Category Archives: Prophecy

If God Loves Us, Why Do We Still Suffer (Part 4)

It’s fun to think how God might have called a big assembly in heaven to discuss how to best train me for my calling:

All the top angels might have arrived on time for the special meeting in the Throne Room and sat around a large conference table. God would have asked for suggestions on how to handle the problem child named Larry. Perhaps, Gabriel raised his hand.

“Yes Gabriel?” God would have asked.

“Let’s have him fix and clean hundreds of toilets. It might humble him enough so that You can eventually use him as a worker in Your kingdom.”

“Hmm! Good idea, but let’s hold that one for later.”

“What about moving him all over the country so he feels like a pea in a tin can, with You constantly shaking him around?”

“Yes, Michael, another good idea. We can train him like we did Israel in the wilderness. But still, we need to put him between a rock and hard place to squeeze the pride out of him. Clarence, do you have any ideas?”

Clarence would have shrugged his wings. “Why not try the car crash routine again? It worked well with George Bailey.”

“Brilliant! That’s it! We’ll send Larry to at least ten dealerships as a salesman. Let’s work it out so he’s fired at the first four dealerships and totally unsuccessful at the last six. He’ll weep and shake with fear whenever he walks into dealerships from then on,” God might have said, while gazing at His ministering angels. “Now, each of you, go out and make this happen. We’ll have fun watching Larry die daily.”

 

The Lord spoke to my heart a month later at Lambdi Car and Truck Center when I was washing my hands in the men’s restroom: “You’re going to be fired again.”

The Lord’s words angered me. I walked to my desk, grabbed my coat, and went outside. There, I walked all over the car lot, telling the Lord what I thought of His handling of my life.

“I’m sick and tired of being fired. This is wrong! What kind of testimony does this demonstrate to unbelievers and my wife? This is terrible! Can’t You do better than this?”

On and on I ranted for over thirty minutes while Leo Lambi, the other salesman, a financial officer, and secretary watched, wondering if I had flipped out. I eventually came to the conclusion that God was going to do what He wanted with my life. After all, He is God.

“Okay, Lord, do what You want to me.”

Two days later, Lambi called me into his office.

“Larry, I’m letting John and you go. Business is slow, you know. I’m hiring a former sales manager from Fort Dodge. The two of us can handle the business in the future.”

“The Lord told me you would be firing me the other day. So, what do you want me to do? Finish out the week or what?” I asked.

His face revealed shock about my statement.

“You can work or go home now. John has already left.”

I worked the rest of the week and sold the most expensive car on the lot on my last day of work for Lambi Truck and Car Center.

(An excerpt from The Hunt for Larry Who (a Memoir) by Larry Nevenhoven, © 2014, Amazon eBook)

We have to remember there were other people involved in my life when I worked at the auto dealerships. The income was needed to help provide for them. So, why would the Lord allow my family and me to endure such pain and suffering?

God hated my pride and wanted to rid me of as much of it as possible. Period.

Trials are meant to change us. We need to embrace the pain and suffering, allowing them to change us into the image of Christ.

(Continued in Part 5…the full series to date  can be read here.

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Prayers for American Christians’ Eyes to be Opened (7/11/2017)

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What was God thinking when He chose Donald Trump to be president of the United States? And if God did put Trump in office, shouldn’t the president quit offending people with his many Twitter attacks and act more dignified?

“God will offend our minds to reveal our hearts to us.” (Mike Bickle)

I am not an apologist for President Trump nor do I claim to know all of what God has in mind for Trump’s presidency. Yet, I do know this: all who voice their thoughts on killing, assassinating, cutting off his head, impeaching, undermining, calling him and his wife vicious names, and whatever else reveal their hearts to the whole world. No amount of public relations’ touchups afterwards can erase their words.

Also, everyone who agrees with these horrible words, but has not voiced them as yet, has a major heart problem, which needs to be handled right away.

My prayer today:

Lord, send Your Holy Spirit to convict us American believers of our evil thoughts, which are stored up in our hearts and defiling us. (Based on Mark 7:20-23)

 What do you think and has the Lord spoken to you today?

Join with me on Tuesdays to fast and pray for American believers’ eyes to be opened.

