Post by God is Judge on Oct 2, 2008 15:13:50 GMT -8
Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Lord, and the angels that appeared to Abraham ate and drank with him, they also took Lot by the hand and led him. We can entertain angels unawares. So angels, even one fallen angel, can take solid form. Scripture says that we wrestle against principalities and powers. Satan took Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple.
This is the true story of the day I wrestled with Satan.
It was 1974 in Anaheim CA. I was 15 yrs old, the summer before starting high school at Katella High School in Anaheim. My father was a teacher at nearby Anaheim High School and he told me about a summer wrestling clinic at AHS that year. I attended and was coached by a big stocky man named Coach Stahlhut. Coach Stahlhut was also the head football coach at AHS. We trained in a steamy quanset hut and I remember almost passing out in the summer heat, but I enjoyed wrestling and the workout was great training for surfing which was my true passion.
That next year I went out for the wrestling team at my own school, Katella High and after a few months of very hard practices we had our first pre-season match against another school.
As I faced my first opponent I was nervous as he seemed to be very strong and determined but I focused and remembered all I was taught.
I immediately shot for a takedown and in a lightning swift execution of a dual bar arm move taught to me by a senior teammate, had my opponent pinned in a miraculous 4 seconds! I leapt to my feet rejoicing! I couldnt believe it! I often remember my poor opponent. How my victory was his defeat. It must have been demoralizing to him.
I now know that God had delivered him into my hand, I didn't then.
My Coach at Katella was named Coach Russell. He seemed shocked, even dismayed at my victory. I shrugged this off and went to my next match.
It was maybe a week later that Coach Russell told me to be at the gym that night for a special thing, he didn't explain. I assumed it was just more workouts or something but when I showed up there was an empty gym.
At the far end a mat was set up and I saw Coach Russell and another coach I didn't recognize with a lone wrestler in his gear.
It was Satan as he would appear to me many times since; as an Aryan Adonis with his gold curly locks and sly
. (Again, this was only explained to me by God in 2005)
I wondered where was everyone? Why this one on one match?
Was Coach Russell trying to test me because he was impressed by my swift victory or was he trying to humble me for the same?
I looked over my opponent. He was grinning wryly at me like he was relishing teaching me a lesson. I thought, "Oh man, this guy's a senior and he's gonna kick my behind, Oh well do your best"
We wrestled. Neither one of us came close to pinning the other, but he did seem to be toying with me at times. Once, he had me in a wicked scissor leg lock around the waist and he painfully put the squeeze on me but I managed an escape. The strange thing was that something struck me as funny during the whole match and I found myself chuckling, which seemed to annoy him. Anyone who has ever wrestled knows that it doesnt take long to get exhausted, even when one is fit.
The match ended and I went home puzzled. What was that all about? Why were there no other wrestlers there that night? I filed it away in my memory and stopped thinking about it. A couple of weeks later I left the wrestling team to join a skateboard demo team for a local sporting goods store and never wrestled again but the story didn't end there.
It was over 20 yrs later that I found myself in the pigsty, deep in sin, and God's powerful hand turned me towards home. Here's what happened.
I was living in a music studio and rehearsal space that I had built in Oakland, CA. Deep into drugs, writing and playing evil music and more. I had been diagnosed with HIV some 5 years prior and after divorcing my wife (who did not get infected, thank the Lord) had dropped out to fulfill my last wish; to play in a rock band before I died.
But one night God began to work in my life in a powerful way, to send me on the long road back to him.
I went up to a girlfriend's apt above my studio to watch the movie "Trainspotting". For some reason that night, I had a terrible feeling of fear, that something evil was stalking me in that place. I tried to ignore it and started the tape. The movie begins with a monologue from a junky saying something like "Don't do what I did. I ruined my life. Dont choose death! Choose life!".
This struck me in a powerful way and the fear that something terrible was stalking me became overbearing! I felt like it had come down the hall and was at the door of the apartment. Forgetting the movie I went to the window to actually climb out onto the third story roof next door to escape the evil thing that I was so sure was at the door. As I went to the window, framed in the window was a neon sign, a cross, brightly lit, from the little storefront church next door. It was a little church for Cambodian refugees in Oakland called the Church of the New Apostle.
