October 28, 2024 • 36 mins
The spiritual realm is real—angels, demons, heaven, and hell all exist beyond what we can perceive with our natural senses. God operates in this supernatural realm, and it's natural for us to be curious about it. In fact, God invites us to seek Him and explore these mysteries, but with a clear focus on Him alone. The Bible provides specific guidance on engaging with the supernatural, warning that ignoring His Word can leave us vulnerable to the enemy—Satan, who seeks to kill, steal, and destroy. Join host Jodie Chiricosta as she explores God’s instructions on the supernatural and shares remarkable stories of people who have experienced supernatural encounters.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey friends, welcome to the Her God Story podcast.
(00:03):
I'm your host, Jodie Chiricosta,
ministry leader at Somebody Cares America and International,
author and traveler on this journey with Jesus.
I'm so glad you tuned in to this episode.
I know you will be encouraged, inspired,
and equipped today in your walk with the Lord.
Have you downloaded your free six week devotional
on Women of the Bible at hergodstory.org?
(00:24):
If not, make sure you get it.
God will use it to minister to you in so many ways.
We also have a 12 week devotional on Women of the Bible
that you can purchase for just $12
and all the proceeds will go to our Widow and Orphan Fund.
So check them out.
If this is your first time listening,
I hope you will enjoy it
and check out other inspiring episodes.
(00:46):
Every one of them has a powerful message
of how God is working in lives of people just like you.
And please tell your friends about her God's story
so they can be encouraged in their faith too.
The spiritual world is real.
Angels, demons, heaven, hell, those are all real.
(01:07):
God operates in the supernatural realm.
That is a realm beyond what our natural senses perceive.
So it's normal for us to be curious
and want to find out more.
God even welcomes that interest
as long as it is focused on him and him alone.
He gives some very clear instructions
(01:27):
about interacting with the supernatural realm in the Bible.
Those who do not heed his word regarding supernatural things
can open a door in their lives for the attacks of Satan.
And he's the one who kills, steals and destroys.
So let's take a look at some of God's instructions
about the supernatural realm
and then hear some stories of people
(01:47):
who have had supernatural encounters.
When the people of Israel were getting ready
to enter the promised land,
God gave them some guidance through Moses.
Deuteronomy 18, 9 through 13 in the NLT reads,
be very careful not to imitate the detestable customs
of the nations living there.
(02:07):
For example, never sacrifice your son or daughter
as a burnt offering.
I'll stop there for a minute and comment.
None of you I'm sure have ever considered
burning your children as a worship to some God.
It's unthinkable, but this warning begins the list.
So the rest of the items on the list
are equally detestable to God.
(02:28):
I'll continue reading.
And do not let your people practice fortune telling
or use sorcery or interpret omens
or engage in witchcraft or cast spells
or function as mediums or psychics
or call forth the spirits of the dead.
Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord.
(02:51):
It is because the other nations
have done these detestable things
that the Lord your God will drive them out ahead of you.
These things all fall under the category of the occult.
So what are some of the modern day versions
of the things listed?
I came across an article by John Piper
that defines the occult and also lists some elements of it.
(03:13):
I hope it will help you determine other activities
that also follow this list.
So you can stay away from them as well.
John Piper in his blog, Jesus versus the occult
says, I designate anything as belonging to the occult
that involves dealings with the world of spirits
or of supra natural forces,
which dealings are not oriented on Jesus
(03:36):
as he has revealed in the Bible.
With this definition,
I am assuming the reality of a spiritual world
and of mysterious supra normal forces.
I'm assuming that the church makes a grave mistake
when it says that supra natural phenomena
are restricted to another age
or that only godly people can work miracles.
(03:56):
Such a mistake lays the church open
to the power of evil precisely
because it refuses to recognize the presence of that power.
This definition is also intentionally very broad.
I mean to include everything
for the most blatant Satan worship
to the most commonly accepted use of horoscopes.
As examples, I would mention seances, necromancy
(04:19):
and all forms of communicating with the dead, PSI, ESP
and all forms of supra natural psychic phenomena,
real magic as opposed to sleight of hand tricks,
fortune telling, the casting of spells,
wearing of charms, the use of Ouija boards, astrology, etc.
John Piper goes on to explain that our involvement
(04:41):
in the occult belittles God in our eyes
while exalting mankind.
It belittles God because our actions tell him
that we believe he is inadequate to reveal mysteries
or to truly protect and care for us.
Instead, those who dabble or delve into the occult
look to Satan and his demons
for answers, protection and pleasure.
(05:02):
And when you invite Satan to give you anything,
he can come in and torment you in many ways
unless and until you close that door.
I heard the Deuteronomy scripture when I was a young girl,
very thankfully, and I took it seriously.
I no longer wanted to participate in Halloween,
which glorifies witches, ghosts and supra natural forces
(05:24):
that are not of God.
When friends pulled out a Ouija board, I went home.
I never looked at a horoscope, even for fun.
I did not go to movies or watch TV shows
that glorify the occult themes.
I still don't.
You might think it's all just fun and games,
but the supernatural realm is very real
and God does not think it is fun.
(05:44):
He knows how harmful involvement in the occult is
to you and your relationship with him.
I certainly do not judge you for your choices.
Only God can do that,
but know that all choices have consequences.
So be aware that when you are making choices
for you and your family,
(06:05):
you are the one who gets the consequences good or bad.
First Samuel 28 tells a very interesting story
about the occult.
Samuel, the prophet of the king, had died,
so King Saul could not get counsel from him anymore.
Of course, there were priests serving the Lord
and other prophets of the Lord in the land,
but Saul really did not want to hear from the Lord.
(06:25):
He wanted to hear from Samuel.
Now Saul himself had banned all witches, mediums,
and spiritists from the land
as the Lord had told the people of Israel to do,
but Saul snuck out one night and found a medium,
a woman who was known to be able to communicate
with the spirits of the dead.
Some translations refer to her as the witch of Endor.
(06:47):
Saul convinced her to call Samuel up from the dead
so he could talk to Samuel,
and she was actually able to do it.
Verses 15 through 19 record the conversation
dead Samuel has with Saul.
Not long after that encounter,
Saul went into battle and was killed.
1 Chronicles 10, 13 tells us why.
(07:09):
The NLT reads,
Saul died because he was unfaithful to the Lord.
He did not keep the word of the Lord
and even consulted a medium for guidance.
I tell you this to convince you of the reality
of the spiritual world
and that there are very real consequences.
Nadine Nesbitt is an engineer, very analytical,
(07:31):
not prone to hysteria or mystical thoughts.
So when demonic creatures showed up in her room,
she was terrified
and the power of God was the only answer.
Take a listen to her story.
Well, I was in my mid to late 20s
when a young man invited me on a date
to a place called Magic Island.
And it was an entertainment type venue
(07:54):
where they had magic shows, illusionists.
They also had a room where they had,
what I describe now is different occultic services
that they offered.
They had a tarot card reader.
There was a Ouija board table that you could play.
There was a place to get your palm read,
all that type of stuff that was in there.
(08:15):
My date had decided to get his palm read
and he wanted me to do it with him
but quite frankly, that dark atmosphere
kind of creeped me out.
And so I declined, you know?
