know, it was out of my body at first. I'll just tell you what happened. normally I'm asleep I don't wake up in the middle of the night

unless I have to go to the bathroom or something but this night I got up and I walked into the kitchen no lights on and I grew up in this house since I was 10 years old so I go over to the sink and to the cabinet

below the sink on the left side where the pots and pans are and I'm going there to get a cup to get a drink of water and I'm kind of I felt like I was sleepwalking but I'm like why am I down here

I know where the cups are up on the right side of the sink and up. So right then I hear this little, the voice of a little girl. It sounded like it was outside in the street calling Mommy, Mommy. And that freaked me out. And so I stopped and I'm listening. I mean, it's the middle of the night, maybe two, or it was around 3 a.m. I know. Tell you how I know in a minute.

And I'm like, why is there a little girl outside crying for Mommy? And I got kind of worried. well, I strained listen, and then I heard it again in the room with me in the kitchen right behind me, loud. Mommy! Just like that, and it freaked me out. And I just went running. I mean, I was terrified.

I ran, jumped over the couch, ran down the hall, and I just wanted to jump back in my bed and pull the sheets up and go back to sleep and just forget it ever happened because it's freaked me out. But when I came into my room, then I was really terrified because I was standing there in the doorway looking at myself sleeping in the bed. I mean, what do you do with that? You know, when you think you're awake and you're in there to get a drink and then you go back to your rooms, terrified, and then you see your own body laying there asleep in the bed, that'll throw you for a new, you know, your whirled into a whole tailspin. I looked at the clock next to my bed on the desk

and it was like 305 in the morning. And I just flew. I don't know how to tell you any other way. I just kind of dove or flew into my body and woke up physically out of my bed, looked at the clock and it's still 305. And I just laid there the rest of the morning waited until the sun came up, just freaking out, going on, what was that? Wow. So that was the first time of an out-of-body experience where I didn't know it was out of my body. I didn't do it on purpose, but I don't have an explanation for it. Yeah, now, okay, so you have this out-abody experience and stuff. And did you, like, did it feel like you were willingly going back into your body or was this something that was like almost sucking you back in?

I can't remember. There was no conscious thought. I just found myself flying back into my body. I mean, it terrified me. I just stood there dumbfounded looking at myself going, you know, what the heck? How is this happening? How is it even possible?

Am I, you know, what am I? I thought I was, I felt, I was totally coherent. I thought I was in my body. I ran down the hall and I physically jumped over the couch, the arm of the couch, down the hall and into my room just to find myself laying there asleep. So, and at that point, I'm just dumbfounded. But then I didn't consciously do it or make a choice to do it. I just felt myself dive into my body.

Okay. So, no. No, no, it's, I mean, obviously it's not normal, but I mean, there's, been plenty of people that have shared such things. Do you think, looking back, that the meditation had anything to do with this? I mean, you are doing the meditation and then this happens where you didn't even ask for it. So was there anything else other than meditation that could have led to this possibly being something happening to you?

Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say I got into the occult, but I did dabble. different things like Dungeons and Dragons back in the dead. Do you know which game I'm talking about? Oh yeah, I've never played it, but I know about it. Yeah, I mean, I watch Netflix and I watch what's that show called, Stranger Things. Yeah, okay, Stranger Things, yeah, that's kind of my life, Stranger Things. But things like the game, Dungeons and Dragons, it's role-playing, it's fantasy, right? but in that you play, you can play a wizard or a warrior.

I can't remember all the different characters that you can play. But I had a couple of characters that I played regularly. I don't remember the other one's name. One was, the name was Boltar. I don't know where I came up with that name, but his name was Boltar, and I don't recall the second character that I played. But they will come, they come back to haunt me, literally, later on in the story that I'll share.

But there was things like that that I dabbled with. I tried to dabble with voodoo one time. And I was mad at my neighbor across the street. We were best friends, and then we were worst enemies. It just depended on the day. And I was mad at him, and I had an old G.I. Joe action figure with the eyeballs that would slide back and forth anyway. I just was pretending to do voodoo,

and I just took a nail and I drove it through its head, this rubber head. And I was like, this is Frank. Well, what happened was I went to his house the next day and I asked his dad if he could come out and play. And he said, no, he's been up all night with a migraine. He's trying to sleep. He's in bed.

So I don't know if that had anything to do with it, but I did try to tamper with things and just dabble with it a little bit on the outskirts. But I didn't ever want to sell my soul, so to speak. but I did try to dabble with some things like that. Okay. So, yeah, I mean, there was a possibility that I had opened that door, and it could have been open from, who knows, when.

I mean, looking back on the sixth grade and ninth grade, feeling like this entity took over, and my consciousness went down, and this other entity came up, rage. I do know for sure that there's demonic spirits that take on names, identities of things, like rage and murder and suicide. I mean, there are different things like that that spirits identify with.

I know that for fact because they came out of me one night. I don't know how far you want to go into. Well, let's go into my, let's fast forward into May of 96. I got married for my second time. And my wife and I are still together today. She's an awesome godly woman. And we had an instant family. I had a child from a previous marriage, and so does she.