I looked down and to my amazement, for it was late on a thursday night, I saw the people entering the church. They were gathered around a large man in robes with a long white beard who seemed to be a guest of honor. Now in this part of Oakland it is like a ghost town at night. The Cambodians were never around except for Sundays, but I just knew that I had to get down there and get help. Setting myself and trying to be brave I flew out the door and down the stairs and just as I got to the church door they were closing the gate.
I begged for them to let me in! I was weeping uncontrollably and the Cambodians looked at me with suspicion as they had surely heard the evil music coming from my studio on Sundays. After some pleading they let me in.
The Pastor in the robes was preaching to the congregation in english and a Cambodian man interpreted every word for the Cambodians who obviously knew little or no english.
Yet his eyes were locked on me alone and his message too was for me.
He said, in a large booming voice, "Your life has been hard! but I'm here with a special message for you alone! Do you think it is a coincidence that I am here, all the way from Canada on a thursday night on the very night you fled here? NO!"
Remember, apart from the interpreter I was the only one to understand him. I was the only white man in the congregation. I was weeping uncontrollably, broken down by the pastor's words and yet I looked to the man sitting next to me and he was snoring! Fast asleep!
The Bishop continued. He explained that he was a Bishop of their church and that he was there visiting on a thursday night for one night in Oakland. He said, again with his eyes locked on mine, "New medicines are going to save your life!" (About a year later I began to hear about the new protease inhibitors, drugs that have save millions from death from aids.)
I fairly jumped out of the pew! How did he know that I had Hiv? What was going on?!! This was impossible!
He continued, "You are going to be tested to within an inch of your life, but you are going to win! How would you like to hear that you where going to play in the Superbowl and that you were guaranteed to win?!!" Now the Cambodians obviously didn't even know what the superbowl was. They seemed to be bored by the sermon, but I was at the edge of my seat, tears streaming down my cheeks.
He spoke for about a half hour and he broke me down and he built me up, but always his eyes were locked on mine. He said several things, very personal things about my life, that left me so amazed. Eventually I gave up being astounded and just listened intently to all he had to say. When he was done, I closed my eyes and exhausted, I prayed and confessed everything to God and just wept. I felt like I was a tiny filthy thing in God's eyes and completely undeserving of His mercy.
When I opened my eyes the church was empty and I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was the Bishop, and he said, "It's good to have you with us!"
I went back to my studio and determined that I was going to go back to Anaheim and leave everything behind. I had hundreds of dollars of equipment there, amps, guitars, recording equip etc. and I simply just left it and packed a few papers into a bag. As I went thru the papers, mixed in were newspapers I had kept for some reason or another. And in them God seemed to be shouting at me. I remember one in particular, a travel section with the headline "Hit the Road!" I called my brother Chris and he seemed to know immediately that I needed to get out of there and he said he'd be right over. He lived on the peninsula about an hour away and as I waited I looked around. My eye caught my Washburn acoustic guitar. I thought Washburn? Wash or burn? I decided to take the guitar. Other than that when my brother pulled up that night I had left it all behind.
I stayed in a hotel that night near the SF airport and caught a flight to Anaheim the next morning.
The next few months were one of great struggle. Satan saw that I was escaping and he attacked with everything he had. Fiery darts and snares! It was a ruthless onslaught that is another story all together. But anyway, it culminated in me again being in great fear. In my spiritually blind state, I simply could not fully accept what was happening to me. I was staying at my parents house in Anaheim and I was in a state of sheer terror after a series of Satanic attacks that day. My brother Bill mentioned that the neighbor, Mr Slagel, was a christian and that maybe he could help. I ran next door and knocked.
Mr Slagel answered the door wearing a T-shirt with a christian message on it and I stood there in tears pleading for help. He seemed to be expecting me. He said that he would call his pastor and be right over.
I went home to wait, trembling in fear. Then a knock at the door...
I opened the door and to my great amazement, there standing before me in his collar, bible in hand, was Coach Stahlhut! He annointed me with oil and both he and Mr Slagel, who I had forgot too was a football coach at AHS, prayed over me as the terror left me.