But he went ahead and did it.
But later that night after I came home,
I turned the lights out in my room
and was just settling into falling asleep
(08:37):
when all of a sudden demonic creatures appeared in my room.
I could see them physically with my eyes.
I hadn't been drinking, I didn't do drugs.
They were a reality.
They were there, they were right in front of my face.
So something followed me home that day
and there were a lot of small creatures
that were flying around the room
but there was one large head
(08:58):
that appeared at the foot of my bed.
I would describe it now, years later,
as the face that you would see on one of those orcs
from Lord of the Rings.
It was a very grotesque, very ugly and very scary.
So that kind of freaked me out.
And so what did your scientific mind think?
I didn't know what to think.
I just got up out of bed, I turned on the lights.
(09:22):
I was scared, quite frankly.
And so what I did was I had a Bible.
It was one of those Bibles with the zipper around the edges.
And I put it on the pillow next to me
because I thought it would protect me.
I'd never opened it.
It was still zippered up
but it was on my pillow next to me for protection.
And then I decided to turn on the TV to Christian Channel.
(09:45):
I just had that Christian Channel on.
And I slept that way for close to a year.
I had the Christian TV going on in the background
and never really sat down to listen to it.
It was there on,
because I thought that would offer me some protection.
Yeah, so I mean, deep in your heart,
you knew that there was a spiritual realm
(10:07):
but you didn't really want to go there.
Right, exactly.
I didn't want to investigate.
I didn't know how to investigate.
And I never heard of anything like that before.
So yeah, you're right.
So, but one day, I often did shift work,
working in mission control
because you work around the clock,
supporting shuttle missions.
And I had one of my colleagues that lived
in the same apartment complex.
(10:28):
And he noticed that my light was on all night.
You know, every time he passed by my apartment
after his shift was over, he would notice,
I don't know why, he would notice my light was on.
So he actually stopped me one day at work and said,
Nadeen, are you afraid of the dark?
Well, yes, but I couldn't tell him that.
(10:49):
So I decided that I was being crazy.
And I decided that night I was gonna turn my light off
and sleep like a normal person.
And when I did, those demonic creatures
reappeared in my room.
But this time they were, I would say, more aggressive.
They actually came to me as I laid in bed
and I felt a shove.
(11:11):
I felt, and I actually, my body was moving.
So there was some kind of real entity in my room
shoving me, moving me.
So even though all that time of having that Christian TV
on the TV, I never sat and listened to it,
I was hearing it.
I was hearing what they were saying.
And one of the things I remembered in that moment
(11:32):
was someone had said on that Christian TV
that there's power in the name of Jesus.
So I called out, I shouted Jesus.
And the instant I did, those creatures left my room.
They were gone in an instant.
It was very, very powerful display
of the power of the name of Jesus.
(11:53):
And you still didn't know him as your savior,
but just the use of his name.
Just the use of his name was so very powerful.
When that happened, I jumped out of bed, of course,
because now I was excited because I had learned
the power of Jesus' name.
And so I thought, I need to know more about this Jesus.
(12:14):
Bolted out of bed, turned on the TV,
and there was Paul Crouch on TVN.
And he was quoting from Isaiah 64.
He's saying, all a righteous acts are like filthy rags.
And then he quoted from Romans 3.23,
for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
(12:35):
Well, I was arrogant enough to just have this thought come
into my head that he couldn't be possibly talking about me.
Well, I thought, I didn't sin.
I was a good girl.
You know, what is he talking about?
When have I ever sinned?
These are the questions that were going in my mind.
(12:55):
And then it happened.
I found myself in a white room with God sitting
on his throne in front of me.
I didn't actually see God.
I just knew that it was God that was sitting in front of me.
The Lord suddenly gave me a life review.
It started with my childhood.
It seemingly lasted for hours.
But I had these flashbacks of every place
(13:18):
that I had fallen short of the glory of God.
And it just wrecked me.
It just left me on the floor in a puddle, weeping.
I was having some carpet time at that time.
And it really did seem like it went on for hours and hours
as you can imagine a life review would.
But then I've started feeling a sense of despair.
(13:41):
Like, what can I do now?
And so that's what I asked.
I said, well, what can I do now?
And what can I do to be saved?
And just as I was thinking that, I heard Paul crouch his voice.
And he said, you might be thinking right now,
what can I do to be saved?
And then he led in a prayer of repentance and of salvation.
(14:04):
So that night, I became a new creature in Christ
when I prayed that prayer and asked the Lord
to become my Lord.
Wow.
I knew him personally now.
And did those creatures ever come back?
They never came back.
Never, never, never.
No.
Before Nadine knew Christ, she was tormented by demons
after just visiting a place where the occult was practiced.
(14:25):
Once she gave her life to the Lord, however,
they did not bother her again.
But Satan will take every opportunity
he can to target Christians as well as unbelievers.
So we need to know how to stand against his attacks.
Mary Nelson learned how to do that
when Satan tried to do his destructive work in her life.
Let's hear her story.
(14:47):
So during that time, you also began
to learn about spiritual warfare and Christ's power in us
to defeat the works of Satan.
What were a couple of those experiences?
Debbie and Mark started going to Christian school
when they were in middle school.
And one of the things they did was have Bible class.
And they were studying the Word of God.
And they studied about Old Testament and New Testament.
(15:09):
One of the things they studied was about the occult
and not to be involved in it.
Well, we had purchased a beautiful globe bar
when we were in Europe.
And one day, the children were standing around the globe bar
looking at it.
And notice that there was signs of the zodiac all over this bar.
(15:29):
And they pointed it out to us.
And we're aghast that we would have such a thing in our house.
So we decided we'd better get rid of it.
So we took all the liquor out, put it in the cupboard.
At that time, we still weren't convicted about drinking.
But we got rid of that globe bar, put it out in the driveway.
And our neighbor happened to see it.
And she came over and asked what we were doing with it.
(15:52):
And dad said we were going to get rid of it.
She said, well, can I buy it?
He said, oh, no.
She said, well, how about if I buy it
and you could donate the money to your church?
And he said, oh, no, I would not sell a snake to a friend.
So he put that globe bar in the back of the car
and took it out to the Kent's home
where people were gathering together their occultic things.
(16:14):
And we were going to have a bonfire like the book of Acts.
Yeah.
Spoke about.
I remember that bonfire.
And in addition to that globe, we also went through the house.
And anything that we felt convicted about,
we pulled it off the shelf, books or albums or cassette tapes.
(16:37):
And you pulled out the Halloween clothes and Halloween
things to get rid of.
No one told you about that one, Jody.
You just did that on your own.
Yeah, we were convicted at six.
Convicted that we didn't want anything
to do with anything related to Satan, demonic forces.
And we got rid of it out of our house.
And there was a change in the environment in our home
(16:59):
after that.
Yeah, there definitely was.
There was a time that I hired a piano tuner.
We had purchased an old upright German grand piano
when we were in England, which children took
piano lessons on.
So when we moved back to Tampa after moving across the ocean
and coming into a different climate,
that piano needed to be retuned.
(17:21):
So I had asked Dad if we could have it retuned.
And he didn't say anything in the time that I thought he should.
So I just went ahead and hired someone on my own
without even asking him.