And so we had a blended family right off the back. But our first house was, this is 95, early 95 or mid-95, was a rent house. And it was an older house built in like the 30s or 40s, I believe. And we noticed some things started happening in the house that we couldn't explain. I would hear noises and think, you know, in the attic and think, what was that? but I knew we had an old water heater that was in the attic. And so I would just kind of write it off as that's just the water heater popping or something. But you ready for me to go into some of those experiences in the house?

Absolutely. The first thing that I recall was we were getting ready to go out of town for a family reunion. And our kids were five and three. I believe that's right, five and three at the time. And we're getting ready to go out of town, and my wife has done all the laundry, and she's got my son's clothes stacked in a neat little pile on our bed, and our daughter's clothes stacked in a pile, and her clothes and my clothes. Well, the kids are outside playing on the swing set, and my wife comes in the kitchen

kind of mad at me. Why did you rearrange all the clothes? I had sorted out and stacked, ready to pack. And I'm like, what are you talking about? I didn't touch them. And she's like, well, maybe the kids did. Somebody's playing, you know, messing around, because all the clothes that I had. stacked and sorted and folded or all, they weren't misplaced or messed up. They were just

restacked and all mixed up. And I'm like, I didn't do it. I wouldn't do it. And I'm like, the kids didn't do it. They're outside. I'm looking at them through the window playing on swing. So it was just one of those. And I said, maybe Casper did it. You know, just kind of blew it off. Maybe Casper the friendly ghost did it. Well, we did have a Casper in the house. I mean, that wasn't its name. I don't know its name. But we had some more incidents that open like one night. I worked nights. I was on a frat crew out in the oil field

and my wife call, or my wife, I actually called my dad because she started seeing and hearing the doors in our house open. And like the bedroom door, I wasn't there, okay, this is her story. Our bedroom door that leads from the

kitchen into our bedroom opens up and the cat is sitting there staring at the door like it's looking at somebody. And so it wakes her up. And then the doorknob turns and opens the door leading from our bedroom down the hall towards the kid's bedroom. I mean, she watches the doorknob turn and the door open. And then the kid's door creaks open and hits the toy box. And she lost it.

And I mean, I'm out and I'm hundreds of miles from home. So I told her, you know, call my dad. And he came over with a pistol and went and cleared the house and didn't find anything. and there was no burglaries, but what she saw, she never saw an entity. She just saw doors open by themselves all the way from our bedroom through the hall and into the kids' room. So, I mean, that really shook her up. One night, we were all sitting down in the dining room. There was a, our house was set up.

There was a front door into the living room. It was a small house. There was a living room with a big archway leading into the dining room. And then on the other side of the dining room was the kitchen. Well, we're sitting down at the table to eat dinner, and the TV in the next room and the family room turns on by itself and starts flipping channels. And so I look at her and I get up, nobody else does. And I go in there thinking, well, maybe her cat is sitting on the remote for the TV or something. Well, the cat's not in the room.

So when I walk in there, I see the remote laying on the coffee table. So I picked it up and I turned the TV off. and I go sit back down and I'm just kind of looking at her like that was weird. It turns on again by itself and it starts flipping channels by itself. So I get up again and I don't know what to do but walk into the living room and her recliner glider is rocking by itself. And I smell a cigar in my living room. There's no smoke in there, but I smell the smell of a cigar. and I'm like, what the heck is going on?

So I go over and unplug the TV from the wall, and I go outside to see if someone's smoking a cigar outside or what that smells coming from, and it's not outside, it's only in the house. And it eventually dissipated and went away. And, I mean, that was just another creepy event that we had no explanation for. And I really began to think,

okay, there's a spirit in this house, but we don't know how to deal with it. We weren't trained. We were still pretty young believers. And we're not taught that kind of stuff, you know. And so we didn't know how to deal with this. I'm like, I've seen the exorcist. Okay, I don't want it to get that bad, but nobody does. I don't want it to get to anything like that. But it was, it seemed like a, not a malevolent spirit. It seemed really just kind of like a jokester, a prankster, whatever it was in the house. And one day, I'm in the shower getting ready for work. There's no one else home. The cat's outside.

And I hear this thump, thump, so I thought someone was banging on my front door. So I got out, grabbed a towel, and went out to check the front door. And I go into that living room, and there's this glass vase that was on the coffee table that had all these fake silk flowers in it. well, the vase is laying on the floor and all the flowers are placed in a circle with the buds on the inside and the stems pointing out like a circle like a sun. And I'm like, okay, what? You know, the cat's out of the house. So there's nothing that could have done that. I mean, there's a spirit doing this.

And I tried several times to repeat that, knocking that vase off in the floor. and they would all land face in the same way, just as you would expect. So, I mean, there was something, you know, there was something spiritual going on where it literally placed all those flowers in a perfect circle. Yeah, that's not natural. That's not natural at all. Especially with the things that you experienced at that point, I mean, eventually you have to start adding things up and be like, yeah, there's something going on here. And I know that's what you did, right? Yeah.

Well, I mean, I still didn't really know exactly what it was. Is this a demonic spirit? Is this really a ghost? I really didn't believe in ghosts. You know, as a believer, as a Christian, I think, you know, whenever you die, your soul goes either into torment into Hades or it goes into heaven if you're a believer. And so I don't know where there's room for spirits of the dead that still roam. I still don't know what I think about all of that, but I didn't know what I was dealing with at the time. But this was maybe, shortly after that, we had moved into another house two blocks away, exact same street number, just two streets north.