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Mountains Melt at the Presence of God (Part 7)

In January 1995, I dated a wonderful woman, thinking we would marry. Many prophetic words had been given to me about marriage to a godly woman. Every word seemed to point to her as my bride…or at least, I thought so.

I spoke aloud to the Lord one night while driving my truck home from the lady’s apartment.

“Jesus, You need to get us married as quickly as possible,” I said.

My truck cab instantly filled up with laughter, as if heaven dropped an amplifier and speaker into my truck, turning it up full blast. The laughter was the “hold your belly and roll on the floor” type. And it continued and continued.

I pulled my truck over to the side of the highway because the contagious laughter caused tears to run down my cheeks. I turned on the truck’s hazard blinkers and sat there, laughing along with heaven.

It finally ceased and I resumed driving home. I then wondered, is the Lord laughing because He knows something, which I don’t know yet. Or is He just happy for me?

I ignored the former and opted for the latter.

One obstacle after another frustrated our relationship over the following fourteen months. I figured more fasting and prayer would eventually break the logjam of spiritual warfare thwarting our relationship.

(An excerpt from The Hunt for Larry Who (a Memoir) by Larry Nevenhoven, © 2014, Amazon eBook)

It’s easy to forget that the Lord has a fabulous sense of humor. In fact, who created humor and laughter? Certainly not Satan, but instead it was God.

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength. (Proverbs 17:22 NLT)

(Conclusion for now…the full series to date can be read here.)

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What God Taught Me In My 310 Days At Walmart (Part 2)

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I interviewed for a cashier position at the the Temecula Walmart Supercenter on August 12, 2016, and was hired at that time. One of the questions asked was about any physical problems that I might have which might cause me problems in carrying out my duties as a cashier. I answered, “No.”

Did I lie about my physical problems? No, I don’t believe I did because it was my belief that if God called me to be a cashier, He would enable me to fulfill the job. The significance of my answer in writing was that I removed all liability from Walmart for any injuries to my wrists, knees, and back.

The Temecula Walmart Supercenter is ranked between number 5 and number 10 in dollar volume out of all the nearly 12,000 Walmart stores in the world. The store does around 165 million dollars in sales per year. A little over four hundred people work at the 24 hour store, with nearly eighty cashiers manning the registers at various times.

My first day was August 25, 2016. For the following two weeks, I worked with veteran cashiers who trained me. Then, I began working on my own in early September.

One of the lessons I have learned over the years is that when God calls you to do something, there is no use in being timid, just jump in with both feet, trusting that God will protect you. I call it reckless faith, much like Paul demonstrated in Acts 16:37. After being beaten, thrown in prison, and fastened in stocks, Paul refused to leave prison until the authorities came and apologized to Silas and him. That takes godly chutzpa!

So, I made up my mind to not protect myself in any way and to do every job asked of me as if I had no in juries. This resulted in some interesting situations, like trying to help a woman with a bad back put a heavy piece of furniture (150 pounds) into her vehicle. It so happened that a strong man walking down the parking lot aisle volunteered to help me. That was lucky, right? No, I don’t believe in luck. I believe in a heavenly Father who loves me so much that He will always be there to help in my time of need.

Did my hands, knees, and back hurt? Yes, so much so, that I could hardly sleep at night.

In fact, if anyone would have noticed me stepping out of my car in the Walmart parking lot and walking the one hundred yards to the store’s entrance, they would have wondered how a crippled, one hundred-year old man could possibly work at Walmart. Or that’s what it seemed to me.

Yet, when I walked in the door at Walmart, His grace fell upon me and I became Larry, the cashier with a big smile for everyone. The pain was still there, but it was only on the surface. And as long as I trusted in His grace, which I was forced to do at all times, I could walk through each day.

Just so you know: I averaged nearly 930 scans per hour – which is above average – and I even had quite a few customers who chose to go through my line when I was on duty. Why? They liked my smile and attitude and speed.

What major lesson did God teach me at Walmart:

If we want to serve God, especially us senior citizens, we can’t pray away every one of our problems. If we choose to wait, hoping miracles will heal or prosper us, we may miss our opportunities and if that happens, how many more can we expect to have in the future. But even so, we can always trust in this verse:

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)

One experience, out of many, was worth every ounce of pain that I suffered working as a cashier. It happened on a busy day when I first opened my register. A elderly man wearing a U. S. Marine veterans cap, rode an electric cart up to the register and placed his few groceries on the conveyer belt.