I just did it.
Well, the man came out that I hired.
And as he was tuning the piano, he would visit with me.
(17:42):
And he would tell me about these senses that he was attending.
And some of the weird things that were going on all fall,
he thought they were wonderful.
He told me a lot of occultic things.
And I would try and squeeze in little testimonies
about the Lord.
But he was more determined to talk about seances.
So after that day of tuning, he said,
(18:03):
he'd like to come back in two weeks after your children had
played the piano for a while.
And the keys were, or the strings were stretched.
And he would readjust the tuning.
So in two weeks, he came back.
And of course, there was more stories
about the seances and occultic experiences.
And anyway, after that, I paid him and he left.
(18:25):
But that night, during the night,
I developed a severe side ache, which bothered me all night long
and into the next day.
So I called a friend and asked for prayer.
And her husband came out that afternoon.
He was in ministry.
He prayed for me.
And then he suggested that dad pray through our house.
(18:45):
So after he left and dad came home, we had dinner
and went on to bed.
And during the night, I just, that side ache
started getting so bad, I woke up and encouraged him
to take me to the emergency room.
So as he was getting dressed to take me to the emergency room,
a scripture reference came to my attention.
(19:09):
And I didn't know what it said.
I just knew what the reference was.
And it was from Chronicles.
I think it was 2 Chronicles 16 too.
So I asked dad if he would please read the Bible
just to see what it said.
So he stopped getting dressed and he read the scripture.
And the scripture said Asa, talking about King Asa,
(19:34):
he became diseased in his feet.
And his malady was severe.
Yet in his disease, he did not seek the Lord,
but the physicians and he died.
And after he read that, I thought, maybe we better not
go to the hospital.
Maybe we just better pray.
And then I remembered our friend suggesting that I have Gary
(19:55):
walk around the house and pray.
So I mentioned it to him and he did.
He walked around the house to pray.
And as he got into our living room near the piano,
the hairs on his arms and legs stood up like static electricity.
He could feel it.
So anyway, he just prayed around the circle of our house
and walking around.
(20:16):
And every time he came past that piano through the living room,
he could sense that sensation of static electricity.
But as he prayed and commanded spiritual forces of wickedness
to leave in the name of Jesus, it became less and less and less.
And finally it was gone.
So he came back to bed, told me what happened,
(20:37):
and we both went to sleep.
A couple hours later, I woke up and I
just felt like the Lord let me know that I was healed.
And I was.
It was gone.
So I did have a spiritual lesson on that one.
Yeah.
And it's not that you're against going to the doctors.
I mean, we've all gone to the doctor since then.
But this was seeking the Lord.
(20:57):
And it was a spiritual issue.
It was a spiritual attack on you that had been opened up
by that piano tuner experience.
Well, actually, Jody, what the Lord showed me
and reminded me that I had ordered that sterling silver
in England without asking dad.
(21:18):
And here I had hired a piano tuner without asking him.
But I had been hearing that I should respect and honor
my husband and learn submission.
But I also heard that God healed.
So we experienced that night spiritual warfare.
I had opened myself up to that by doing something
that I shouldn't have done by hiring that man to come
(21:43):
and tune the piano.
Not that you not that hiring a piano tuner was was wrong.
But you know, you was my attitude.
You were doing it out of defiance.
Defiance.
Yeah.
So I learned that.
And I also learned that God healed and loved me.
Yeah.
And he forgave me.
And that that encounter with really laid a foundation
(22:04):
of understanding of how to address spiritual forces
that we needed a couple of years later when we lived in Utah.
That's right, Jody.
We moved into a haunted house, actually purchased
a haunted house unknowingly.
(22:24):
We didn't realize it was haunted.
But I experienced depression in that house.
And sometimes during the day when everyone else was gone,
I just felt like crying.
And it was not like me.
And then Debbie was experiencing insomnia.
She was on the swim team in high school and needed her sleep.
(22:46):
But she couldn't sleep well.
So it was a real strain for her to participate on the swim team
without sleeping.
And then one night, Mark, whose basement was down
in the lower part of the house and basement,
came upstairs to the bathroom.
And when he was going back down the steps,
(23:07):
he just fenced that if he went down those steps,
he'd go crazy.
And Mark wasn't like that.
He was a very stable, sharp guy.
So he came upstairs to our bedroom
and explained to us what was happening.
But we just told him to go sleep in one
of the other single beds upstairs.
And we'd pray about it.
Well, we did pray about it.
And while we were praying, this was Dad and I.
(23:27):
While we were praying, we had a mini vision of imps
with coalsacks on their backs.
We felt like maybe the next day we should just pray
through our house, which we did do.
All five of us prayed through our house,
starting down in the basement right next to the furnace, which
had been a coal furnace at one time
(23:47):
and converted to a gas furnace.
Yeah, we actually had a coal room back in there.
And we did.
And it was a storage room.
So we actually started praying in that storage room
and commanded those spiritual forces of wickedness
and named them according to what we felt like they were,
commanded them to leave in the name of Jesus,
(24:09):
walk through every room of the house doing the same thing.
Then we anointed the doors with oil
and went to the ends of our property,
each corner of the property, anointed it with oil
and prayed scripture over each one,
dedicating our property and home to the Lord.
And peace returned.
As believers, we have authority to stand
(24:31):
against the attacks of the enemy.
But we must make sure that we have closed any spiritual doors
that we may have opened knowingly or unknowingly.
As Mary shared, my family got rid of occultic items
we had all around our home, things that were purchased
before we even came to Christ.
But like the Christians in Acts 19,
(24:51):
once we realized that the occult was a doorway for Satan,
we got rid of it all.
My mom also repented of times when she had looked at horoscopes
and played with Ouija boards when she was young.
And that closed the spiritual access Satan had into our lives.
And we had the authority given to us by Jesus
to command Satan in Jesus' name to get out and stay out.
(25:14):
Ephesians 6-12 in the New Living Translation tells us,
for we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies,
but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world,
against mighty powers in this dark world,
and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.
So these things should not surprise us or even scare us.
(25:36):
James 4-7 instructs us to humble ourselves before God,
resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
This is exactly what Mary and our family did.
We humbled ourselves by getting rid of the things
the Lord directed us to get rid of.
Then we could resist the devil effectively,
so he had to flee.
(25:57):
And in Luke 10-19 in the New Living Translation,
Jesus says, I have given you authority over all the power
of the enemy.
And you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them.
Nothing will injure you.
You remember from Genesis, of course,
that Satan was referred to as a serpent.
So Jesus has given us authority over him and all his power,
(26:20):
as long as we stay submitted to Christ.
God also sends angels to care for us.
Luke 4-11 tells of angels that cared for Jesus
after he resisted the temptations of Satan in the wilderness.
Sometimes angels are sent to announce his plans,
like they did to Daniel, Mary, the mother of Jesus,
(26:41):
Zechariah, and others.
They also come to guard and protect us,
as it says in Psalm 91 verses 11 through 12.
The NLT reads, for he will order his angels
to protect you wherever you go.
They will hold you up with their hand
so that you won't even hurt your foot on a stone.
(27:02):
And while angels are supernatural beings,
we certainly should never worship them.
Colossians 2-18 warns against that.