And this was in, what time was it? It was in 98. This was my first known demonic encounter. This was in a church, actually, in my town. It was a community church meeting. So all different churches and denominations would get together, and they had these community meetings. Well, I'm sitting in there with my wife. And this is the first time I really saw a spirit of any kind.

I don't know if this was an angel. I don't know if this was a demon. All I know is what I saw was a giant. It had to be nine feet tall. what happened was they were sitting there listening to the speaker and I see some motion in my peripheral vision on my left. And so when I see it move in, I naturally looked over and I looked right at it. And it was this, like I said, probably eight and a half, nine foot silhouette is all I saw of a man, a giant. It looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but jacked up ten times.

And it was just a silhouette, kind of like in Predator, where you just see an outline. of his body. I see this and he's standing there with his arms folded facing the speaker. He doesn't have wings. And all I can tell you, I mean, it just looked like an outline of a giant bodybuilder with his arms folded standing there. And then I looked again like, did I really see that? And then it was gone.

It disappeared. And immediately, I got sick at my stomach. I mean, like, I've got to go now. So I get up and I go to the bathroom. and I'm expecting to really be sick, number two. And I go into the stall and nothing's happening. I'm not sick feeling anymore. I'm just sitting there.

And I hear two voices in the stall next to me. One of a little of a boy, he was about 16 at the time. And I recognized his voice. He was mentally handicapped. And the other voice was a male voice, but it wasn't his dad because I know because his dad came in a little later. So I hear this other voice in there just cussing this kid out and calling him a limp and he's pathetic and all this. And the boy's just crying, leave me alone, leave me alone, go away.

And I kind of look over under the stall and I only see this boy's pair of shoes sitting under there. And I kind of freaked out. Well, I shut my eyes and I didn't say anything out loud. but the only thing I said in my spirit, I guess, I said, in the name of Jesus, leave that boy alone. But like I said, I didn't open my mouth. This was all I thought in my mind. And the boy, the male voice screams, no. And I kind of opened my eyes and went, did that thing hear me?

I mean, I don't know. This is like playing with a new toy. I'm like, I don't know how it works. So I shut my eyes and I did it again. I just said in my mind, it was in my spirit. I said, in the name of Jesus, leave that boy alone. And he starts screaming now and starts bashing the wall. I thought the divider between us was going to come down.

So I'm sitting there. What, that time his dad walks in and goes, what's his, I know the boy's name. He asks him, son, you okay? and he's like, oh, dad, I'll be out in a minute, I'm okay. And the dad walks out. And then I just hear this laughing just like that. And I, you know, yank my pants up and I was out the door. That was the first real demonic experience I've ever had.

And I didn't understand it. I didn't want to have it. I wish I could have erased it and not experienced it. But I didn't know what to do with it either, you know? Wow. I wasn't really, I wasn't trained yet in spiritual warfare. I hadn't had any encounters or experiences before this that I knew of where I knew without a doubt I'm dealing with, you know, a demonic entity. And I don't know if it was in the boy. I think it was. I think both voices

were coming out of him. But it was, it was horrifying. I mean, it sounds horrifying. It really does. And so you hear this voices and, you know, one's a boy, one's this demonic-like voice. And do you think that whatever you were hearing is what you saw earlier? See, I tried. I don't know if that was the connection. I don't know if that's what it was that I saw because the boy was already in the restroom before I went. So when I saw the entity, the angel, demon, whatever it was, I got sick feeling and I went straight to the bathroom and he was already in there.

I don't know how long he'd been in there. But, I mean, I don't know how fast things happened in the spiritual. I don't know if it was that entity or if that was an angel just kind of sitting by, I don't know. I have no idea what to tell you how to connect those two. Yeah, I mean, it just seems like a lot for one moment. You know what I mean? like so you for for to be two separate things it's like geez what's going on at this church meeting you know what I mean right right well geez yeah I mean but I mean I guess the thing is that this

when you're talking about you know you're at church meeting or at church or whatever we've done some episodes where people are sharing these these stories that they had encounters with demonic stuff in their church and a lot of times people are like no that's impossible or it, they'll say, I don't understand how that's possible. But the thing is, with the church, it's just a building. And if you think about it, if there's going to be spiritual warfare, where's the battleground going to be? Well, it's going to be where people decide they go together to worship God.

That's where the battleground is going to be. So if you're looking for a fight, there's a good spot to find it. You know what I mean? Yes. Let me share something with you that I didn't, I just remembered. I didn't put this in my email with you. Um, we were, this is a several years later, um, we did, my wife and I did learn a lot about spiritual warfare. We both have been through a lot spiritually and we've both, uh, we've both had our

share of battles, um, that we won. And, uh, we're at church, in a different church now. And I'm sitting there and the pastor gets up and he says that that day, that Sunday morning, he was going to be speaking on spiritual warfare. And I look up because I see the shadow. And it was a really tall ceiling. Well, when I look up, it looks like, kind of like crows or buzzards flying in in the ceiling, coming down from the ceiling. And they were evil spirits. They came down and they looked like black birds to say them just to give you any kind of an idea,

maybe a buzzard or a raven or something, but there was hundreds of them. And they were coming down and landing on people and trying to cover their ears to keep them from hearing the message. And I looked at my wife and I was like, do you see that? She's like, what? And so then I realized, you know, she's not seeing what I see. Nobody is apparently because it freaked me out. And I said, we got to pray right now. We got to pray.