Coach Stahlhut, now Pastor Stahlhut had left coaching at Anaheim High to become a pastor at Calvary Chapel in Anaheim, CA.
I told him about everything that had happened in Oakland. About how the Bishop had preached to me, knowing everything about me. Then I shared his words, "How would you like to know that you were going to play in the Superbowl and know that you were guaranteed to win?!"
Mr Slagels jaw dropped! He turned to Pastor Stahlhut and said, his voice filled with wonder, "Pastor! You say that all the time!" Indeed it was one of the ex football Coaches favorite phrases. "How would you like to know that you were going to play in the Superbowl and know you were going to win!" Indeed, in Christ the game is already won!
Pastor Stahlhut just nodded, praising God, we talked some more and he invited me to attend his church. I said I would come that Sunday. I went to sleep that night in a peace that I hadn't know for years.
So the man who coached me over 20 years before, teaching me my first moves that I would use in a wrestling match with Satan himself, was now my pastor. I attended his church, Calvary Open Door Church in East Anaheim, CA for a couple of months while I saved up money for a move to Hawaii. I had planned to die there, but as I said before and as the Bishop foretold, we were just starting to hear of the new medicines that would come to save my life.
I walked, spiritually blind and deaf for 7 more years until Aug 2005 in San Francisco CA, when my eyes and ears were opened. By His Grace He granted me repentence and faith in the suffering, death and resurrection of Messiah and I was saved! Then God had me look back and He taught me the meaning of all these things. It was like a suprise birthday party as I opened gift after gift. Gifts that were hidden right under my nose for 45 years.
This is a true story. There is a modern heresy taught in the church today. That Satan is a figure of speach, a symbol of temptation etc. He does exist and he fights me to try and stop me from spreading this message-
That the judgment of San Francisco and LA are determined and at the door.
The prophecy is Messiah's in Luke 17.
Luk 17:28Likewise even as it came to pass in the days of Lot; they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
Luk 17:29but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all:
Luk 17:30after the same manner shall it be in the day that the Son of man is revealed.
To all of God's elect in California (how few we are!) remember the words of Messiah and "Remember Lot's wife!" (Luke 17:32)
All Glory to the Father and His Holy One, Messiah Yeshua!
Daniel <'))){
Vexed in Sodom, California
Babylon the Great
This is the true story of the day I wrestled with Satan.
It was 1974 in Anaheim CA. I was 15 yrs old, the summer before starting high school at Katella High School in Anaheim. My father was a teacher at nearby Anaheim High School and he told me about a summer wrestling clinic at AHS that year. I attended and was coached by a big stocky man named Coach Stahlhut. Coach Stahlhut was also the head football coach at AHS. We trained in a steamy quanset hut and I remember almost passing out in the summer heat, but I enjoyed wrestling and the workout was great training for surfing which was my true passion.
That next year I went out for the wrestling team at my own school, Katella High and after a few months of very hard practices we had our first pre-season match against another school.
As I faced my first opponent I was nervous as he seemed to be very strong and determined but I focused and remembered all I was taught.
I immediately shot for a takedown and in a lightning swift execution of a dual bar arm move taught to me by a senior teammate, had my opponent pinned in a miraculous 4 seconds! I leapt to my feet rejoicing! I couldnt believe it! I often remember my poor opponent. How my victory was his defeat. It must have been demoralizing to him.
I now know that God had delivered him into my hand, I didn't then.
My Coach at Katella was named Coach Russell. He seemed shocked, even dismayed at my victory. I shrugged this off and went to my next match.
It was maybe a week later that Coach Russell told me to be at the gym that night for a special thing, he didn't explain. I assumed it was just more workouts or something but when I showed up there was an empty gym.
At the far end a mat was set up and I saw Coach Russell and another coach I didn't recognize with a lone wrestler in his gear.
It was Satan as he would appear to me many times since; as an Aryan Adonis with his gold curly locks and sly
. (Again, this was only explained to me by God in 2005)I wondered where was everyone? Why this one on one match?
Was Coach Russell trying to test me because he was impressed by my swift victory or was he trying to humble me for the same?