Angels are clearly active on the earth today,
although most of us will probably never visibly see them.
We can trust, however, that God has sent them for our benefit.
A few people I know have actually encountered angels.
(27:25):
Victoria Sarvati is one of them.
Listen to this and be encouraged.
This was my death experience.
I was in intensive care.
They were working hard to stabilize me.
Apparently, something went wrong, and I started coding.
And I started following what I say is my time in space,
my time in this life, my time in this world.
(27:46):
What I'm going to say doesn't make a whole lot of sense
in the natural, because it was spiritual.
There's hardly any words to explain.
Sometimes what I say, some people say it sounds New Age.
It's not New Age.
It was an experience that was supernatural.
That's all I can tell you.
But it's like I fell through my own universe.
I fell through congruent lines of time and space that were mine.
(28:09):
What do I mean by that?
Well, we live in time and space.
God lives in timelessness outside of time.
And He gives each of us a time to live and a time to die.
As I was going through what I understood, even at that time,
was my future universe, where I'm going to spend my time while
(28:29):
I'm in this body, in what space I'm going to be in.
It was like there were these congruent lines of decisions
I could make in my life.
If I made this decision, then this would happen.
All these different choices I had in my future
and my future would have, within it, blessings.
And then sometimes it would just be darkness.
(28:50):
And I would see all these things as I was going through it.
And I understood that these places where the lines met
were my choices.
And some of those choices were full of what
I call precious gems, gems of great price,
gems of understanding, knowledge.
What I witnessed in my life to make it be a testimony,
I saw these places all along the way in my own universe
(29:13):
that I would experience.
And then at the very end of that tunnel
was a huge wealth of precious gems, like gold,
like greater than rubies.
But all of this is through the choices and the wisdom
that we get from the Lord.
It's not physical.
It's not monetary gain that we get.
But it is all spiritual gain and wonderful riches
(29:35):
that we get as we experience our life in this time
and space that we occupy.
And so anyway, I was at the end of that tunnel.
I came out and I was now in the ICU,
the intensive care unit at Methodist Hospital.
And I was barbed to my body.
And I couldn't move any further than where I was.
(29:57):
I was above it.
And next to me was an angel.
And I knew the angel by name.
I called him by name.
His name was Parrots.
And I didn't know at the time what that name meant.
But I do, once I started taking Hebrew years later,
it's the one who stands in the gap.
Hebrew is interesting too, because it also takes,
just by changing little jot or tittle, a vowel sound,
(30:19):
you can change that word into an opposite meaning.
And so, parets can also mean,
porets can mean one who breaks through.
And so the one who stands in the gap
and the one who breaks through is the one I was talking to.
And if you understand, and I didn't know this then,
later on I found out that a messianic reference
(30:40):
in the Jewish understanding comes from Melachi,
where he says that the Son of Righteousness
comes with healing in his wings.
And it also says that he's the breaker.
But where he breaks through, it's the breaker
that breaks through.
It's a messianic reference of the Messiah.
That is a very interesting aspect that I found later
(31:02):
that it wasn't just an angel,
but it was the angel of the Lord that appeared to me.
And somebody said, well, you can't see God.
And if you do, you die.
And I said, well, yeah, I was dead.
So I couldn't really see his face actually,
because there was so much light radiating from it
that you knew there was a face behind that light.
(31:25):
But it was beautiful.
And we were able to communicate.
And he told me that I was,
this was the mandate that you mentioned,
that I was to go back, because I really didn't want to.
I wanted to go see my child.
I said, where's my baby?
He says, he's on the lap of the father.
He says, but you're gonna go back.
And you're going to go through that time and space,
you know, that continuum, that time continuum,
that is already designed for your life.
(31:47):
And you're going to experience all these things in real time.
And I said, well, that's okay.
I really like it here.
I tried to reason with him.
So I really didn't want to stay.
And he says, no, it's been ordained.
These gifts are irrevocable.
You're going to receive all that God has planned for you.
And you're going to teach others what you understand.
(32:08):
I had no choice.
And then he says, besides this,
the Lord has granted the prayers of saints
that are praying for you.
About that later, there were all kinds of prayer vigils
and intercessors that were praying for me
at that point in time.
So I felt myself being brought back.
I woke up a little bit later.
Those of us who've been brought up
with the Western worldview often discount
(32:29):
the supernatural world.
Yes, we believe in God, probably even angels and demons,
but we have a hard time believing
that the supernatural world impacts
or is active in our lives.
But it is.
The supernatural world is very real.
And the occult is not harmless fun and games.
You will experience very real consequences in the natural
(32:54):
if you open that door in your life.
Like Saul did when he visited the Witch of Endor,
a woman who knew the power of the supernatural world
but was on the wrong side.
If you already have opened that door in some way,
there's a very effective remedy.
I already mentioned it.
James four verse seven tells us,
submit yourself to God, which includes repentance
(33:15):
and removal if necessary of occultic items.
Then you can resist the devil and he will flee.
When we focus on our great and loving God,
we do not need charms or crystals
or fortune tellers or magic.
Put your full trust in the Lord to guide you
and to lead you even through painful times.
(33:36):
He will never leave you or forsake you.
I invite you now to agree with me in prayer.
Father, you are God Almighty creator of all things.
You by your power hold all things together.
We adore you God and we trust you with our lives,
with our futures.
Father, we submit ourselves to you again.
(33:59):
And Lord, I ask you to reveal to my dear listeners
any way they may have opened an occult door in their lives,
give them wisdom how to close that door,
lead them Holy Spirit to repent of past involvement
and rid themselves of anything
that is an open door for satanic attacks.
Then give them courage to stand firm, resist the devil
(34:20):
and we thank you that we know he will flee.
It is at the name of Jesus that every knee bows
in the seen and the unseen world.
Thank you for giving us spiritual armor
so we can stand against the wiles of our enemy, the devil.
So now we put on the belt of truth.
(34:42):
With it, we have discernment to know truth from lies.
We put on the breastplate of righteousness,
which is a sign of our right standing with you
and our authority as your children.
We shod our feet with a peace that comes from the good news.
So we are fully prepared each day.
That peace also guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
(35:02):
We hold up the shield of faith
and extinguish every fiery dart of the enemy.
We put on the helmet of salvation
and we fix our mind and eyes on you, Jesus,
which destroys doubt and allows us to take
every rebellious spot captive and make it obedient to Christ.
We also joyfully pick up the sword of the spirit,
(35:23):
which is your powerful word.
And we declare right now Isaiah 54, 17,
which says no weapon turned against us will succeed
and every voice that accuses us will be silenced.
Thank you again, Father, for equipping us
to live as overcomers in you.
It is in Jesus' name we pray.
(35:43):
Amen.
Thank you for tuning in.
Check out the show notes at hergodstory.org for scriptures
and other information we talked about.
And remember to get your free six-week devotional
on women of the Bible.
We'd also love to pray with you
on our 24 seven prayer and text line.
So give us a call or text anytime at 855-459-CARE
(36:07):
or email us at prayer at somebodycares.org.
And now dear friends, I leave you with a key
to abundant life from Deuteronomy 30 verses 19 and 20.
You have the choice between life and death,
between blessings and cursings.
Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make.
(36:28):
Oh, that you would choose life
so that you and your descendants might live.
You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God,
obeying him and committing yourself firmly to him.
This is the key to your life.
Her God Story is a ministry of Somebody Cares America
and International.
To find out more about or support the ministry,
(36:50):
go to somebodycares.org.
Hey friends, welcome to the Her God Story podcast.
(00:03):
I'm your host, Jodie Chiricosta,
ministry leader at Somebody Cares America and International,
author and traveler on this journey with Jesus.
I'm so glad you tuned in to this episode.
I know you will be encouraged, inspired,
and equipped today in your walk with the Lord.
Have you downloaded your free six week devotional
on Women of the Bible at hergodstory.org?
(00:24):
If not, make sure you get it.
God will use it to minister to you in so many ways.
We also have a 12 week devotional on Women of the Bible
that you can purchase for just $12
and all the proceeds will go to our Widow and Orphan Fund.
So check them out.
If this is your first time listening,
I hope you will enjoy it
and check out other inspiring episodes.
(00:46):
Every one of them has a powerful message
of how God is working in lives of people just like you.
And please tell your friends about her God's story
so they can be encouraged in their faith too.
The spiritual world is real.
Angels, demons, heaven, hell, those are all real.
(01:07):
God operates in the supernatural realm.
That is a realm beyond what our natural senses perceive.
So it's normal for us to be curious
and want to find out more.
God even welcomes that interest
as long as it is focused on him and him alone.
He gives some very clear instructions
(01:27):
about interacting with the supernatural realm in the Bible.
Those who do not heed his word regarding supernatural things
can open a door in their lives for the attacks of Satan.
And he's the one who kills, steals and destroys.
So let's take a look at some of God's instructions
about the supernatural realm
and then hear some stories of people
(01:47):
who have had supernatural encounters.
When the people of Israel were getting ready
to enter the promised land,
God gave them some guidance through Moses.
Deuteronomy 18, 9 through 13 in the NLT reads,
be very careful not to imitate the detestable customs
of the nations living there.
(02:07):
For example, never sacrifice your son or daughter
as a burnt offering.
I'll stop there for a minute and comment.
None of you I'm sure have ever considered
burning your children as a worship to some God.
It's unthinkable, but this warning begins the list.
So the rest of the items on the list
are equally detestable to God.
(02:28):
I'll continue reading.
And do not let your people practice fortune telling
or use sorcery or interpret omens
or engage in witchcraft or cast spells
or function as mediums or psychics
or call forth the spirits of the dead.
Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord.
(02:51):
It is because the other nations
have done these detestable things
that the Lord your God will drive them out ahead of you.
These things all fall under the category of the occult.
So what are some of the modern day versions
of the things listed?
I came across an article by John Piper
that defines the occult and also lists some elements of it.
(03:13):
I hope it will help you determine other activities
that also follow this list.
So you can stay away from them as well.
John Piper in his blog, Jesus versus the occult
says, I designate anything as belonging to the occult
that involves dealings with the world of spirits
or of supra natural forces,
which dealings are not oriented on Jesus
(03:36):
as he has revealed in the Bible.
With this definition,
I am assuming the reality of a spiritual world
and of mysterious supra normal forces.
I'm assuming that the church makes a grave mistake
when it says that supra natural phenomena
are restricted to another age
or that only godly people can work miracles.
(03:56):
Such a mistake lays the church open
to the power of evil precisely
because it refuses to recognize the presence of that power.
This definition is also intentionally very broad.
I mean to include everything
for the most blatant Satan worship
to the most commonly accepted use of horoscopes.
As examples, I would mention seances, necromancy
(04:19):
and all forms of communicating with the dead, PSI, ESP
and all forms of supra natural psychic phenomena,
real magic as opposed to sleight of hand tricks,
fortune telling, the casting of spells,
wearing of charms, the use of Ouija boards, astrology, etc.
John Piper goes on to explain that our involvement
(04:41):
in the occult belittles God in our eyes
while exalting mankind.
It belittles God because our actions tell him
that we believe he is inadequate to reveal mysteries
or to truly protect and care for us.
Instead, those who dabble or delve into the occult
look to Satan and his demons
for answers, protection and pleasure.
(05:02):
And when you invite Satan to give you anything,
he can come in and torment you in many ways
unless and until you close that door.
I heard the Deuteronomy scripture when I was a young girl,
very thankfully, and I took it seriously.
I no longer wanted to participate in Halloween,
which glorifies witches, ghosts and supra natural forces
(05:24):
that are not of God.
When friends pulled out a Ouija board, I went home.
I never looked at a horoscope, even for fun.
I did not go to movies or watch TV shows
that glorify the occult themes.
I still don't.
You might think it's all just fun and games,
but the supernatural realm is very real
and God does not think it is fun.
(05:44):
He knows how harmful involvement in the occult is
to you and your relationship with him.
I certainly do not judge you for your choices.
Only God can do that,
but know that all choices have consequences.
So be aware that when you are making choices
for you and your family,
(06:05):
you are the one who gets the consequences good or bad.
First Samuel 28 tells a very interesting story
about the occult.
Samuel, the prophet of the king, had died,
so King Saul could not get counsel from him anymore.
Of course, there were priests serving the Lord
and other prophets of the Lord in the land,
but Saul really did not want to hear from the Lord.
(06:25):
He wanted to hear from Samuel.
Now Saul himself had banned all witches, mediums,
and spiritists from the land
as the Lord had told the people of Israel to do,
but Saul snuck out one night and found a medium,
a woman who was known to be able to communicate
with the spirits of the dead.
Some translations refer to her as the witch of Endor.
(06:47):
Saul convinced her to call Samuel up from the dead
so he could talk to Samuel,
and she was actually able to do it.
Verses 15 through 19 record the conversation
dead Samuel has with Saul.
Not long after that encounter,
Saul went into battle and was killed.
1 Chronicles 10, 13 tells us why.
(07:09):
The NLT reads,
Saul died because he was unfaithful to the Lord.
He did not keep the word of the Lord
and even consulted a medium for guidance.
I tell you this to convince you of the reality
of the spiritual world
and that there are very real consequences.
Nadine Nesbitt is an engineer, very analytical,
(07:31):
not prone to hysteria or mystical thoughts.
So when demonic creatures showed up in her room,
she was terrified
and the power of God was the only answer.
Take a listen to her story.
Well, I was in my mid to late 20s
when a young man invited me on a date
to a place called Magic Island.
And it was an entertainment type venue
(07:54):
where they had magic shows, illusionists.
They also had a room where they had,
what I describe now is different occultic services
that they offered.
They had a tarot card reader.
There was a Ouija board table that you could play.
There was a place to get your palm read,
all that type of stuff that was in there.
(08:15):
My date had decided to get his palm read
and he wanted me to do it with him
but quite frankly, that dark atmosphere
kind of creeped me out.
And so I declined, you know?
But he went ahead and did it.
But later that night after I came home,
I turned the lights out in my room
and was just settling into falling asleep
(08:37):
when all of a sudden demonic creatures appeared in my room.
I could see them physically with my eyes.
I hadn't been drinking, I didn't do drugs.
They were a reality.
They were there, they were right in front of my face.
