Phil, this is powerful!!  Thanks!
Helen

At 06:29 PM 1/11/04 -0700, you wrote:
>Thinking out loud, as it were, I was wondering this afternoon as I thought
>about all that is being discussed on echurch, what the average Christian
>counselor, psychologist, or psychiatrist would do if a demon manifested
>itself during a normal every day counseling session?  If the demonic
>infestation was due to a strong hold, he very likely would literally speak
>through the person's own voice.  Sometimes they, the client, knows it and
>sometimes they don't.  Would some form of medication be immediately
>administered, if they were licensed to do so, or would they just consider
>that it was a multiple personality manifesting itself in the person.  Would
>they know, Christian or not, how to tell the difference between an alternate
>personality or a real demon?  Do they even believe demons can do such a
>thing?  What if the counselor is scared spitless and the demon is, in fact,
>a real manifestation of evil?  Of course, at this point, the unclean spirit
>would have the advantage over the counselor because demons work in the area
>of fear and when they see it, they go for it.  What if, as happened to me
>once, a demon manifests itself through the person's voice and says, My name
>is Lucifer.  Or what, as happened to me, a demon speaks through a person and
>says, we aren't leaving and you can't make us leave.  I wonder if the
>average Christian counselor would know what was going on or what to do next.
>I wonder if even a Christian psychologist or psychiatrist would know what
>was going on and what to do next?  I know some who would but not because
>they got their degree from a secular college, university, or even a
>seminary.  To make the point even clearer, I wonder if the average pastor
>was counseling someone in his church and this happened, what he would do?
>In one of Neal Anderson's books, he had a pastor in his office with him with
>a lady from the man's own church.  As soon as the demonic manifestation came
>out, the pastor tried to run out the door but Neal stopped him and taught
>him what to do.  Thank you Jesus for not leaving us defenseless against the
>wiles of the devil.  Now the big question.  Can a Christian counselor, which
>some say that I am, or a Christian psychologist, or a Christian psychiatrist
>heal you?  They can help you and bless God they do help lots of people.
>Most of what they do is help people cope and they even use the Bible to help
>you cope.  Ok, that's fine, and there's nothing wrong with that.  What if
>you could be healed, though?  What if your fear could be literally removed
>by the Holy Spirit and your mind totally renewed.  Wouldn't that be better
>than coping with life as a Christian?  What if Jesus could, through prayer,
>lead you to a memory and the guilt and shame and terror of that memory be
>totally obliterated to the point it never comes back again?  Yet you can
>return to the very memory any time you wish and there is nothing there that
>can hurt you any more?  Wouldn't that be better than coping with life as a
>Christian?  How is it that a little girl who has been raped by her father
>ever get over the fear and the terror and the anger?  Besides, isn't that
>justifiable to have those emotions?  If so, why are they in the counselors
>office at 40 trying to find answers?  Why are they on antidepressants?  What
>if the Lord God could invade her memory and remove all, I said all, the pain
>and doubt and fear and emotional pain and physical pain, and the screams of
>that little girl, and the mother who didn't care because she was too drunk
>to care, and the haunting  words of an evil father who threatened to kill
>her if she told any one, and the nightmares she now has as an adult woman
>because of what had been done to her 45 or 50 years ago, what if a loving
>God could literally remove it all and replace it with love and holiness and
>purity of mind and heart?  Wouldn't that be better than coping with life as
>a Christian?  What if a little boy is made subject to a Satanic cult where
>men in a room forced human male excretions down his throat and made him
>swallow everything and if he spit it back up, they beat him so he couldn't
>even walk.  Can God heal the broken emotions of that little boy or must he
>live on drugs the rest of his life as a half of a human being?  If God could
>heal his brokenness and fear and hatred for men and his homosexuality,
>wouldn't that be better than just coping with life as a Christian?  Where is
>God when we need Him?  Where is God when a girl is literally tied to a table
>and raped repeatedly by grown men and if she cries, they literally turn on
>electricity and shock her over and over again.  Doesn't God care about these
>people?  Does God stop loving the woman who gets an abortion, as my daughter
>did two years ago, because she is now a murderer and has slain her own flesh
>and blood?  How does she cope with such excruciating emotional agony when
>she is convicted about what she has done?  What about the little boy who
>grows up with a father who repeatedly, all the time he is growing up, and
>even into his adult life, telling him he is a failure, a looser, and not
>worth spit?  Must he live the rest of his life thinking his father must be
>right or is there a God who knows how to get to the root of this lie and
>remove it once and for all?  I thought the cross meant something?  I thought
>the cross of Christ saved and cured and healed our brokenness but maybe I
>was misled.  Maybe you were misled, too?  Where is God in all of this and
>why, pray tell, can't He do something about our pain?  The truth is, He can.
>He will.  He does.  There are literally thousands of people all over this
>country, and the world for that matter, doing exactly what I do every day
>with people and that is pray.  With God, nothing shall be impossible.  Do
>you really believe that verse or is it just ink on paper to you?  If God
>cannot help us, then we are truly the most miserable people on earth who are
>serving a God who cannot meet the needs of His people.  I, for one, won't
>serve a helpless God like that.  If the best God can do is a doctor who
>prescribes drugs and offers a list of affirmations for me to read every day
>and a dozen Bible verses to memorize, that is a God of less than enough.  My
>bible tells me that one of my God's names we serve is a God of more than
>enough and more than we need.  If you aren't getting all that God offers,
>keep what you have but find someone else who believes more than your
>therapist believes about God and His miraculous abilities.  Finally, if you
>have a pastor who falls into this same category, keep what you learned but
>for your own sake, find some pastor who knows the God of the bible.
>
>Phil.