I looked over my opponent. He was grinning wryly at me like he was relishing teaching me a lesson. I thought, "Oh man, this guy's a senior and he's gonna kick my behind, Oh well do your best"
We wrestled. Neither one of us came close to pinning the other, but he did seem to be toying with me at times. Once, he had me in a wicked scissor leg lock around the waist and he painfully put the squeeze on me but I managed an escape. The strange thing was that something struck me as funny during the whole match and I found myself chuckling, which seemed to annoy him. Anyone who has ever wrestled knows that it doesnt take long to get exhausted, even when one is fit.
The match ended and I went home puzzled. What was that all about? Why were there no other wrestlers there that night? I filed it away in my memory and stopped thinking about it. A couple of weeks later I left the wrestling team to join a skateboard demo team for a local sporting goods store and never wrestled again but the story didn't end there.
It was over 20 yrs later that I found myself in the pigsty, deep in sin, and God's powerful hand turned me towards home. Here's what happened.
I was living in a music studio and rehearsal space that I had built in Oakland, CA. Deep into drugs, writing and playing evil music and more. I had been diagnosed with HIV some 5 years prior and after divorcing my wife (who did not get infected, thank the Lord) had dropped out to fulfill my last wish; to play in a rock band before I died.
But one night God began to work in my life in a powerful way, to send me on the long road back to him.
I went up to a girlfriend's apt above my studio to watch the movie "Trainspotting". For some reason that night, I had a terrible feeling of fear, that something evil was stalking me in that place. I tried to ignore it and started the tape. The movie begins with a monologue from a junky saying something like "Don't do what I did. I ruined my life. Dont choose death! Choose life!".
This struck me in a powerful way and the fear that something terrible was stalking me became overbearing! I felt like it had come down the hall and was at the door of the apartment. Forgetting the movie I went to the window to actually climb out onto the third story roof next door to escape the evil thing that I was so sure was at the door. As I went to the window, framed in the window was a neon sign, a cross, brightly lit, from the little storefront church next door. It was a little church for Cambodian refugees in Oakland called the Church of the New Apostle.
I looked down and to my amazement, for it was late on a thursday night, I saw the people entering the church. They were gathered around a large man in robes with a long white beard who seemed to be a guest of honor. Now in this part of Oakland it is like a ghost town at night. The Cambodians were never around except for Sundays, but I just knew that I had to get down there and get help. Setting myself and trying to be brave I flew out the door and down the stairs and just as I got to the church door they were closing the gate.
I begged for them to let me in! I was weeping uncontrollably and the Cambodians looked at me with suspicion as they had surely heard the evil music coming from my studio on Sundays. After some pleading they let me in.
The Pastor in the robes was preaching to the congregation in english and a Cambodian man interpreted every word for the Cambodians who obviously knew little or no english.
Yet his eyes were locked on me alone and his message too was for me.
He said, in a large booming voice, "Your life has been hard! but I'm here with a special message for you alone! Do you think it is a coincidence that I am here, all the way from Canada on a thursday night on the very night you fled here? NO!"
Remember, apart from the interpreter I was the only one to understand him. I was the only white man in the congregation. I was weeping uncontrollably, broken down by the pastor's words and yet I looked to the man sitting next to me and he was snoring! Fast asleep!
The Bishop continued. He explained that he was a Bishop of their church and that he was there visiting on a thursday night for one night in Oakland. He said, again with his eyes locked on mine, "New medicines are going to save your life!" (About a year later I began to hear about the new protease inhibitors, drugs that have save millions from death from aids.)
I fairly jumped out of the pew! How did he know that I had Hiv? What was going on?!! This was impossible!
He continued, "You are going to be tested to within an inch of your life, but you are going to win! How would you like to hear that you where going to play in the Superbowl and that you were guaranteed to win?!!" Now the Cambodians obviously didn't even know what the superbowl was. They seemed to be bored by the sermon, but I was at the edge of my seat, tears streaming down my cheeks.
He spoke for about a half hour and he broke me down and he built me up, but always his eyes were locked on mine. He said several things, very personal things about my life, that left me so amazed. Eventually I gave up being astounded and just listened intently to all he had to say. When he was done, I closed my eyes and exhausted, I prayed and confessed everything to God and just wept. I felt like I was a tiny filthy thing in God's eyes and completely undeserving of His mercy.