And then I didn't see it anymore. We prayed about it and took authority over it. You know, this is our church. You're not welcome. You have to go in the name of Jesus. And I didn't see him anymore. So, I mean, whatever might have been in somebody, or with somebody could have stayed.

I don't know how it works, but that was a really freaky deal where I saw, you know, the evidence of the enemy coming in and the scripture talking about when the seed is sown that the birds come to eat the seed and that that's the parable of, that's the enemy, the devil comes to steal away the seed that was sown in your heart. I was seeing that real time, but I wasn't seeing it with my natural eyes because my wife didn't see it. that's very interesting. You know, I've never experienced something like that where I saw something like that, where, you know, you're seeing something very clearly, but nobody else is.

And so you know something freaky going on, you know, it's just, wow. I mean, we're about halfway through this list and I'm just sitting here thinking, wow. Yeah, you have me both. Looking back on it, I mean, when I started sitting down and putting all, these in chronological order, I was just in awe myself of what I've been through and what God's brought me out of and through. You know, a lot of times he doesn't save us from hardship. He doesn't save us from the suck. He saves us through it. And I mean, it's for a reason. It makes you a stronger person. It definitely builds a food. It really, I mean, it builds your story. Everybody has a life story

and these kind of things build your life story so that it can be a testament to, you know, our creator. And so, you know, when things are getting rough, like I just had a friend of mine, he was going through some things where they thought his daughter was ill. I think it was leukemia. But it turns out she's not. Thank God. And, but one of the things I was telling him is no matter what the results are, her life, and how you handle this situation can be a testimony and to your life story and her life story. It doesn't matter what the results are. I mean, obviously, we don't want her to be sick. But if she were to be sick, then that's just another piece to the puzzle of her life story. And the same with him.

And I was just trying to encourage him that, you know, you're daddy. and you have the resume of being daddy and a husband, and it's time to put that resume to good use and be what everybody needs you to be in this moment. And, you know, just try to spend some time encouraging him and stuff. But, you know, that's just the way this stuff works out. You know, like we go through hard times, whether it's these spiritual battles or real life issues where, you know, children are getting sick and things like that. But these things in life, as hard as they are to go through, they do build a narrative for our lives that we can look back on.

And no matter what the outcome was, it becomes, like I said, that life story. And, you know, I try to encourage people that way when it comes to these hard times, whether it's spiritual battles or physical battles. But yeah, man, I don't know how I got on that. Sometimes I just go off course. My wires get crossed. No, you're good. Sorry. No, you're fine.

I agree with you. And I think that, you know, I do not believe that God put sickness on us to teach us any kind of a lesson. What kind of sadistic, daddy, would that be? But we live in a fallen world, and there's some crappy things that happen to us. And the thing is your testimony of how you deal with it. When you deal with it in the power of God in the name of Jesus, you have authority. And when you deal with these things and you come through them, and you allow God to work in your life,

then you end up with this resume, this testimony, where you're then able to go and your faith is built up and you're able to go to somebody else that's walking through that, and you can say, look, take my hand, I've been through it, and I'm going to go through it with you because I know we can go through the, on the other side of this, you'll be stronger, your faith will be stronger. This doesn't have to destroy you.

But how you handle it is, I think it's a test. I mean, we're allowed to go through these tests. you know, God tells us to test yourselves to see if you're in the faith. But I'm not going to make my kids sick to test them as if they believe in healing. No. Yeah, no. I couldn't, I wouldn't be able to understand that kind of daddy love. That's a sure.

Well, that was a lot of stuff that was taught. I mean, there's a lot of things like that have been taught because of out of ignorance in the church, you know. And it's just foolishness to think that God puts things on you. Now, he allows things to happen, yeah. And in his sovereignty, we don't understand that. But why he allows, you know, young men to become demonically possessed, I don't know, but I know that his name is greater. You know, the name of Jesus, at the name of Jesus, every knee must bow. And I've seen them bow.

They have to. Right. You know, and on that note, before we switch topics here, I do want to, I just thought of this. And it might be a good comparison. It may not be, but we'll let the audience disallow. side. You know, I have my son. He's 10 months old. And I always tell people I'd never could have imagined how much I could love somebody other than my wife until he came along. It's just, it's so cliche. Everybody hears that every time somebody has a baby, but it's so true. It's

unbelievable. And so like I start thinking about, okay, if I love this kid so much, this much, how much more does God love me? And then you look at things like, so he's 10 months old. He's climbing around. He's getting into things and it's learning time. And so when he's on the couch and he's trying to get off the couch, he starts going for the nose dive. He doesn't think to turn his butt around and slide off the couch doesn't hurt himself. He goes for the nose dive. And I don't want him to get hurt, but I also want him to learn that that's not the right way. And so I'll do a combination of things where I'll turn his butt for him and show him how to go down that right way. And sometimes he just doesn't want to do it that way.

So I let him go down the nosedive, but I hold his legs so that he's going to go down, but I don't want him getting hurt. I want him to learn that that's not the right way. And so, like, I guess that might be an example of the father love of teaching, you know, where it's just like, okay, you want to do your way, that's fine. You're going to see that this isn't, this is not the right way to do things. I'm not going to let you get hurt, but I'm going to let you go through this. So you start learning that, you know, there's another way.

