Permitting Demons

            For many years in our early days of ministry, I would slip away to a local airport to acquire flight hours so that I might obtain my pilots license. I had been fascinated with flying since I was young, and while serving as youth pastor of a San Diego County church, I had taken the ground school course at a local junior college. Passing the FAA test to get my student pilot license, I continued scheduling flight hours every week as often as we could afford it.

While ministering on Chichagof Island in Southeast Alaska, I was asked by a seasoned missionary pilot to build him a hanger on his property in the beautiful little Island village of Wrangle. He asked me what I would charge to build his hanger. My response was, “let me fly your plane and accompany you into some of the remote ministries you are involved in and we will call it even”.  We scheduled a time when he would fly to our village to pick me up in his Cessna 205 float plane. When he had taxied up to the boat docks that served as plane terminal in Pelican, my ten-year-old son Ben and I loaded into Roger’s plane for the trip to Wrangle. We would be gone from Monday to Saturday evening. In that time, we would complete the small hanger and, in the evenings, would take several trips into the remote logging camps where Roger would hold bible studies. I would continue to fly in each community where we pastored until I took my check ride and received my pilots license while living in the Treasure Valley of Idaho in the year 2000 .

By this time my dream of flying had grown into a God inspired desire to fly into isolated bush communities and share the gospel.  Through a series of miraculous connections with another believer named Mike Kneffly living in Pennsylvania, I was able to purchase a Maul M5 210C Lunar Rocket. Actually, the Lord purchased the plane because He told Mike to finance the purchase because I was going to use the plane to share the gospel of Christ. In laymen’s terms, the Maul was a high-performance bush plane, able to land on very small strips. It could carry up to four passengers or extra cargo, and possessed two main fuel tanks and two wing tip tanks for extended flight time. This made the Maul the perfect plane for our plans.

After flying into several small Idaho back country strips, a brother in Christ at the church we were attending told us of this small mountain community named “Dixie” where he had been hunting for years.  Dixie had no ministry in the town so it was just what we were looking for.  Flying in on Memorial Day weekend in 2001, we held our first service. That service would lead to the last twenty-four years of our ministry in Dixie.

By the time winter had come in that first year flying into Dixie, we had flown in almost every week end of that summer. When the snow began to fall in November, and the dirt airstrip was covered with snow, we made the six-hour drive to Dixie in our truck. We did this as often as we could to continue the ministry. (it had only taken just over an hour to fly to Dixie). 

We arrived in Dixie late afternoon one snowy December day. We were staying with friends of ours who ran the local hunting lodge. They told us of a man who had just moved to Dixie, a sort of distant relative of theirs, who was staying in a cabin about two miles from town.  Mike was an energetic and athletic man in his forties. He had worked for singer Jimmy Buffet in a role that he could not even accurately describe himself. He said he was a sort of ‘nutritionist, spiritualist, adviser” to Jimmy and had traveled all over the world with him. While in the far east, it appeared Mike had picked up some sort of demonic spirit. Our friends in Dixie told me about Mike and that he needed help.

That afternoon, I was able to borrow a snow machine so that I could run out to the cabin where Mike was staying. Mike had purchased a cabin that I had helped construct that summer.  I had been praying the entire way out so by the time I was at his cabin I was ready for whatever I was going to encounter. That is, I “thought” I was ready.

Mike invited me into the cabin where I sat on a type of futon along the north wall of the main living area. Mike sat on a love seat just across the room form me. We visited, just getting to know each other.  Thirty or forty minutes into our conversation, Mike stood up and began doing Kung Foo type moves. As he did this, he also spoke some sort of Asian language. He seemed to be completely focused upon what he was doing, appearing not even aware that I was still in the room. I prayed.

I had previously encountered people demonically possessed and had learned that each time the Lord would lead me to handle things in a very different manner than the time before. I considered all the scriptures I could quote to confront what appeared to be a demonic manifestation, but did not sense the Lord leading me to use any of these.  What the Lord finally directed me to do is something I had never done before, and I can say I have never (yet?) done again. His words were “Mike is willingly submitting to this spirit, it has no true authority in him.” Then the Lord told me to do something that challenged every mode of ministry I had ever known. He said “go over and knock that spirit out of him”.

While Mike continued his Kung Foo, I stood up and walked over to him, still not sure exactly what I was going to do. As I stepped to within a few feet of him, Mike stopped his display of martial arts and looked at me wide eyed, as if expecting something to happen. Well, it did, I took the palm of my hand and struck Mike square in the chest, hard enough to knock him down. He landed on the love seat where he had been sitting.  I then told him to “knock it off” and to “not allow this demon to control him anymore”. I next addressed the demon and told him “In the name of Jesus Christ, get out”.

As simple as that sounds, that was it. Mike no longer manifested the demon. He no longer did his Kung Foo or spoke in an Asian dialect. I was able to pray with Mike and lead him to Jesus. Over the next year I would spend many hours fellowshipping with and discipling Mike.

One particular afternoon Mike and I sat outside in the shade of his cabin on two very rickety log benches. We had Bibles out and we were studying. We were in the gospel of John talking about Jesus telling Nicodemus that “you must be born again”.  Mike had numerous questions regarding just what this entailed. We ended up talking about the power of the Holy Spirit. I shared several testimonies with Mike, but he still seemed skeptical about all the “power stuff”.  I told him to pray with me and ask the Lord to show him that “power”.  We both prayed intently.  As we completed our time of prayer, what had been a thoroughly quiet day changed dramatically. A sudden gust of wind came up so strong that both Mike and I braced ourselves on our log benches.  It lasted only about thirty seconds, then returned to the previous calm that had been the norm for that day.

Mike needed no words from me. He knew he had just experienced the sign from the Lord that we had just prayed for.  As it was obvious that he was ready, I laid hands on Mike and prayed as He received the powerful indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. I watched as the man who had once spoken demonically inspired Asian words was now speaking a heavenly tongue praising and glorifying God.   As it did on the day of Pentecost, a rushing mighty wind came up to testify to and to impart the light of the Holy Spirit upon a man who previously had walked in spiritual darkness.