I looked at him and said, “How are you today?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“What does that mean?”

“Well, to be honest, the old Sarge is not doing well today.”

“Would you like some prayer?”

“Yes.”

I walked around the bagging console, grabbed his hands, and prayed for him. The presence of God fell upon us. We both wept like little children who just opened the best Christmas gift ever.

“Wow, that was awesome!” he proclaimed.

“Yeah,” I said.

I walked back and became a Walmart Cashier at register 6, scanning items. Customers moved to the line and life continued in a normal fashion or normal for Walmart.

(Conclusion)

 

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What God Taught Me In My 310 Days At Walmart (Part 1)

 

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When I felt the Lord speaking to my heart about applying for a job at Walmart, I must admit that I scratched my head a few times. You see, I was nearly 71 years old and had a few physical issues: both knees are bone on bone due to long ago football injuries, back problems from climbing ladders and falling off a few of them, and carpal tunnels in both wrists from gripping a paint brush and typing for hours and hours at a time.

I was certainly not a poster-perfect candidate for being a cashier at a high volume Walmart Super Center, but yet, I knew the Lord was asking me to do just that.

To better understand what the Lord was asking of me, I need to relate an experience I had almost thirty years beforehand.

At the time, I was employed by a Best Western Motel in maintenance and delivering “meals on wheels” to senior citizen centers. It was a bottom-rung, minimum wage job.

I had just read Fox’s Book of Martyrs, which relates the lives, sufferings, and deaths of the early Christians and Protestant martyrs. As I finished the book, I spoke aloud, “Lord, if this is my destiny, then let me die with a bullet to the head or by guillotine, but not by being burnt to death at a stake. That would be too much for me!”

A few days later, I was hurrying around the kitchen of the motel, readying the meals for the senior centers. I pulled a large tray of roast beef out of a top oven. As I pulled it out, the tray slipped, pouring out its 165° of scalding water and juices over my left hand. I somehow set the tray down without spilling the roast beef.

Then, I stood there looking at my hand. The chefs and kitchen workers were screaming at me to put my hand under the cold water faucet, but I ignored their pleas.

My hand fascinated me because there was no pain inside it – in the muscles, fatty tissues, or nerve endings. The pain was just located on the surface of my skin where it was a bright red in color, but it was really bearable. Not a problem for me to endure it at all.

The chef grabbed my hand and stuck it under the faucet. “Now, you have to go to the doctor and have it checked,” she screamed at me.

I laughed. “No, I’m okay and will deliver the meals to the senior centers.”

“Nevenhoven, you’re a nut.”

“Yeah, that’s probably true, but it’s only because of Jesus and His love for me.”

From that day onward, I have never feared what people could do to me because I knew His grace would help me through it.

(Part 2)

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Spiritual Warfare in San Francisco (Part 5)

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

Because of space-time continuum thinking, it’s hard to wrap our minds around the simple truth that God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit never had a beginning. They always were and always will be.

This simple truth is the foundation for all of our Christian faith and belief in God. It is one which cannot be partially accepted, but must be believed in whole, in order for us to have a vibrant faith in God. Anything less than 100% on this truth will create doubts which will limit the work of God in our lives.

Okay, assuming we all accept this simple truth, how did God create the heavens and the earth?

   Then God said, “Let there be light; and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3)

For years, I figured God spoke His words, wiggled His nose, much like Samantha on the TV program, Bewitchedand then presto, light and all the rest of creation appeared on the scene. But there are other scriptures which give us a better glimpse of how God created the heavens and earth.

 Bless the LORD, you His angels, mighty in strength, who perform His word, obeying the voice of His word! (Psalm 103:20)

The English word angel is translated from the Hebrew word malak which actually means messenger, representative, or deputy. Therefore, God has deputy helpers who perform His words.

The Bible gives names for three angels: Gabriel, Michael, and Lucifer.

Gabriel (strength of God or warrior of God) is an archangel who was sent as a messenger with important messages for humans, such as Daniel, Zacharias (John the Baptist’s father), and Mary.

