Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadQuiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter: 085. Some Actual Experiences
TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 085. Some Actual Experiences
Other Subjects in this Topic:
Some Actual Experiences
I recall the experience of a man of matured years and well-seasoned judgment. He had been led to take an advance step in his Christian life which meant much of sacrifice. He has since then been used in his Christian service in a marked way, and to an unusual degree. This experience came just after the step referred to had been taken. He was awakened in the night by the sense of an unwholesome presence in the room, or rather the feeling that the room was full of evil beings. A peculiar feeling of horror came over him, with strange bodily sensations. The air of the room seemed stifling. He quickly recognized that he was being attacked, rose from bed, and attempted to sing a verse of a hymn with Jesus' Name in. It seemed impossible at first to get his lips open, or any sound out. But he persisted and soon the soft singing was clear and full, and the spirit atmosphere of the room cleared at once. And with grateful heart he lay down again, and slept sweetly until the morning. Yet he is a man of unusual caution, with a critical matter-of-fact spirit of investigation, A friend was telling recently of a somewhat similar experience. He is an earnest godly man, of mature experience, and more than the average sanity of judgment. It was shortly after retiring for the night, and before sleep had come, that a peculiar sense of awful blackness came over him. With the strange sense of mental keenness that marks such experiences he seemed to know that his mind was slipping away from his control. He could not recall who he was, and realized that he could not. He could not even remember his name. There was an overwhelming sense of blackness, as though his mind were saturated with a blackness that was pressing in upon him. And he said he was conscious of being conscious of only one thing—the Name of Jesus. He clung to that, saying the Name "Jesus" over and again. It was as though every power of thought and speech was gone save that of uttering that Name. Relief came, and with a sense of gratitude that could never be told, he said, he prayed and went to sleep.
I could repeat many such experiences that have come to my knowledge. These will be sufficient to make clear my meaning in talking of obsession. Evil spirits attack the saintliest men and women, in these and similar ways. Failure to recognize the nature and source of the attack has sometimes led to serious results.
I recall one of the most brilliant, brainy men that ever preached the Gospel, a man of unusual charm of personality and earnest devotion, whose life went abruptly out under the touch of his own hand. The physician used the phrase "intense melancholia." But careful study into the case revealed the fact that without question the fuller explanation can be found here in demon-obsession, unrecognized.
These are some of the tempter's fighting tactics. They are given here that we may be quicker and keener to recognize him and his, and so to resist more quickly and successfully in the Name of his Victor, which he so fears.