You have a free will, and he will not violate your free will. That's why he will not make you a believer. He can't, you know, he would have robots. He didn't make us that way. He created us wanting a true relationship, wanted his creation to love him back without being forced or obligated to, you know, without having no choice. So knowing there's going to be those that reject him and have and do, that's painful. I mean, I know the heart of God grieves for the loss, but he gave us a free choice, you know, free will. And your son has free will.

And sometimes, you know, we have to let them make choices. My parents did the same. They'll let you, you know, make bad choices. Sometimes they didn't know what I was doing and the choices I was making. But sometimes we have to learn from our mistakes. And some of us just learn the hard way. Right. Absolutely.

So, 98, 99, your wife has a spiritual battle with an Indian chief. What are you talking about? I wish she was here. We're at a fundraiser. She's inside, but it's okay. This is her story. She was praying one day and praying for her mom. And there's a lot of Native American culture things that were her moms opened herself and her life too.

Now, not say anything negative about Native Americans, I love them, but there's some spiritual things that go along with that. And she had some icons and different things in her house that I think gave authority and an opportunity to attach themselves to her, to my mother-in-law. My wife was praying for one day and an Indian chief with the full headdress and war paint, and you name it, just like you'd see in the movies. He appears and manifests right in our living room and attacked her. And I wasn't there. I was at work. And she's rolling in the spirit, not physically. Okay, this wasn't a physical manifestation.

This was all spiritual. But she saw herself rolling on the floor, fighting for her life, for her mom, and doing battle with this, you know, hand-to-hand combat with this Indian chief. And, you know, I think her, the thing she was just saying over and over was calling on the name of Jesus over and over, because she was being overpowered. But yeah, when she kept calling on that name, he just dematerialized and vanished. So she won.

I mean, he came to her rescue. But she also had some things. I've heard it later. I didn't know this at the time. I didn't know anything about it at the time. But in 98, 99, she had a couple of experiences in the middle of the night with sleep paralysis where she would be awakened,

just horrified, terrified, terrified and have a black entity like a black shadow standing over her and I'm thinking I don't know if this is Slender Man or you know you've heard of hurting called Slender Man anyway she sees this dark silhouette and it's just pure evil and it's standing over her but she's paralyzed and I'm just sleeping inches away and she can't wake me up she can't scream she can't do anything she can't move and this thing just hovers over her and then it passes and just presses her down into the bed and then goes down through her like out the bottom of the bed through the floor. And then she's able to move and she freaks out, you know, and it scares me to death because she's going crazy in the bed, crying and hitting me. And I'm like, what's wrong with you?

And she told me the account, well, it happened again, not too long after, the very same thing. And I'm like, you know, we're learning about spiritual. warfare the hard way. I said, we need to get in the word. And we weren't being taught any of this kind of stuff. So we get into the word and you hear scriptures like, take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Okay, you know the scripture, right? Yeah, absolutely. I believe that that's not just there for, it's not a good recommendation. We're to do that. We're to take our thoughts captive. Because the enemy's coming in, I think when she's asleep, when your subconscious is taken over and you're in your dream state,

the enemy comes in and jacks with us while we're sleeping. I don't know about, I've never been taken. I've never been abducted, but a lot of these things happen when people are asleep, and I believe when your consciousness is down and your subconsciousness is up and you're in dream state, your guard is down. And so we started praying, you know, taking. We take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. If it doesn't line up with his will, it's not allowed in our minds.

And then we go to bed. And it didn't happen again. That's interesting. You know, and it just reminds me of an experience I had recently, and I haven't told anybody this except for my wife, a few months back and stuff, you know, Ben wasn't sleeping very well. And it's not very helpful when I'm getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning to get ready for work. Oh, yeah. You know, so waking the kid up and, you know, he had just laid back down for bed at one hour before that and things like that. So I moved to the couch for a little bit just to make it easier on the family and everything and myself, you know, I could sleep better. And the very first night I was sleeping on my couch, it was just so brief, but it was so vivid. I'm sleeping on the couch and I don't know how long I was sleeping. But,

it had it had to be a dream. I had a dream, I guess I'll call it, where, like, I'm laying on the couch where I was in the dream and, and I hear footsteps coming up my basement stairs. And the door busts open to my, to my, from my basement stairs. And just this like tall, gray, fuzzy gray humanoid figure that was very large, like just in girth, uh, walks into the living room, uh, where I was at and like walked aggressively towards me very briefly. And then I woke up and I like out of breath yelling jump. I like, I literally jumped off the couch like I was ready to fight. And like it took me a few minutes to actually wake up and realize that was some kind of dream. But that does that stuff doesn't happen very often. I have no idea why I have.

It happened the very first night I was on the couch and then that was it. But I... Was the door open when you woke up? No. No, the door wasn't open when I woke up. If it was, I would have gone downstairs in the basement and hung out down there. Now, I'm just kidding. I wouldn't have done that.

I would have went upstairs, locked my door and crawled in the bed of my wife and said, hold me. But, yeah. I mean, it's weird, though. I mean, with when you're sleeping at night, I do believe what you said. I mean, your subconscious is open to things that you normally aren't open to, and you're very vulnerable. You're in a vulnerable state mentally, spiritually even, you know? Oh, yeah.