Michael (who is like God) is a chief archangel, a protector of Israel, and the leader of God’s heavenly angel army.

Lucifer (light bearer or morning star) was also a chief archangel.  In Jude 9, Michael still respected Lucifer’s high level of authority, even though he had fallen and was now known as Satan.

Okay, now let’s do some digging.

  For He has not put the world to come, of which we speak, in subjection to   angels. (Hebrews 2:5)

For whatever reasons, God set up our present world to be in subjection to angels or under an angelic form of governmental system. God created this system to be obedient to His words, but obviously, angels have a free will, much like humans do. Sadly, the system was corrupted with Adam’s fall in the Garden of Eden.

Yet, God being true to His own system had the Law brought to man under the direction of angels.

Now, the idea of creating man and man’s home here on earth was always in God’s heart. It was His highest priority as He longed to share His love and fellowship with other beings. And it’s only natural to assume that His angels all knew about the importance of earth and how a being called man would eventually fit into God’s plan for His kingdom on earth.

So, who did God choose to be His chief angel over earth?

You [Satan] were in Eden, the garden of God… (Ezekiel 28:13)

You [Satan] were the anointed cherub who covers, and I placed you there. You        were on the holy mountain of God; you walked in the midst of the stones of fire.       (Ezekiel 28:14)

Eden, the garden of God, and the holy mountain of God were located here on earth, not in heaven. Thus, it is my belief that Lucifer (Satan) was chosen by God to be the head angel, or His chief ambassador, here on earth. If so, this means Satan was actually created to be a chief helper and a minister to us humans, not our accuser and destroyer.

But Lucifer (Satan) was proud of his authority over earth and wanted to exalt his throne over all of all the other angels and also to be like the Most High God. Then because of Satan’s iniquity, war broke out in heaven. This war continues today, but it will not be until the last days that Michael and the good angels will drive Satan and his horde (a third of all the angels) out of heavenly realms.

Who were Satan’s angels?

Most likely, Satan’s angels were those he had authority over here on earth when he was God’s amabassador. Later, Paul referred to a part of Satan’s fallen angel horde as principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this age, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Keep in mind: Satan is not a creator. He is a liar, a deceiver, and a usurper of God’s creation and His plans.

Thus, when Eve was deceived and Adam sinned in the Garden of EdenGod’s authority to rule on earth passed from man to the fallen angel, Satan. He became the god of this world.

And because Satan had authority on earth and in the heavens surrounding earth, Satan’s angels replaced God’s angels in the spiritual governmental system reigning over earth. Satan’s angels were already trained from their earlier experiences, but instead of obeying God, these fallen angels now obeyed the father of lies, Satan.

The bad news is that we are stuck with this corrupted angelic system until Jesus returns. But the good news is we have a new spiritual governmental system on earth, not subjected to angels. It is the Kingdom of God.

Are you scratching your heads and wondering what this has to do with San Francisco?

(Continued in Part 6…the full series to date  can be read here.

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Spiritual Warfare in San Francisco (Part 4)

He pointed down again.

“Look.”

There just below us, was a student resembling a fluorescent light bulb walking across the esplanade. She lit up the whole area around her as she hurried on her way. Unlike the others, she did not have a creature sitting on her shoulder, but instead, one hovered around her head, trying to alight on her, but for some reason, the creature could not land. Deep frustration etched a gully in the creature’s face.

“Listen,” said the angel.

My ears adjusted themselves to only listening to the girl. Her footsteps and the movement of her arms came through loud and clear, but also something else.

“Dee, dee, bah, bah, hooka mah hundae,” she whispered over and over.

She spoke in tongues as she walked along.

“Your message to Christians on college campuses is very simple,” said the angel. “It’s the same one Paul gave to the believers in Ephesus when he said, ‘Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, with all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.” Then he added, “In case you have forgotten, these scriptures are located in Ephesians 6: 17-18.”

It bugged me he knew I had not read my Bible for years. What else did he know?

He grabbed my ponytail and took off. We retraced our flight to the apartment where we landed in the kitchen, back where this began forty minutes earlier. We stood there, staring at each other. Neither of us spoke for a minute or so.

