Strengthen Me Just Once — Leonard Ravenhill

Samson’s Secret Strength

Our text tonight is in the sixteenth chapter of the book of Judges. Judges, the sixteenth chapter, reading verse six. And Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee.

One of the old European versions of the scripture has an extra word in this text, and the extra word is secret. So then the text reads, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein the secret of thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee.

I want to accept that word secret. You say it's not there by inspiration, and that's true, but it's there by inference anyhow. This is a question of a woman of the world. It will be a great day, and God hasten it, when the world again begins to ask the church, What is the secret of thy great strength?

I believe the world has a suspicion that the church has no strength. About four hundred years ago in England we had a breed of men, a very unusual breed, most Englishmen out, but they were a very unusual breed.

By any standard they were giants, morally, spiritually, intellectually. And history has classified them as a Puritan. Quite a number of them, but I think the tallest of them theologically, spiritually, was John Owen.

John Owen left us a massive volume on the Holy Spirit. That isn't my interest right now. My interest is this, that he criticized men this way. He said the sin of men in the Old Testament was against the Father.

The sin of men in the New Testament, he said, was against the Son. And the sin of men in my day, he said, four hundred years ago, is against the Holy Spirit. I think if he came back, he wouldn't need to modify that criticism in any way.

America’s Peril and the Judgment of God

I've said, I shall say tonight, say of the night, that I believe that this is the most perilous hour in the history of America. In the last two or three years I have been at the National Convention of the Southern Baptists, at the Florida State Convention, at the Texas State Convention, and at each of them I've said, I would like to give all the preachers a sheet of paper and a pencil, and ask them to write on that piece of paper, what or who they think is the greatest threat to America today.

And I've said, and still say, that I don't think ten percent of them could give me the right answer. They might start off with the devil and finish with the Democrats, and in between have drink and dope, and I don't know what else.

Divorce? But I believe the greatest threat to America tonight is God. If you haven't read any books by Francis Schaeffer, who is a full-blooded American, in one sense, I think one of the great spiritual intellectuals of our time, he's running the Liabri Fellowship there in Switzerland.

It's a rescue station for intellectuals. Some kids from the richest homes in America, kids that have had the very best of everything, their daddy's own planes and yachts. They lived in millionaires' homes, they've had the finest of education, but they hit the gutter.

They got caught in the vortex of modern life. And they've made their own pilgrimage there to the Liabri Fellowship in Switzerland, with a language something like this, look, God our last hope. If you don't have the answer, we can't find the answer in the churches in America.

But I'm interested in this observation he makes in his book called Death in the City, which is only about a dollar and a quarter, and if you want something to upset you, read it. He says, remember this, that God has given up on the cities of America, they rejected him, and God has rejected them, on the basis of the first three chapters in Romans.

But then he says this more disturbing thing. He says, remember that in China, eight hundred years ago, eight centuries ago, every leading town and city in China, eight hundred years ago, had a thriving evangelical church.

Where is that church tonight? God said that he was married to Israel. God said he divorced Israel. God says ultimately he'll remarry Israel. In between, God hasn't bothered with Israel for two thousand years.

She's been the football that every nation has kicked around. Five times in history they have been almost annihilated. Bothered with Israel, the people he married for two thousand years, makes you think he didn't walk out on America or England.

You don't legalize abortion, you don't take living babies out of living mothers, and where do the babies go? Mind your own business, maybe your dog ate them this week, a dog meat. And I'm not facetious.

Nevada has legalized prostitution. England has legalized homosexuality. We have nine million alcoholics. We have roughly thirty million people on some kind of drugs. We have an all-time high in venereal disease amongst kids under fifteen years of age this past year in America.

And England is very much the same. You see, you only shake your finger at God and break his law so long, and God walks out on nations. Just like he does on men, he says, My spirit shall not always strive with man.

And one of the terrible things about preaching is that while some people come forward and say they'll take Christ for eternal life, there are others who say no, not openly, secretly. In that very moment they say they're dead, as long as God lives.

Because there comes a time when God knocks at the door of the heart for the very last time, and then he goes. This story of Samson to me is a story of a superman. To me, Samson is a type of a spirit-anointed man, he's a type of a spirit-anointed church.

The Elusive Anointing and Holy Ghost Revival

The two most things in the world tonight, what are they? While we've been in the Bahamas the last three years, there was a, there was a scare. The newspaper articles, they thought they'd rediscovered the lost island of Atlantis, but discovered they hadn't.