I had a vivid dream. Walking through this, it was like an underground bunker or a castle or something, and this big red viper is coiled up, and it's right by my feet. But it's red. and I just freeze, and I'm thinking, I can't move or it's going to bite me. It's already coiled up, and the thing starts talking to me, and it says, I'm going to kill you, and there's nothing you can do about it. And I said, oh, yeah, you got to catch me first, and I took off running. And this thing, unsprung, he just lurched at me and latched on to the back of my neck.

And I fell in through this room, opened the door, and I grabbed him by the tail, and I yanked him off of my neck, and I swung him against the wall, and I said, you can't kill me. There's too much word in me. And his head exploded. And then I woke up. Wow. Wow.

Well, I mean. But yeah, we did get attacked with our dreams, too. Yeah, I mean, that's, if that's not symbolic, I don't know what is. I mean, you look at Genesis, you know what I mean? And you had a freaking serpent talking to you, dude. Like, that's not symbolic, you know? Yeah. Well, he didn't kill me.

No, you're still talking, man. That's for sure. But opportunities. Yeah. Now, you mentioned in the email about, I think you said her, so I'm assuming your wife and a deliverance. What was that about? Okay. Well, she, her and a friend were sitting on her front porch when I got home from work,

and they were praying about, Sean, my wife was wanting to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So she'd been studying about it and praying and asking God for it. And they're sitting on the front porch. And I get there and they're praying, well, she starts, her hands curled up like palsy. Her hands curled inward. And her mouth couldn't open. And she looked terrified in her eyes. And it scared the crap out of me.

I called her boss who was also a spiritual, you know, leading a Bible study at their work and things like that. Well, I called him and told me, get over the house now. And she, like I said, she couldn't talk. She just, her hands curled up. I think, I don't remember, but I think her eyes changed as well, something in her eyes. And it freaked me out. And God just zapped me. He took me out of the picture because I was about to lose my mind.

This is my wife, you know, and I don't know how to deal with this, this attack. And so he zapsed me and I'm laying on the front porch just laughing. I felt like I was drunk is the best drunk, you know, feeling I've ever had with no hangar. But anyway, this was right before sunset. Well, when I come too, I'm the only one on the porch. and I'm laying on the front porch while I get up and walk inside and it's dark now. And I walk in through the front door and she's standing there and shaking her head, no, no. And it's the spirit speaking through her, no.

And her boss is commanding it the name of Jesus to come out. And it does. The moment I walk through the door, this spirit comes out and it was a mocking spirit. as I remember him telling me that. This is a mocking spirit. I don't know what that means, but it came out. She got baptized with the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in tongues, and we both fell out in the floor laughing.

So it was a crazy event, a crazy night, but she wasn't receiving it first because she had this mocking spirit, I guess telling her that you're not worthy of this. Who do you think you were? law, all this kind of stuff, and I've got a right to be here. And so I don't know what all was happened, what all happened during the deliverance because God took me out of the picture. So your wife is essentially being possessed by some kind of mocking spirit according to

the person that was praying for her. And I wanted to ask you your thoughts on that because there's a lot of, there's a lot of people who, you know, especially Christians that don't believe that demons can possess a Christian because the Holy Spirit is within you. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, obviously, you know what you saw. So, I mean, it's, you just opened a can of worms, Tony. Well, yeah, I know. I know I did. And that's the thing. I wanted to open it because, I mean, you saw what you saw. Your wife experienced what she experienced. And you know your wife better than anybody listening to this would. So you would know if she was really a Christian or not at that time, and I think I know what your answer is going to be to that.

Yeah. So I'm also a Bible teacher now, not by my choice, but he put that gift on me and that calling on me. We've been youth pastors, we've been teachers, I lead a men's Bible study. Yeah, it's said that, you know, when the Holy Spirit comes in to a new believer, that you can't be demonically possessed. And that word possession, I would say is true. I belong to him.

He paid a price for me. He paid a price for all of us. When you choose to give your life over to him, you give all that authority of your mind, soul, and body over to him as well. But when he comes to live in you, the word says he lives in your heart, in your spirit. Your spirit is born again. You know, unless you're born again, you won't see the kingdom of heaven.

Unless you're born from above, you cannot enter the kingdom. He comes and lives in your spirit. Your spirit's made new, born again. And yet your soul, your mind, your will, your emotions, they're all still intact and they're all still full of the world. And they all still are affected by sin. I mean, our emotions think of, you know, when you get saved, you didn't become perfect, did you?

None of us did. We're in a process of being perfected into the image of Christ. But we still have areas of our body and our, soul, our mind that can be inhabited, maybe not possessed, but inhabited. And I'm walking living proof of that. And so was my wife. I was a believer well before I got delivered, delivered from like probably seven or eight spirits. The thing is, what God showed me and taught me about this is it took me to study the old the old covenant temple the solomon's temple and in that temple if you're familiar with it there's outer courts where where anybody could come in and go and they did the

washing of the hands in the basin they had an altar of burnt offerings and that was all in the outer court and then there was an inner court where the uh where the priests did their sacrifices and did all these things. And then inside the inner court, there was what's called the Holy of Holies. And it was separated by a veil, like a four-inch thick curtain. And it was, that housed the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat on top of it, where God's presence would come down. And the priest could only enter in once a year to place the blood of the sacrifice on the altar on the mercy seat. And if they did it wrong, they would fall down dead. God's presence. was no, nothing to be played with.