“Today, you’ll begin your journey as a prophet, a bondservant of Christ. You will prophesy, proclaiming the words the Lord gives you. You will speak in tongues like you have never spoken before in your spiritual life. No more baby tongues for you, but your strongest gift will be distinguishing of spirits. You will see into the spirit realm.”

Talk about a person’s life being turned upside down and shredded into pieces, it happened to me right then and there. I was a contented progressive Christian who had turned his back on Charismatic mumble-jumble years earlier and now, I was about to drown in a sea of spiritual gifts.

“But how? Amanda. My job. My Berkeley buddies. My life. This destroys me, doesn’t it?” I screamed in anger, not caring what he thought.

“The Lord’s grace will be more than sufficient for you. The Spirit of the Lord is about to descend on you, anointing you for the mission ahead.”

Those were the last words I remembered hearing before falling to the floor. I was out.

(Excerpt from Deceived Dead and Delivered by Larry Nevenhoven, © 2013, Amazon eBook)

(Continued in Part 5…the full series to date  can be read here.)

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If God Loves Us, Why Do We Still Suffer? (Part 3)

“If you can’t pay the truck payments up to date by Monday afternoon, bring us the truck. No more stalling because it has to be one or the other,” said the Ford Motor Credit official.

I hung up the phone, wondering if the Lord had another financial miracle in His basket to deliver me out of this predicament.

The new Ford F-150 pickup became a part of my life just five days before that dreadful morning on July 8, 1994. A special offer to businessmen lured me into the Ford dealership in Ames and the zero down payment financing sealed the deal. The dealership even filled the dual tanks with gas before I drove off the sales lot. What a blessing, I thought at the time.

Then, my financial nightmare hit.

The $300 monthly truck payment and insurance expenses added millstone weights to my downward death spiral. On the one hand, I needed the truck to remain a painting contractor so I could earn enough money to pay off my bad checks and painting debts. Yet, on the other hand, there never seemed to be enough money left over from my painting jobs for truck payments.

I eventually trusted the Lord to work out all of my other financial problems, and even had peace about each of them, but the Ford F-150 was a different story. I could not remove the nagging fear of losing it. It haunted me day and night.

The truck payments were ninety days late four times in the year after July 8, 1994. My problem was not an imaginary fear, but rather, a real one. I awoke each morning and looked out the window, checking if the truck still remained outside in the parking lot or had been repossessed during the night.

A friend grabbed my shoulder one morning during a prayer meeting, turning me around to face her.

“The Lord spoke to me about you, and said the cares of the world are pulling Larry under,” she said, staring into my eyes.

“Yeah, that’s right. It’s the truck. I can’t quit worrying about it. Pray for me.”

She prayed, but I still had no peace about the situation.

I fasted and prayed against every possible demon. I read Psalm 37 and countless other scriptures to bolster my faith, but still, the fear of losing the truck sucked every bit of joy out of my life.

The Lord finally spoke to me in a vision while I slept one night: “The truck is Mine − not yours. It is My responsibility to watch over it. If I choose to give it back to Ford Motor Company, that’s up to Me, and not you. So, quit worrying about it.”

My fears evaporated that morning. Why worry about someone else’s problems, right?

Ford Motor Company repossessed the truck six months later. I washed, waxed, and cleaned it before returning it to the dealership. It was the Lord’s truck and I wanted Him to know how much I appreciated driving it.

(Excerpt from The Hunt for Larry Who by Larry Nevenhoven, © 2014, Amazon eBook)

Upon my salvation in 1985, the old man, with its sin nature, didn’t just go away. I needed to renew my mind. This trial revealed some seeds of sin — fear, doubt, unbelief — from my old nature were still blooming and growing strong in my soul.

You see, much of our suffering comes because we reap what we sow.

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. (Galatians 6:7-8)

(Continued in Part 4)

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Spiritual Warfare in San Francisco (Part 3)

This time the spiritual darkness over the university cleared up enough so I could see through it. There, directly above Sather Tower, was a tarnished brass throne and sitting on the throne was a creature, which resembled a monstrous, grotesque gargoyle. It had an elongated, dragon-like face with horns next to its pointed ears, man-like arms with talons for hands, a scaly reptile-like main torso, and wolf-like hindquarters. A long tail wrapped itself around the being’s front paws.