So something followed me home that day
and there were a lot of small creatures
that were flying around the room
but there was one large head
(08:58):
that appeared at the foot of my bed.
I would describe it now, years later,
as the face that you would see on one of those orcs
from Lord of the Rings.
It was a very grotesque, very ugly and very scary.
So that kind of freaked me out.
And so what did your scientific mind think?
I didn't know what to think.
I just got up out of bed, I turned on the lights.
(09:22):
I was scared, quite frankly.
And so what I did was I had a Bible.
It was one of those Bibles with the zipper around the edges.
And I put it on the pillow next to me
because I thought it would protect me.
I'd never opened it.
It was still zippered up
but it was on my pillow next to me for protection.
And then I decided to turn on the TV to Christian Channel.
(09:45):
I just had that Christian Channel on.
And I slept that way for close to a year.
I had the Christian TV going on in the background
and never really sat down to listen to it.
It was there on,
because I thought that would offer me some protection.
Yeah, so I mean, deep in your heart,
you knew that there was a spiritual realm
(10:07):
but you didn't really want to go there.
Right, exactly.
I didn't want to investigate.
I didn't know how to investigate.
And I never heard of anything like that before.
So yeah, you're right.
So, but one day, I often did shift work,
working in mission control
because you work around the clock,
supporting shuttle missions.
And I had one of my colleagues that lived
in the same apartment complex.
(10:28):
And he noticed that my light was on all night.
You know, every time he passed by my apartment
after his shift was over, he would notice,
I don't know why, he would notice my light was on.
So he actually stopped me one day at work and said,
Nadeen, are you afraid of the dark?
Well, yes, but I couldn't tell him that.
(10:49):
So I decided that I was being crazy.
And I decided that night I was gonna turn my light off
and sleep like a normal person.
And when I did, those demonic creatures
reappeared in my room.
But this time they were, I would say, more aggressive.
They actually came to me as I laid in bed
and I felt a shove.
(11:11):
I felt, and I actually, my body was moving.
So there was some kind of real entity in my room
shoving me, moving me.
So even though all that time of having that Christian TV
on the TV, I never sat and listened to it,
I was hearing it.
I was hearing what they were saying.
And one of the things I remembered in that moment
(11:32):
was someone had said on that Christian TV
that there's power in the name of Jesus.
So I called out, I shouted Jesus.
And the instant I did, those creatures left my room.
They were gone in an instant.
It was very, very powerful display
of the power of the name of Jesus.
(11:53):
And you still didn't know him as your savior,
but just the use of his name.
Just the use of his name was so very powerful.
When that happened, I jumped out of bed, of course,
because now I was excited because I had learned
the power of Jesus' name.
And so I thought, I need to know more about this Jesus.
(12:14):
Bolted out of bed, turned on the TV,
and there was Paul Crouch on TVN.
And he was quoting from Isaiah 64.
He's saying, all a righteous acts are like filthy rags.
And then he quoted from Romans 3.23,
for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
(12:35):
Well, I was arrogant enough to just have this thought come
into my head that he couldn't be possibly talking about me.
Well, I thought, I didn't sin.
I was a good girl.
You know, what is he talking about?
When have I ever sinned?
These are the questions that were going in my mind.
(12:55):
And then it happened.
I found myself in a white room with God sitting
on his throne in front of me.
I didn't actually see God.
I just knew that it was God that was sitting in front of me.
The Lord suddenly gave me a life review.
It started with my childhood.
It seemingly lasted for hours.
But I had these flashbacks of every place
(13:18):
that I had fallen short of the glory of God.
And it just wrecked me.
It just left me on the floor in a puddle, weeping.
I was having some carpet time at that time.
And it really did seem like it went on for hours and hours
as you can imagine a life review would.
But then I've started feeling a sense of despair.
(13:41):
Like, what can I do now?
And so that's what I asked.
I said, well, what can I do now?
And what can I do to be saved?
And just as I was thinking that, I heard Paul crouch his voice.
And he said, you might be thinking right now,
what can I do to be saved?
And then he led in a prayer of repentance and of salvation.
(14:04):
So that night, I became a new creature in Christ
when I prayed that prayer and asked the Lord
to become my Lord.
Wow.
I knew him personally now.
And did those creatures ever come back?
They never came back.
Never, never, never.
No.
Before Nadine knew Christ, she was tormented by demons
after just visiting a place where the occult was practiced.
(14:25):
Once she gave her life to the Lord, however,
they did not bother her again.
But Satan will take every opportunity
he can to target Christians as well as unbelievers.
So we need to know how to stand against his attacks.
Mary Nelson learned how to do that
when Satan tried to do his destructive work in her life.
Let's hear her story.
(14:47):
So during that time, you also began
to learn about spiritual warfare and Christ's power in us
to defeat the works of Satan.
What were a couple of those experiences?
Debbie and Mark started going to Christian school
when they were in middle school.
And one of the things they did was have Bible class.
And they were studying the Word of God.
And they studied about Old Testament and New Testament.
(15:09):
One of the things they studied was about the occult
and not to be involved in it.
Well, we had purchased a beautiful globe bar
when we were in Europe.
And one day, the children were standing around the globe bar
looking at it.
And notice that there was signs of the zodiac all over this bar.
(15:29):
And they pointed it out to us.
And we're aghast that we would have such a thing in our house.
So we decided we'd better get rid of it.
So we took all the liquor out, put it in the cupboard.
At that time, we still weren't convicted about drinking.
But we got rid of that globe bar, put it out in the driveway.
And our neighbor happened to see it.
And she came over and asked what we were doing with it.
(15:52):
And dad said we were going to get rid of it.
She said, well, can I buy it?
He said, oh, no.
She said, well, how about if I buy it
and you could donate the money to your church?
And he said, oh, no, I would not sell a snake to a friend.
So he put that globe bar in the back of the car
and took it out to the Kent's home
where people were gathering together their occultic things.
(16:14):
And we were going to have a bonfire like the book of Acts.
Yeah.
Spoke about.
I remember that bonfire.
And in addition to that globe, we also went through the house.
And anything that we felt convicted about,
we pulled it off the shelf, books or albums or cassette tapes.
(16:37):
And you pulled out the Halloween clothes and Halloween
things to get rid of.
No one told you about that one, Jody.
You just did that on your own.
Yeah, we were convicted at six.
Convicted that we didn't want anything
to do with anything related to Satan, demonic forces.
And we got rid of it out of our house.
And there was a change in the environment in our home
(16:59):
after that.
Yeah, there definitely was.
There was a time that I hired a piano tuner.
We had purchased an old upright German grand piano
when we were in England, which children took
piano lessons on.
So when we moved back to Tampa after moving across the ocean
and coming into a different climate,
that piano needed to be retuned.
(17:21):
So I had asked Dad if we could have it retuned.
And he didn't say anything in the time that I thought he should.
So I just went ahead and hired someone on my own
without even asking him.
I just did it.
Well, the man came out that I hired.
And as he was tuning the piano, he would visit with me.
(17:42):
And he would tell me about these senses that he was attending.
And some of the weird things that were going on all fall,
he thought they were wonderful.
He told me a lot of occultic things.
And I would try and squeeze in little testimonies
about the Lord.