And right now for some reason I don't know. There are two expeditions on the Himalayan ranges trying to find the abominable snowman. If they were trying to find the abominable showman, I could give them the names of six evangelists.

But they're trying to find the abominable snowman. Are these the most elusive things in the world? The abominable snowman and the elusive lost island? No, no, no, no, no. The two most elusive things on God's earth tonight are, number one, personal anointing by the Holy Spirit, and number two, Holy Ghost revival.

In every other area you can energize, organize, get money, and you're just sweating your labor when it comes to it. God won't anoint you because you're a millionaire, and he won't refuse your anointing.

God won't send blessing because you have this gorgeous church, and I think it's very beautiful. He won't bypass it either because you have it. You see, God is sovereign, and there are certain things that men must do if God is going to come and bless.

Start with a Spirit-anointed man. I suppose it's fortunate for mankind that only once in maybe a thousand million men you'll get a man who wants to dominate the whole world. We've had a few of them in history.

Remember they told you at school, perhaps, that Alexander the Great, at twenty-seven years of age, conquered the world, and sat down and wept because there were no more worlds that he knew of to conquer, and he was only twenty-seven years of age?

And then in my day almost conquered the world. His name was Hitler. Pride to him. A small, copulant Corsican by the name of Napoleon, one of the greatest military strategists in history. Almost conquered the world, and one day he gathered up his warlords.

On the wall of his office he had a great map of the world, and he snapped these men to attention, and he plunged his index finger down, and he gave you the great country. And then he said to his generals, gentlemen, there lies the sleeping giant.

Let him sleep! He said this before the battle of Waterloo, which happened to be on June the 18th, which is tomorrow, and it's my birthday. You know where I'm staying. But on the day of the battle of Waterloo, with his ambition to the world, he ran his finger around that country.

There is the sleeping giant. Let him sleep! He said if that country ever wakes up and discovers its mineral wealth, and harnesses that mineral wealth for its manpower, let the rest of the world look out.

That giant will shake the world. If you're interested, the country that he outlined was China. America's biggest headache tonight. Russia's biggest headache. Doesn't the book of the Revelation say, somewhere around about the ninth chapter, that one day 200 million men will come marching from the east?

From where? Well, they don't have 200 million in Japan. The only country could be China. Do you remember you being taxed up to your ears to make atom bombs and hydrogen bombs? And wasn't it Mr., uh, who was the president?

Wasn't it, uh, that Baptist president, Truman? No wonder he had so many missiles. Wasn't it Truman that said, after that bomb was dropped on Hiroshima or Hiroshima at 16 minutes to 8 on the 6th of August 1945, if there's another war, if the war is threatened, we'll drop the bomb the first week and get it over.

About 50 ,000 bodies alive. You've been taxed to your ears to make atom bombs. We don't use one of them. Why? Because when America dropped that bomb, as I say, at 16 minutes to 8 on the 6th of August 1945, she had the big stick and she was telling the world what to do.

But remember tonight, China that has no conscience has an atom bomb. You don't need aircraft. All you have to do is to make an intercontinental ballistic missile and put a warhead in it and shoot the thing and, boy, they can blast us to smithereens.

Interesting, isn't it, that Mr. Breesnath, Leonardo Breesnath, he's going to have a political reception tomorrow with pomp and circumstance and soldiers and drums and bugles. And he hates us like the devil.

And Nixon doesn't hate him much less, anyhow, that we play hypocritical games. Did you nearly roll out of bed the other night? Was it Tuesday or Wednesday? They shot the thing off across the water there, one of those rockets, at 3 .30 in the morning and it rocked your house.

There's a new gadget that's going around in space right now and it's specially put there to listen in for anything that Russia sends over and relay and release a message within seconds once Russia starts firing these missiles, which they know we have and we know they have.

For the last 12 years, some men under the mountains there in Colorado have marched down under an area that's thicker than this place with concrete and they simulate pulling a switch. They never pull the right one because it has a bit of wire on it, so they won't.

But if they pull the right one, rockets would shoot out from all over America to blast everything in the sky. And the article I had on that says the men who were waiting for Armageddon, China's our biggest headache.

Napoleon said over a century ago, a century and a half, there lies a sleeping giant, let it sleep. If China ever decides to yawn and stretch and go on the march, let the world look out. All right, you don't like politics, let's change it.