I realized the spiritual murkiness over the campus originated from this creature. It controlled what looked like a tinted screen layer over the whole campus, which filtered out rays of light from the heavens above the screen. The atmosphere below the screen was murkier and darker than the one above it. Not only was the creature filtering out light rays: it was also spewing out, in rapid AK-47 salvos, what looked like commands from its mouth to the ground below.

“What you’re seeing is the governing demonic principality over the University of California, Berkeley. It’s a religious one, and one of the gatekeepers mentioned by Jesus in Matthew 16:18. Now, look down,” he said, pointing to students walking along the sidewalks below us.

I watched various students crisscrossing the Campanile Esplanade on their way to classes. They looked normal, wearing typical college apparel. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. My spiritual eyes then kicked in, and what appeared normal in the natural realm was not so normal in the spiritual one.

Have you ever seen pictures of a flying dinosaur known as a pterodactyl? It has a long, slender head with a mouth of sharp teeth, scaly-like body, web-like wings, and talons for feet. This sort of resembles the creatures I saw, sitting on the shoulders of almost every student walking below me. Each creature was the size of a large crow and had wolf hair on its body and a slender rat’s tail. They constantly whispered into the ears of students while holding a wing over the students’ other ears. The creatures also defecated and vomited on the students so that each person dripped with slop and sewage. It was ghastly and I yearned to warn the students.

“Follow those two over there,” said the angel, pointing toward two guys.

I focused on the two students. They continued talking to each other as they walked into a free speech area where a street evangelist preached the gospel of the kingdom of God. Both stopped and listened. I watched the pterodactyl-like creatures use their beaks to snatch the seeds of the gospel out of the twosome’s hearts with swift surgeon-like precision. The two students walked away after a few minutes, none the better for their experiences.

I wanted to shout and warn everyone. Someone needed to do it. Why not me?

The angel touched my shoulder again with his hand. I turned toward him.

“Now, it’s time for your spiritual ears to be opened.”

He reached up and touched both of my ears with his hands.

Wouldn’t you think it would be quiet in the spiritual realm over the University of California, Berkeley? Well, it is not. There is constant clamor, reverberating throughout the whole atmosphere, most of which comes from the ruling principality. But what really shocked me was the demonic principality’s words mirrored the liberal attitudes on the campus, from the deans down to the professors, and then, to the students. The religious principality constantly spewed out proclamations like:

“All white Americans are racists… All wars are immoral and wrong… Homosexuality is not a sin… Pro-choice is a woman’s right… Same-sex marriage is morally acceptable…Traditional Christianity is irrelevant, mean, hateful, judgmental, and dogmatic…Jesus never said anything about homosexuality…Jesus is the Way which is open to other ways, such as Hare Krishna, Buddha, and Mohammad…God is a God of love and not judgment… Satan and demons are fictional beings, thought up by fundamentalist nuts…The Bible contains no more authority than the Koran, Buddhist sutras, Veda, and other spiritual writings…Creating social justice is the main emphasis of the gospel…Global warming is a Christian stewardship concern…”

I stood there with my mouth open, drool running down my chin.

“Hey, many of these statements I agree with,” I muttered aloud, not realizing I had done so.

“And that’s why you are deceived.”

“Deceived? Me?”

“Yes, you and most liberal Christians who believe such garbage.”

“But, but –”

“Not only are you deceived, but your faith is dead when it agrees with Satan’s agenda. He’s always a liar, even when his words sound like truth. Your faith, in order to have life, must be based on what the Lord has stated in Scripture and is presently saying to His church.”

I kept quiet as his words ripped my theology apart.

He paused for a beat or two.

“Not only is this IOU collection day, but it is your deliverance day,” he said in an authoritative voice. “Your past deception, your dead faith, and your deliverance from all of it will give you an understanding of the spiritual battles taking place on America’s college campuses, beginning with the University of California, Berkeley.”

His eyes locked on mine.

“But how –” I stopped myself. How could I complain when I did not know what I was talking about?

The angel almost grinned.

“Now, you’re starting to learn.”

(Excerpt from Deceived Dead and Delivered by Larry Nevenhoven, © 2013, Amazon eBook)

(Continued in Part 4…the full series to date  can be read here.)