But he was more determined to talk about seances.
So after that day of tuning, he said,
(18:03):
he'd like to come back in two weeks after your children had
played the piano for a while.
And the keys were, or the strings were stretched.
And he would readjust the tuning.
So in two weeks, he came back.
And of course, there was more stories
about the seances and occultic experiences.
And anyway, after that, I paid him and he left.
(18:25):
But that night, during the night,
I developed a severe side ache, which bothered me all night long
and into the next day.
So I called a friend and asked for prayer.
And her husband came out that afternoon.
He was in ministry.
He prayed for me.
And then he suggested that dad pray through our house.
(18:45):
So after he left and dad came home, we had dinner
and went on to bed.
And during the night, I just, that side ache
started getting so bad, I woke up and encouraged him
to take me to the emergency room.
So as he was getting dressed to take me to the emergency room,
a scripture reference came to my attention.
(19:09):
And I didn't know what it said.
I just knew what the reference was.
And it was from Chronicles.
I think it was 2 Chronicles 16 too.
So I asked dad if he would please read the Bible
just to see what it said.
So he stopped getting dressed and he read the scripture.
And the scripture said Asa, talking about King Asa,
(19:34):
he became diseased in his feet.
And his malady was severe.
Yet in his disease, he did not seek the Lord,
but the physicians and he died.
And after he read that, I thought, maybe we better not
go to the hospital.
Maybe we just better pray.
And then I remembered our friend suggesting that I have Gary
(19:55):
walk around the house and pray.
So I mentioned it to him and he did.
He walked around the house to pray.
And as he got into our living room near the piano,
the hairs on his arms and legs stood up like static electricity.
He could feel it.
So anyway, he just prayed around the circle of our house
and walking around.
(20:16):
And every time he came past that piano through the living room,
he could sense that sensation of static electricity.
But as he prayed and commanded spiritual forces of wickedness
to leave in the name of Jesus, it became less and less and less.
And finally it was gone.
So he came back to bed, told me what happened,
(20:37):
and we both went to sleep.
A couple hours later, I woke up and I
just felt like the Lord let me know that I was healed.
And I was.
It was gone.
So I did have a spiritual lesson on that one.
Yeah.
And it's not that you're against going to the doctors.
I mean, we've all gone to the doctor since then.
But this was seeking the Lord.
(20:57):
And it was a spiritual issue.
It was a spiritual attack on you that had been opened up
by that piano tuner experience.
Well, actually, Jody, what the Lord showed me
and reminded me that I had ordered that sterling silver
in England without asking dad.
(21:18):
And here I had hired a piano tuner without asking him.
But I had been hearing that I should respect and honor
my husband and learn submission.
But I also heard that God healed.
So we experienced that night spiritual warfare.
I had opened myself up to that by doing something
that I shouldn't have done by hiring that man to come
(21:43):
and tune the piano.
Not that you not that hiring a piano tuner was was wrong.
But you know, you was my attitude.
You were doing it out of defiance.
Defiance.
Yeah.
So I learned that.
And I also learned that God healed and loved me.
Yeah.
And he forgave me.
And that that encounter with really laid a foundation
(22:04):
of understanding of how to address spiritual forces
that we needed a couple of years later when we lived in Utah.
That's right, Jody.
We moved into a haunted house, actually purchased
a haunted house unknowingly.
(22:24):
We didn't realize it was haunted.
But I experienced depression in that house.
And sometimes during the day when everyone else was gone,
I just felt like crying.
And it was not like me.
And then Debbie was experiencing insomnia.
She was on the swim team in high school and needed her sleep.
(22:46):
But she couldn't sleep well.
So it was a real strain for her to participate on the swim team
without sleeping.
And then one night, Mark, whose basement was down
in the lower part of the house and basement,
came upstairs to the bathroom.
And when he was going back down the steps,
(23:07):
he just fenced that if he went down those steps,
he'd go crazy.
And Mark wasn't like that.
He was a very stable, sharp guy.
So he came upstairs to our bedroom
and explained to us what was happening.
But we just told him to go sleep in one
of the other single beds upstairs.
And we'd pray about it.
Well, we did pray about it.
And while we were praying, this was Dad and I.
(23:27):
While we were praying, we had a mini vision of imps
with coalsacks on their backs.
We felt like maybe the next day we should just pray
through our house, which we did do.
All five of us prayed through our house,
starting down in the basement right next to the furnace, which
had been a coal furnace at one time
(23:47):
and converted to a gas furnace.
Yeah, we actually had a coal room back in there.
And we did.
And it was a storage room.
So we actually started praying in that storage room
and commanded those spiritual forces of wickedness
and named them according to what we felt like they were,
commanded them to leave in the name of Jesus,
(24:09):
walk through every room of the house doing the same thing.
Then we anointed the doors with oil
and went to the ends of our property,
each corner of the property, anointed it with oil
and prayed scripture over each one,
dedicating our property and home to the Lord.
And peace returned.
As believers, we have authority to stand
(24:31):
against the attacks of the enemy.
But we must make sure that we have closed any spiritual doors
that we may have opened knowingly or unknowingly.
As Mary shared, my family got rid of occultic items
we had all around our home, things that were purchased
before we even came to Christ.
But like the Christians in Acts 19,
(24:51):
once we realized that the occult was a doorway for Satan,
we got rid of it all.
My mom also repented of times when she had looked at horoscopes
and played with Ouija boards when she was young.
And that closed the spiritual access Satan had into our lives.
And we had the authority given to us by Jesus
to command Satan in Jesus' name to get out and stay out.
(25:14):
Ephesians 6-12 in the New Living Translation tells us,
for we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies,
but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world,
against mighty powers in this dark world,
and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.
So these things should not surprise us or even scare us.
(25:36):
James 4-7 instructs us to humble ourselves before God,
resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
This is exactly what Mary and our family did.
We humbled ourselves by getting rid of the things
the Lord directed us to get rid of.
Then we could resist the devil effectively,
so he had to flee.
(25:57):
And in Luke 10-19 in the New Living Translation,
Jesus says, I have given you authority over all the power
of the enemy.
And you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them.
Nothing will injure you.
You remember from Genesis, of course,
that Satan was referred to as a serpent.
So Jesus has given us authority over him and all his power,
(26:20):
as long as we stay submitted to Christ.
God also sends angels to care for us.
Luke 4-11 tells of angels that cared for Jesus
after he resisted the temptations of Satan in the wilderness.
Sometimes angels are sent to announce his plans,
like they did to Daniel, Mary, the mother of Jesus,
(26:41):
Zechariah, and others.
They also come to guard and protect us,
as it says in Psalm 91 verses 11 through 12.
The NLT reads, for he will order his angels
to protect you wherever you go.
They will hold you up with their hand
so that you won't even hurt your foot on a stone.
(27:02):
And while angels are supernatural beings,
we certainly should never worship them.
Colossians 2-18 warns against that.
Angels are clearly active on the earth today,
although most of us will probably never visibly see them.
We can trust, however, that God has sent them for our benefit.
A few people I know have actually encountered angels.
(27:25):
Victoria Sarvati is one of them.
Listen to this and be encouraged.
This was my death experience.
I was in intensive care.