When I opened my eyes the church was empty and I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was the Bishop, and he said, "It's good to have you with us!"
I went back to my studio and determined that I was going to go back to Anaheim and leave everything behind. I had hundreds of dollars of equipment there, amps, guitars, recording equip etc. and I simply just left it and packed a few papers into a bag. As I went thru the papers, mixed in were newspapers I had kept for some reason or another. And in them God seemed to be shouting at me. I remember one in particular, a travel section with the headline "Hit the Road!" I called my brother Chris and he seemed to know immediately that I needed to get out of there and he said he'd be right over. He lived on the peninsula about an hour away and as I waited I looked around. My eye caught my Washburn acoustic guitar. I thought Washburn? Wash or burn? I decided to take the guitar. Other than that when my brother pulled up that night I had left it all behind.
I stayed in a hotel that night near the SF airport and caught a flight to Anaheim the next morning.
The next few months were one of great struggle. Satan saw that I was escaping and he attacked with everything he had. Fiery darts and snares! It was a ruthless onslaught that is another story all together. But anyway, it culminated in me again being in great fear. In my spiritually blind state, I simply could not fully accept what was happening to me. I was staying at my parents house in Anaheim and I was in a state of sheer terror after a series of Satanic attacks that day. My brother Bill mentioned that the neighbor, Mr Slagel, was a christian and that maybe he could help. I ran next door and knocked.
Mr Slagel answered the door wearing a T-shirt with a christian message on it and I stood there in tears pleading for help. He seemed to be expecting me. He said that he would call his pastor and be right over.
I went home to wait, trembling in fear. Then a knock at the door...
I opened the door and to my great amazement, there standing before me in his collar, bible in hand, was Coach Stahlhut! He annointed me with oil and both he and Mr Slagel, who I had forgot too was a football coach at AHS, prayed over me as the terror left me.
Coach Stahlhut, now Pastor Stahlhut had left coaching at Anaheim High to become a pastor at Calvary Chapel in Anaheim, CA.
I told him about everything that had happened in Oakland. About how the Bishop had preached to me, knowing everything about me. Then I shared his words, "How would you like to know that you were going to play in the Superbowl and know that you were guaranteed to win?!"
Mr Slagels jaw dropped! He turned to Pastor Stahlhut and said, his voice filled with wonder, "Pastor! You say that all the time!" Indeed it was one of the ex football Coaches favorite phrases. "How would you like to know that you were going to play in the Superbowl and know you were going to win!" Indeed, in Christ the game is already won!
Pastor Stahlhut just nodded, praising God, we talked some more and he invited me to attend his church. I said I would come that Sunday. I went to sleep that night in a peace that I hadn't know for years.
So the man who coached me over 20 years before, teaching me my first moves that I would use in a wrestling match with Satan himself, was now my pastor. I attended his church, Calvary Open Door Church in East Anaheim, CA for a couple of months while I saved up money for a move to Hawaii. I had planned to die there, but as I said before and as the Bishop foretold, we were just starting to hear of the new medicines that would come to save my life.
I walked, spiritually blind and deaf for 7 more years until Aug 2005 in San Francisco CA, when my eyes and ears were opened. By His Grace He granted me repentence and faith in the suffering, death and resurrection of Messiah and I was saved! Then God had me look back and He taught me the meaning of all these things. It was like a suprise birthday party as I opened gift after gift. Gifts that were hidden right under my nose for 45 years.
This is a true story. There is a modern heresy taught in the church today. That Satan is a figure of speach, a symbol of temptation etc. He does exist and he fights me to try and stop me from spreading this message-
That the judgment of San Francisco and LA are determined and at the door.
The prophecy is Messiah's in Luke 17.
Luk 17:28Likewise even as it came to pass in the days of Lot; they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
Luk 17:29but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all:
Luk 17:30after the same manner shall it be in the day that the Son of man is revealed.
To all of God's elect in California (how few we are!) remember the words of Messiah and "Remember Lot's wife!" (Luke 17:32)
All Glory to the Father and His Holy One, Messiah Yeshua!
Daniel <'))){
Vexed in Sodom, California
Babylon the Great