Instead of seeing there, instead of seeing a map of the world, see a map of the ages. Instead of seeing Napoleon, see the devil. And he brings all the demons out of hell and eats them alive. There, see that?

He runs his finger around the ragged edge of something. What is it? The Church of Jesus Christ. And he says, there is the Church of Jesus Christ to sleep. Let it sleep! Because if the Church of Jesus Christ ever rediscovers the power of the Holy Ghost, and harnesses what it already has to the power of the Spirit, let the earth look out and let hell look out.

For the Church anointed in the power of the Holy Ghost is the greatest power for the power of a triune God. Tell me where in the secret of thy great strength lies. I first heard about America when I was a little boy in a school in England.

I had a teacher I didn't like. I never had one I did like, as a matter of fact. But this one I particularly didn't like. She didn't like me either. I don't know why. I've always been attractive. But anyhow, she didn't like me.

And she thought I didn't know much, and I knew she didn't. And she told us a story. The best known story, I don't care whether you go to Russia or Africa, wherever you go around the world, there's one story that's known above all of the stories in America, about America.

You know what it is? The story of a Republican. There was a Democratic Republican that is very famous. And she told us about this man who went up a hill and he fell asleep. And when he came down the hill he got involved in argument with a group of people.

All I know, she said he slept for twenty or fifty years, she wasn't sure. And that's all I learned about the man. And that's exactly what the story is, which proved her ignorance anyhow. You see the story is this, that when he went up the hill there was a sign hanging outside of the tavern.

I mean it was painted the head of the throne of England. England had a lot of money in America at that time. When he came down the hill they had painted out the face of George III. And they had painted the face of another famous Englishman.

Did you get his name? You didn't know he was English? How ignorant can you get? But anyhow. They had erased the face of George III, they painted out the face of George III. What's the secret of the story?

Is the story secret that he went to sleep for twenty years? No! The secret is this, he slept through a revolution. And I tell you with all the power of my being tonight, I believe that's what the Church of Jesus is doing in this very moment.

Sleeping through the greatest moral, spiritual, social, economic revolution in history. And maybe it's not altogether five more years, nor can mankind, none of the present systems that we have. A week tonight I'm going to preach, God willing.

Tomorrow night I want to preach on revival praying. Tuesday night I believe on vision. Wednesday night if the Lord gives me permission on the judgment seat of Christ. Thursday night maybe on the cross.

Friday on problems in the Christian life. Saturday night there'll be no preachers unless these boys do it. I'm not preaching twice a day every day. There's six days shut down labor, and they've already put me on a Saturday morning.

That could cost you a thousand dollars, but that's all right. And in case you are giving me anything this week, let me tell you this, you'll give me all that you can, because I won't take a penny of it.

I've got three sons on the mission field, I've got one that leads my family. Whoever comes in this church, even if they give me ten thousand dollars, I give every penny. I won't take any expenses out for eating or traveling or anything.

It's all about the mission, so you and I won't get a dime. All right. The Lord asked the question, what is the secret of thy great strength? Abnormal days demand abnormal men with abnormal methods and abnormal messages.

Samson as a Spirit-Anointed Man

And Samson is one of the most abnormal men in the Bible. You know we got this man kind of mixed up in our thinking. Wherever you find a picture of Samson, you'll find him a kind of colossus. You know he's got muscles like watermelons and muscles on his chest like a range of mountains.

Go see a great mythologist. Maybe you have. Then about us carrying the world on his back, Hercules kicking a range of mountains over. Or if you're not so well educated, Jack and the Beanstalk, let me come down to your level.

But every man is different. He's a Hercules, he's a colossus. Now I don't think women are stupid, always. Can you imagine a woman looking up to a man 19 feet, you see here's a picture, here is the average man in Israel, and here is Saul head and shoulders above the average man, and here is Goliath head and shoulders above the man who's taller than the rest of them, and here is a colossal Samson up there.

Now you can't imagine a woman going to a man and saying, I say buddy what's the secret of your great strength? It's pretty obvious that you'd think a man, I'm not going to suggest he was no bigger than the staff here, that wouldn't be right.

But by the same token I don't think he was six feet six or six foot seven. He was a normal man doing abnormal things, and everybody asked the question. You lock him up in a city, he carries half the city away with him.

He meets a lion and destroys it. Two thousand men come from West Point, he picks up the jawbone of an ass and slays them. When I said in one meeting the Lord doesn't use the jawbone of an ass anymore, one of those nasty little ladies on the front seat said he does a dark church every Sunday.