And the Ark of the Covenant proved that. Several thousands were killed when they were, they tried to take and steal the ark. So, I mean, you don't mess with that. And yet in the holy place where the priest, there was a time in the Old Covenant Temple where the priests were not following God. They were following false idols

and basically serving demons and other gods. They were worshiping Raw, the Son God, and all these different things. And I can't remember which prophet that it was that God took in. If it was Ezekiel, maybe you'll remember, where he took him in a vision into the court and saw these heresies and these blasphemies going on inside the temple. Well, that's a picture of what God showed me.

Your body, in the New Testament, it says that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Well, you have an outer court. You have your body. You have an inner court, which is your mind, your emotion. your will, what makes you you? That's your inner will or your inner court. And then your spirit is the Holy of Holies. And that's where the Spirit of God resides, just like in the temple. They couldn't go in the Holy Holies. They would die. They could walk around and commit abominations in the holy place, the inner court, or in the outer court. And so that's how he kind of showed me

that picture of just because your your temple is given over to God, he's in the holy place and he will manifest to the point that we allow him. But you can still have demonic spirits in your attached to your soul, your thought life, your mind, your will, your emotions, and also your body. They can hang out in your body for years without you knowing it. That's really interesting. I've never heard it explain that way. And it's something that I obviously dealing with this show and talking to all different types of people from, you know, all different types of belief systems and theological perspectives. I've never heard to explain that way. And the way you explained it.

Neither. Nobody taught me that. God taught me that. So, I mean, he's the one that showed me that, not a man, not a preacher, not anybody. That was the Lord that showed me that because I was studying this. How can a believer have demonic spirits still in them? and it's just not just because you got saved or dunked in the water doesn't mean everything bad leaves your life some things we've opened the door to willfully and they have a legal right to be there until they are forced evacuated

they're forced to leave and I mean that's what Jesus said that deliverance is the children's bread well I'm not exactly what he meant by that but he wants his kids free but no it doesn't all happen on your spiritual birthday. You get to open a present and everything made brand new and you're perfect. No. Sometimes we have to go through the hell. We have to walk backwards through some of the hell we've been through. And we have to exercise that authority and kick them out.

But the first thing is knowing that they're there and acknowledging that they can be there. Sorry to get preachy on you. No, no, it's fine. I mean, I'm just thinking about what you're saying. And I can definitely see what you're talking about. I mean, it's the way you drew it out and stuff. I mean, mentally, I can picture what you're talking about. And so, yeah, thank you for sharing that.

And I mean, what you just shared kind of can segue right into your deliverance story, which is the last thing you have listed here. Talk to us about it. What was this? What happened? Well, I wake up one night. Both of our kids are with their other parents. And I wake up and I tell my wife, it's time for deliverance.

And she's like, well, who's in there? And this is in the middle of the night. And this voice speaks through my mouth and says, wouldn't you like to know? And so she freaks out, runs in the bathroom. And she's in there praying, you know, the armor of God. And she's just praying, pleading the blood of Jesus all over the house and calling angels and this and that. It's time. And basically, when you're putting the Word of God in into your soul,

He says, I'll write my word on the tablets of your heart and meditate on my words day and night. Well, when we're thinking about his word and you're stuffing that spiritual food into your soul, you run out a room in there eventually and all what's in there that's not of God has to come out. Sorry, my wife's about to get in the truck, so our quote is over. I don't need to cut it short pretty quick. But this is going on. She comes back in, and the Holy Spirit starts revealing to me the names of these entities, these spirits that need eviction.

They need to come out. And so I would tell her the name that the Holy Spirit revealed to me and start praying about it, you know, commanding that name, you know, whatever it was in the name of Jesus to come out. And it would. And then these things start coming out. One of them's name is rage. Looking back at sixth grade and ninth grade,

that could have been the one I was dealing with. Anger, rage. Going back to the Dungeons and Dragons, I didn't realize, remember this during the deliverance, but she told me about it. And she asked me, who's Boltar? And I'm like, what? Yeah, that's the name of a character.

playing Dungeons and Dragons when I was like 13. Well, there's an entity that attached itself to that identity and is going by that name, and I just cast it out of you. And I'm like, that's crazy. So some of it I was kind of in and out, and I don't recall all of it. But the last one, I do recall, and it scared me. That was a spirit called murder. and whenever I told her the spirit is murder,

it wanted to use my body to strangle her to death. It did not want to come out. And so this is the second out-of-body experience that I've had because I literally felt my spirit man like down in the mattress holding my physical body down to the bed like a rear-naked choke from a spiritual a spiritual rude naked choke on myself. I know it's crazy to picture, but that's what I was doing until that spirit came out of my body and left.

And, you know, of course, we're telling them you have to leave in the name of Jesus and you can't come back. You have no authority. And it left. And I was vacated. We kicked them all out that night. But it was a safe place for, you know, the kids were gone. And that's how I know some of these things that we open the doors to.