They were working hard to stabilize me.
Apparently, something went wrong, and I started coding.
And I started following what I say is my time in space,
my time in this life, my time in this world.
(27:46):
What I'm going to say doesn't make a whole lot of sense
in the natural, because it was spiritual.
There's hardly any words to explain.
Sometimes what I say, some people say it sounds New Age.
It's not New Age.
It was an experience that was supernatural.
That's all I can tell you.
But it's like I fell through my own universe.
I fell through congruent lines of time and space that were mine.
(28:09):
What do I mean by that?
Well, we live in time and space.
God lives in timelessness outside of time.
And He gives each of us a time to live and a time to die.
As I was going through what I understood, even at that time,
was my future universe, where I'm going to spend my time while
(28:29):
I'm in this body, in what space I'm going to be in.
It was like there were these congruent lines of decisions
I could make in my life.
If I made this decision, then this would happen.
All these different choices I had in my future
and my future would have, within it, blessings.
And then sometimes it would just be darkness.
(28:50):
And I would see all these things as I was going through it.
And I understood that these places where the lines met
were my choices.
And some of those choices were full of what
I call precious gems, gems of great price,
gems of understanding, knowledge.
What I witnessed in my life to make it be a testimony,
I saw these places all along the way in my own universe
(29:13):
that I would experience.
And then at the very end of that tunnel
was a huge wealth of precious gems, like gold,
like greater than rubies.
But all of this is through the choices and the wisdom
that we get from the Lord.
It's not physical.
It's not monetary gain that we get.
But it is all spiritual gain and wonderful riches
(29:35):
that we get as we experience our life in this time
and space that we occupy.
And so anyway, I was at the end of that tunnel.
I came out and I was now in the ICU,
the intensive care unit at Methodist Hospital.
And I was barbed to my body.
And I couldn't move any further than where I was.
(29:57):
I was above it.
And next to me was an angel.
And I knew the angel by name.
I called him by name.
His name was Parrots.
And I didn't know at the time what that name meant.
But I do, once I started taking Hebrew years later,
it's the one who stands in the gap.
Hebrew is interesting too, because it also takes,
just by changing little jot or tittle, a vowel sound,
(30:19):
you can change that word into an opposite meaning.
And so, parets can also mean,
porets can mean one who breaks through.
And so the one who stands in the gap
and the one who breaks through is the one I was talking to.
And if you understand, and I didn't know this then,
later on I found out that a messianic reference
(30:40):
in the Jewish understanding comes from Melachi,
where he says that the Son of Righteousness
comes with healing in his wings.
And it also says that he's the breaker.
But where he breaks through, it's the breaker
that breaks through.
It's a messianic reference of the Messiah.
That is a very interesting aspect that I found later
(31:02):
that it wasn't just an angel,
but it was the angel of the Lord that appeared to me.
And somebody said, well, you can't see God.
And if you do, you die.
And I said, well, yeah, I was dead.
So I couldn't really see his face actually,
because there was so much light radiating from it
that you knew there was a face behind that light.
(31:25):
But it was beautiful.
And we were able to communicate.
And he told me that I was,
this was the mandate that you mentioned,
that I was to go back, because I really didn't want to.
I wanted to go see my child.
I said, where's my baby?
He says, he's on the lap of the father.
He says, but you're gonna go back.
And you're going to go through that time and space,
you know, that continuum, that time continuum,
that is already designed for your life.
(31:47):
And you're going to experience all these things in real time.
And I said, well, that's okay.
I really like it here.
I tried to reason with him.
So I really didn't want to stay.
And he says, no, it's been ordained.
These gifts are irrevocable.
You're going to receive all that God has planned for you.
And you're going to teach others what you understand.
(32:08):
I had no choice.
And then he says, besides this,
the Lord has granted the prayers of saints
that are praying for you.
About that later, there were all kinds of prayer vigils
and intercessors that were praying for me
at that point in time.
So I felt myself being brought back.
I woke up a little bit later.
Those of us who've been brought up
with the Western worldview often discount
(32:29):
the supernatural world.
Yes, we believe in God, probably even angels and demons,
but we have a hard time believing
that the supernatural world impacts
or is active in our lives.
But it is.
The supernatural world is very real.
And the occult is not harmless fun and games.
You will experience very real consequences in the natural
(32:54):
if you open that door in your life.
Like Saul did when he visited the Witch of Endor,
a woman who knew the power of the supernatural world
but was on the wrong side.
If you already have opened that door in some way,
there's a very effective remedy.
I already mentioned it.
James four verse seven tells us,
submit yourself to God, which includes repentance
(33:15):
and removal if necessary of occultic items.
Then you can resist the devil and he will flee.
When we focus on our great and loving God,
we do not need charms or crystals
or fortune tellers or magic.
Put your full trust in the Lord to guide you
and to lead you even through painful times.
(33:36):
He will never leave you or forsake you.
I invite you now to agree with me in prayer.
Father, you are God Almighty creator of all things.
You by your power hold all things together.
We adore you God and we trust you with our lives,
with our futures.
Father, we submit ourselves to you again.
(33:59):
And Lord, I ask you to reveal to my dear listeners
any way they may have opened an occult door in their lives,
give them wisdom how to close that door,
lead them Holy Spirit to repent of past involvement
and rid themselves of anything
that is an open door for satanic attacks.
Then give them courage to stand firm, resist the devil
(34:20):
and we thank you that we know he will flee.
It is at the name of Jesus that every knee bows
in the seen and the unseen world.
Thank you for giving us spiritual armor
so we can stand against the wiles of our enemy, the devil.
So now we put on the belt of truth.
(34:42):
With it, we have discernment to know truth from lies.
We put on the breastplate of righteousness,
which is a sign of our right standing with you
and our authority as your children.
We shod our feet with a peace that comes from the good news.
So we are fully prepared each day.
That peace also guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
(35:02):
We hold up the shield of faith
and extinguish every fiery dart of the enemy.
We put on the helmet of salvation
and we fix our mind and eyes on you, Jesus,
which destroys doubt and allows us to take
every rebellious spot captive and make it obedient to Christ.
We also joyfully pick up the sword of the spirit,
(35:23):
which is your powerful word.
And we declare right now Isaiah 54, 17,
which says no weapon turned against us will succeed
and every voice that accuses us will be silenced.
Thank you again, Father, for equipping us
to live as overcomers in you.
It is in Jesus' name we pray.
(35:43):
Amen.
Thank you for tuning in.
Check out the show notes at hergodstory.org for scriptures
and other information we talked about.
And remember to get your free six-week devotional
on women of the Bible.
We'd also love to pray with you
on our 24 seven prayer and text line.
So give us a call or text anytime at 855-459-CARE
(36:07):
or email us at prayer at somebodycares.org.
And now dear friends, I leave you with a key
to abundant life from Deuteronomy 30 verses 19 and 20.
You have the choice between life and death,
between blessings and cursings.
Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make.
(36:28):
Oh, that you would choose life
so that you and your descendants might live.
You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God,
obeying him and committing yourself firmly to him.
This is the key to your life.
Her God Story is a ministry of Somebody Cares America
and International.
To find out more about or support the ministry,
(36:50):
go to somebodycares.org.
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