But the jawbone of an ass? I was sure he wasn't a giant. I always thought he, I have a bible and it has a picture of Samson. He was a huge man. I'll tell you why, because the sign is written outside of your church there, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit self the Lord of hosts.

Again the word of God says the lame take the prey, and to those who have no might increase the strength. Again the word of God says he takes the things that are not to bring to naught the things that are that no flesh should glory in this present.

He was a normal man doing abnormal things. He's an embarrassment to his enemies. He's a very epitome, he's a very answer to that text that says that when you're walking in the spirit no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, or that in all things we are more than conquerors through him.

You see over and over and over again it says in his life the most precious thing you can say of any man this side of it, and I would rather have this than you give me a check for ten billion dollars tonight.

But it says it's whatever this man does what nobody else could do. It says of him the spirit of the Lord rested mightily upon him, and you can't get that by college or seminary. It's still God's prerogative to give it to those who are hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and so desperate that they'll do what this man did at the end of the story and find out.

The woman says what is the secret of thy great strength? What do you have that nobody else has? What's the mystery? The way you have this energy and it's supernatural power. You see the church began by being supernatural, she's ending by being superficial.

She began in the upper room with a bunch of men agonizing, and she's ending in the supper room with a bunch of women organizing. The world doesn't ask us this question anymore does it? What is the secret of thy great strength?

He gives the answer, he says if you fasten me verse seven, if you fasten me with seven green whips that were never dried, then I shall be like another man. No I wish he didn't say that, he didn't. What did he say?

He said if you fasten me with some of those vines that climb around the trees, if they're green and they're not brittles, strap me up with them. And if you fasten me with seven green whips, I shall be a rebel.

No no no he doesn't say that. He says then I shall be weak like other men. You know the greatest curse of modern Christianity is that there are too many of us that are too much alike. We've settled for normality.

Oh we reach for the stars in business. A fellow says I'm not going to sit behind this desk all the time, I'm going to own the business. A fellow goes to university and says I want to graduate with honors.

The athlete will live all his life. Look at that fellow Mark Spitz. Oh yes he may be earning five million, he has his own yacht and everything now. But I notice he says for the last four years particularly, eight years in all, I spent no less than eight hours in the water every day.

I was determined I'd do what no other man did. And I tell you this for nothing, an experience of God that costs nothing, is worth nothing, it does nothing. If you're going to get this anointing by the Holy Ghost then keep it.

You'll have to wade through blood and fire to get it. You'll have to face hell to keep it after you've got that anointing. For the devil doesn't fear organizing, he fears agonizing. He doesn't mind our brilliance, our genius, our intellectual power.

He fears that somehow we link our impotence to omnipotence. And that won't cost you a penny except a broken heart. It may cost some of you boys a few silly hours with your girlfriends. The other night God moved on that church in Merritt Island and many young people came forward, maybe 60 people came out one night.

There was a moonlight madness sale and the lady with us at the time, they wanted to get some bargains, we went along. This young lady came up to me breathless in the mall there and she said by the way you know the devil's doing all he can to keep me from praying.

I met a lady the next day and she said you know I just met one of our young kids, a girl 16, that trusted God to fill her with the Spirit last night and she went home and prayed the whole night through.

That's 16 years of age. Does that sound foreign to you? Maybe 16, never did that. And at the boy's 17 he said Reagan said this is the first time in my life I've invited the Holy Ghost to take full control of my life.

I met another teenager joyously and he says my this is transforming, God has come into my life as never before. I went to get a hair trim the other day, he ducked, oh my God. As we came out my wife and I met a fine looking man, he said Brother Reagan, man he said I could shout and leap down this mall, I've been looking for answers and I found the answer to spiritual power and anointing this week.

I'm a new man, I'm energized by the Spirit of God. Fasten me with seven green ropes. They fasten him, he gets up. That's not the secret. No he says fasten me with seven new ropes. And they fasten him and he gets out.

Because he said if you fasten me with ropes I'll be weak like those other guys around here. But they fasten him, he gets up. Now he did have to wear long hair. He was a Nazirite. A Nazirite had three things incumbent upon him.

He could not drink wine, a sign of worldly pleasure. He could not touch anything dead, a sign of people who are dead in trespasses and in sin. He could not have his hair cut. Now just having long hair isn't the secret of power.