They have real consequences in the spiritual world. And you can't just shut the door. You don't have the will or the strength to just kick them out and push them out and shut the door behind them. You have to have the name above every name. You have to have the blood of Christ. You have to be born again and have surrendered your will in your life and your spirit over to him. otherwise you're a victim.

That's incredible. And I hate to say it, but I mean, there's other belief systems out there, but there's no other way to be free. So, I mean, that's the sad truth. You can argue theological viewpoints and different things, but you can't argue that no matter what country you're on or in, when you encounter and read about missionaries that encounter demonic possession. in Africa or wherever, India, and yet those spirits recognize and they respond to the authority of the name of Jesus

because they know who he is. That's what the spirits did in the Bible and the New Testament, the sons of Sceza. They went and tried to do deliverance on a demoniac, and the spirit spoke through him and said, we know Paul and we know Jesus, but who are you? And they beat him up and ripped his clothes off.

So you have to have you have to belong to him and you have to have the authority that comes from only the king. Listen, James, that is an incredible depiction of what you just drew out of your spirit man holding your body down. Like, essentially, your body is this physical piece that a demonic spirit named murder is trying to use. And your spirit man is fighting. back and holding that body down. So it's like two spirits fighting for control of a body. That imagery is amazing. That's what happened. I can't tell you how much, like, my mind is blown right now with that story.

You know, so you had these different spirits coming out of you. The one was called whatever from Dudges and Dragons. I can't remember what the name was called. Boltar. So the Boletar. So the Boltar, was that character in the game, or did you make that character up for the game? I can't remember. I think I made it up, but I don't know where I got the name. But it's been so long. I was like 12 or 13 years old. I just really, I don't recall. I just remember that name came back to me after I'd forgotten it for decades. And then she tells me, what's this name? And it just came back like, oh my God, that stuff was real. I mean, I really was jacking around with some stuff. that's not holy.

And I mean, I opened the door. So, yeah, I mean, a lot of those things that were cast out were invited in. There was a, they attached to the will. I chose willfully to do that. Incredible. Incredible. That's all I can say. I mean, I feel bad for your wife to have to go through that, by the way.

She went through her battles too. And, I mean, we've both grown tremendously through that, you know, and we've helped other people now. I mean, you go through something like that, and, you know, you don't just, you don't get battle scars, but you do get experienced. And we've helped other people get set free as well. That's some incredible experiences, man. James, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you sharing these stories. I mean, the vulnerability it takes to be able to share these things. I know for you as a Christian, it's a testimony, so it's easier to share because it's the light, you know, shining. And so.

Yeah, I'm on the other side. Exactly, right. And so, and that's what I look at things too. I mean, if people only knew how I was, you know, just five years ago, I was, I was a miserable person. I was very hard to get along with. I was very nasty. And, uh, and I was nasty to my wife. I was nasty to everybody around. I'm very open about it because now I look at it as a testimony as to what God did through me, you know, uh, March 29th, 2014 changed my life forever. I'll never forget that day. The story is one for the books for my life. And it changed me. Yes, sir. Set my life on a different path. And so clearly...

Self-help books can't do that for you, Tony. No, I don't read a whole lot anyways. So... I mean, you're not going to get that by becoming a better you. You can't do it. You mean the seeker doesn't work? Yeah, no. That's going to work.

I was just talking to my buddy about the secret book today. And I told him, I said, you know, I think that that whole idea of that book, it's just really just basic truth of if you focus really hard on things, you tend to get stuff done. You know? I mean, really, I mean, it's just. There's some things, though, that you just cannot do in your own power. Right. And you can't free yourself when you're chained unless you're Houdini. And, I mean, you know, spiritual Houdini.

I haven't met very many. Yeah. And even him, I think he had a key. So yeah he had a key hiding Yeah Well James I know you got things going on here I'm going to let you go But I do really appreciate you coming on and sharing these stories man

It's definitely a pleasure to talk to you I appreciate the opportunity and Sorry we've had to juggle a couple of different dates around But I'm glad we made it happen and And I look forward to hearing it And I'll talk to you again in the future I've got other stories I'd like to share sometime I'll be in touch

Oh yeah, absolutely, dude. I mean, after tonight's interview, shoot me that email. The Confessionals Podcast at gmail.com. I mean, you're a patron anyway, so, you know, you know how to get a hold of me and stuff like that. But again, I really do appreciate you coming on and sharing these things because it definitely, it was a very fun experience for me to hear and talk with you. So thank you very much.

Well, good. Thank you for having me. God bless me. Well, that's the show, everybody. I really hope you enjoyed it. And if you did enjoy it, there are three things you can do to help support this show. One, go to iTunes and leave a five-star rating and review. Two, go to patreon.com forward slash the confessions and sign up to become a patron.

Or three, you can share this show around social media, and that will help the show grow a ton. I really do appreciate you guys hanging out with me on Christmas Day. I'm sorry about my voice here in the intros and the outro is actually going. I'm catching a cold, actually. So a little bummer here for Christmas Day, but no big deal. I'll make it through. Until next week, friends, stay safe, take care, and remember, the truth will set you free. But first, it'll piss you off.

Bye. Up, reindeer paws. Out jumps good old Santa Claus. Down to the chimney with lots of toys. All for the little ones Christmas joy. Talk in the little now. Old dear Santa fill it well. Give her a doll.

that laughs and cries one that can open and shut inside