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Spiritual Warfare in San Francisco (Part 3)

I finished studying at 9 p.m. and went into the kitchen for a drink of water. As I turned on the recessed ceiling lights, I stopped dead in my tracks. A grotesque creature sat on a stool at the island counter. If the angel was the epitome of the Kingdom of Light, then this being was the dark side’s counterpart. Its gloomy eyes glared at me while its lips formed a sneer. Festering sores plastered the being’s face and neck. A filthy robe cloaked its torso and a stench of decay clogged my nostrils.

“Listen up Chuck,” the creature said in a raspy voice.

Fear struck my chest like a baseball bat. I had trouble breathing. Confusion settled over me like a morning fog. I could not put two and two together.

“If you go to businessmen and tell them to pray over their financial gifts, seeking the Lord where they should give their money, some bad things will happen to your family. Your two sons will die in an auto accident and your wife will go insane. Do you hear me?”

I could not speak as my mouth went dry and a throbbing sensation sent stabs of pain through my mind.

The creature drummed its dirty two-inch long fingernails on the granite counter. The beat reminded me of a funeral march.

“I said, ‘Do you hear me?’” the creature hissed out the words.

I nodded.

“And I can do it. It will be easy. Just as easy as it was for me to come into your home. No one can protect you from me, not even God!”

The creature bared its brownish-yellowish teeth with a hideous grin as it stood up.

“Don’t you ever forget what I told you, okay?”

The being walked over to the door leading out to the deck, then without opening the door, he stepped through it, and left.

I collapsed on the floor and wept. My body convulsed in fear.

“Oh God! What have I done to my family?” I screamed.

 

Afterward, I pulled myself together and wandered into the family room, collapsing on the sofa. What is going on? I thought. Everything is hitting me at once. What can I do? My mind raced in circles searching for answers, but I found none. I finally fell asleep.

A voice visited me as I slept. Was it in a dream or a vision? It was like both, but different at the same time. I was awake, but asleep.

“Chuck,” the voice said.

I looked up and realized I stood in front of a stage in a large auditorium. It was black. None of the spotlights were turned on. The red velvet curtains were drawn apart. The voice seemed to be flowing out of the darkness blanketing the stage. I felt no fear, but was comforted by the voice.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Do you have some questions?”

“Yes.”

“Go ahead.”

“What was that being in my kitchen?”

“What do you think it was?”

“A demon.”

“Yes. That was a demon sent to frighten you by the religious ruling spirit over America.”

“But how did that happen?” I asked. “I always pray for angelic protection over me.”

“Yes, you do,” the voice said. “For just a few moments, the angels that protect you backed off their posts. When they did that, the demon slipped into your realm.”

It hit me like a hammer between the eyes. I was set up by the Lord and used as ambush bait.

“But –”

The voice interrupted me. “You have been chosen to have insight into spiritual warfare so that you can teach others. Spiritual warfare is not played on a Game Boy. It is played out in real life scenarios where lives and destinies are at stake.” The voice paused for a moment and then added, “Satan and his army want to kill Christians and their families, and destroy their destinies on the earth.”

I cringed.

“But what can I do to protect my family?”

“What does scripture say?”

Once again, the voice bounced my question back to me.

I thought for a moment before answering.

“Cast my cares on the Lord for He cares for me.”

“Yes. And don’t forget Jesus rebuked demons. He refused to allow them to speak because they are all liars. You can do the same in Jesus’ name.”

I was silent, not wanting to ask my next question.

“Can Satan and his forces really hurt my children or Dusty?”

“Yes. Rebellion and sin by you can open the gates for Satan’s army to come into your family’s lives. But by the same token, a causeless curse will not alight on you or your family. So, walk with God and avoid sin.”

The voice was silent for a moment.

“Any more questions?

“What about my problems with Dusty?”

“She is not the problem, you are. Dusty is like most women in that she desires to see her husband as a sold-out man of God, not a half-hearted pew-sitter. You obey God, follow His instructions, and she will be happy to walk by your side.”

With that answer, the voice left and I returned to my sleep.

Excerpt from Deceived Dead and Delivered by Larry Nevenhoven, © 2013, Amazon eBook)

(Continued in Part 3)

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