If it was, many of our churches would explode. No, no, it's not a case of long hair. What's the secret? Somebody asked me that in the office. I'll tell you what the secret is of the Christian life. For tonight, next night, every night of your life, trust and obey, there's no other way.

I don't care if you go to theological seminary. I don't care how much learning you have. The whole secret is this, trust and obey, there's no other way. What celebrity says to you, do it. When I was youth leader in the church I went to, we had a tremendous time.

We had many people saved. We had fantastic meetings. And I remember asking God to take full control of my life. But it meant parting company with girlfriends and boys. Or you've read about Sherwood Forest and the fellow that used to go around there robbing thugs.

Well I didn't go robbing anybody. I went into Sherwood Forest to pray that night. Took my mother's little pedigree dog. I walked over the golf links. I got down under the wild bracken, the wild fern. I got up in the mornings, particularly Sundays.

While everybody else slept, I went across into the forest, got under the bushes and prayed. And if I've had any secret in my life, the only thing I know is that I've given God time, all the time I could, to talk to me as well as me to talk to him.

Fastening with rocks? No. Fastening with weeds? No. Unlock my hair and fasten it to a beam and then when you get my hair fastened there, I'll be powerless. And they did that. And he shook his head and nearly pulled the house down.

And then she said, now that's not the secret. And he said, no. And you know what she did? It's an old trick women have if they can't get their own way. She pulled these stops out. You know what she said?

You don't love me. And of course he said, oh yes I do. Oh yes, I'll tell you what my secret is. My secret is I'm a Nazarite. I've kept every vow that God has asked me. I haven't touched wine, I haven't touched anything dead, I haven't had my hair cut.

And with the instinct that women have, she knew right there she'd got his secret. Now she had said repeatedly to him, the Philistines will be upon thee. You know that you can cut this man's life down into three simple things?

First, what did they do? They bided him. Secondly, what? They blabbersized. Thirdly, live in the basements and make him pray round and round and round and round. But wait a minute, there's something else.

The Lion, Spiritual Warfare, and the Power of Prayer

If Samson is a type of a spiritual man, and I'm persuaded he is, if Samson's a type of a spirit anointed church, and I'm sure he is, then look in the chapter it says that he was going to pray to Timnath all that way.

Didn't make any difference, the road was just as short, because he was going to see his girlfriend. The road's never long when you're going to see her. But he must not go that way. Why not? Because there's a lion in the way.

Now if Samson is a type of a spirit anointed person, the lion must be a type of the devil, who goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And when Samson went down the road, the lion thought, boy, my, I'm going to have a good lunch today.

Look at this fellow coming. I'm just going to tear him up. And Samson thought the same thing. He's going to tear the lion up. He had his mother and father with him, and he said, Mummy, Daddy, would you sit round the corner, I've just got a little bit of business to do.

And when they went round the corner, he took hold of the lion as though it were a kid of the goats, and he ripped it apart. And he threw it down. Wonderful, but the next statement in the verse is more wonderful.

It says that after he destroyed the lion, he said nothing about it. I'm sure a woman wouldn't have done it like that, but anyhow, Samson destroyed the lion, and he said nothing about it. Oh, if we'd destroyed the lion, we'd have photographed it.

We'd have stretched it out, it would be the longest, strongest, heaviest, fiercest, terriblest lion in the whole world. And I killed it all by myself. He slew a lion. He pushed the devil back, and he said nothing about it.

I'm looking for a revival, and I'm sure it's coming. A Holy Ghost tidal wave that's going to engulf the whole world, and we're going to have such a revival that no man will steal the glory. He slew the lion.

Let me ask you a simple question. Not so simple. All right. Do you push the devil around, or does he push you around? In Australia, a lady said to me after one service, Mr. Ravenhill, I've had a terrible day today.

I said, you look, I've never seen a more miserable face. Mr. Ravenhill, do you know what happened today? I said, no, I couldn't guess. When I got out of bed this morning, the devil was standing on the rug on the side of my bed, and he's never left me all day.

I said, lady, how conceited can you get? After all, if the devil's been in your home all day, he hasn't been anywhere else in the world. Satan can't be in two places at the same time. God can, Satan can't.

Demons might be. He might sublet certain areas, but Satan can't. I looked her straight in the eye, and I said, lady, you say Satan's been with you all day. I seriously doubt he even knows you're living.

