Gary Short

A few weeks ago I was preaching in a newly planted church in Southern Sudan, as an illustration of the human condition I picked up a little baby from its mothers arms and began explaining that as cute and innocent as that baby seemed, it was born with a sinful nature. As I was about to hand the baby back to its mother I felt prompted by the Lord to dedicate the baby to Him. It seemed a little strange but I did it, and then moved on with my message. However, later that day I was informed that the baby I had picked for my illustration was the daughter of the recently saved witchdoctor and that at birth the baby had been dedicated to demons. After church, I was introduced to the man and learned that even though he had committed his life to the Lord a few weeks earlier, he was still being troubled by demons. I know that’s disturbing to some peoples theology—I’ll leave it up to you to work that out.

In the prayer line after the service I was about to launch into an attempt to deliver the man. God intervened by using a new believer to say to me, “This is going to take a long time, you might want to do it later.” I took that as a word of wisdom from God and went on to pray for others. Then, as we were leaving the church I invited the man to come to our compound in two days prepared for an extended stay.

He showed up as he had promised, demonstrating to me that he really wanted to get free. There I was having lunch with a witchdoctor (no he didn’t have a bone in his nose). The next night, we sat around in our Payote (large dining hut)with a group of young leaders, in a time of extended worship. With us was this witchdoctor, a man who only weeks ago had been fully steeped in the depths of demon worship. He was still fragile in his new faith, needing lots of love and mentoring and teaching. At this point I was seeing some issues in his life that I have never had to deal with in Anacortes, he has two wives; both of whom have surrendered their hearts to the Lord, he is still struggling with demonic voices and the demons seem to manifest when they are exposed to worship. As I was sitting there, I fully realized my complete dependence on God to make any kind of impact on this situation.

His salvation made such a stir in the community that the village elders visited the church to see if they could determine what our people were teaching that was powerful enough to change this man they all knew. Our leaders assured them that it was the Word of God which was more powerful than a two edged sword, even more powerful than the AK 47s they keep stashed away.

His demons had been asking him to sacrifice animals as acts of worship and loyalty, but after some time they began asking him to take it a step further, they wanted him to sacrifice one of his wives. This frightened him so much that he came to our newly planted church looking for help. There they led him to surrender his life to the Lord. It has taken weeks of teaching, sometimes many hours a day, much worship, a great deal of one on one care and a couple of dramatic deliverance sessions; but he is now walking in freedom. What a great testimony of the love and power of God this man is becoming. It was interesting that even though I have had very little experience in dealing with the demonic on this level, I felt no fear as the Lord led me step by step in taking authority over the demons. There was a whole group of us involved in the process and God was clearly in control. In Sudan the demonic is out in the open. Even the unbelievers are very much aware that there are demonic forces all around that want to do them harm. This kind of demonstration of the power of God over the forces of darkness is a great key to defeating fear and superstition and opening hearts to the gospel message.

God is bringing many people in Sudan into His kingdom!

Our Core Ministries: 1. Church Planting 2. Jesus Film Outreaches 3. School Assemblies 4. Leadership Development 5. Children’s Ministry 6. Meeting Basic Human Needs 7. HIV/AIDS Awareness
8. Women’s Justice Issues 9. Short Term Teams
If you would like a Hope for the Future representative to come to your church, small group or event, contact Louise Short at 360-333-0371.
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