Does he know you're living? I got saved when I was 14 years of age. I never doubted it, never been ashamed of it, talked around the world about it. According to this book, when I was born again, my name was written in the book of life.

I'd like to get it written somewhere else, not in Westminster Abbey. I've never been a competitive preacher. I don't care whether you think I'm the worst you've ever heard or the best. It won't move me either way.

I say what God wants me to say. But I'd like to get my name written somewhere. Do you remember in the days of the Apostle Paul, he cast demons out of some people? Jesus did that. Everything that Jesus did, Paul did.

And one day he cast demons out of a person. Do you remember the time when Jesus cast demons out of a man that had a legion of them in him? And if you take demons out of a person, you must put them somewhere.

They can't live disembodied. They can't float in the air. They have to occupy something or somebody. And you remember that Jesus took a legion of demons out of a man. And if you think pigs aren't smarter than men, tell me this.

When he put the demons in him, they committed suicide in about 40 seconds. The man had had the devil in him for years and he wasn't smart enough to commit suicide or bad enough. But the pigs would leave by the devil.

And hell is so bad, the demons said, don't send us back from whence we came. Now, one man one day said, I'm not getting on. I'd like to be famous. I'd like to do something. And somebody said, you find a man with a demon in him.

Cast the demon out. This is what you do. You say, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, come out of him, the demon will come out. And the man tried it and it worked. The demon came out of the man. But he never sent the demon anywhere.

So the demon turned around and he beat up the preacher. Kicked him, bruised him, and finally he came back and he said, listen preacher. Jesus I know. And Paul I know. I never heard of you. I think the most embarrassing thing of all the embarrassments, to quote Dr. Tozer again, I can remember him saying to me one day, Len, not many of us are going to stand erect at the judgment seat of Christ with all our talk and all our boasting.

Not many of us will lift our unblushing heads. Most of us will bow our heads in the presence of a holy God. I think the most terrible moment of trembling. When we stand there alone, without your pastor, without your wife, without your husband, you stand there as an individual.

Remember you have as big a Bible as I have or anybody else has ever lived and you have to give an account to God for this word that he gave you. The most embarrassing thing will be when God calls Satan to bear witness.

I wonder, I wonder what he'll say. I wonder if he'll say, Jesus I know and Paul I know and Rachel I know. Will he say he knows you? Do you ever draw a line and take your rights in Jesus Christ and draw a line by the precious blood and then put the promises of God against it and the power of the Spirit and say, yes Satan you shall not pass that line.

When I was a boy in a little church I attended in England they used to talk a great deal about Pastor Fetler of Latvia. Latvia got absorbed in the United States and Soviet Russia. They used to talk to some degree about a German, Pastor Blumhart.

Blumhart was reading the word of God one day, a terrible statement. You see when all I was asking God to do something, God said do it. He said Lord tie up the powers of Satan and Jesus said listen I give you power over all the power of the enemy.

And they sent to Blumhart and said there's a girl down the road there, she's demon possessed. She sits up in bed, she'll tear her clothes, pull her hair, she uses the most obscene language, she vomits some green stuff out of her mouth and she's the most terrible person we've ever met.

And he went along and stood over that girl and demanded her deliverance and nothing happened. He went to second bed like that, she was delivered. He became famous for casting out demons. One day they asked him to go to a girl many miles away and he went.

The girl sat up in bed and laughed and screamed the most devilish, hideous noises he'd ever heard in his life. And everything he said the demon counteracted. And every time he said you come out the demon said I won't.

And every time he pled the blood of Jesus the demon said some obscene things about Jesus Christ. Because a long story short, this man was so determined that he'd exercise his authority over all the power of this.

That he went to that girl's bedroom eight hours a day for two years. Every day he had a woman sit outside of the bedroom so nobody could say there was anything wrong going on. And he'd decide that demon and the demon and all the demons in hell laughed at him.

He took toll of his body, he would sweat, he would almost bleed. Another preacher said why don't you give up, this girl's beyond hope. You think it doesn't happen? Listen I spent two years in the subculture of New York with David Wilkerson editing his paper.

I've seen some of the most beautiful girls in America. They used to sing in the choir and they could recite scriptures when I saw them. They could sing hymns without a hymn book. I remember a girl we had there, demon possessed.

She'd been to one of the great school smiths of Athens. She had more culture and refinement and dignity than any girl I've seen practically. And she played around, acted with sex, acted with drugs. Demons got a hold of her.