Demonologist Warned Of U.S. 'Hitler'
While, in Catholicism, the three most recent Popes, and especially the current one, have often mentioned -- and warned about -- Satan, the topic is all but entirely avoided in American and West European pulpits.
How can it be that a daily Mass reading pertains to evil but the subsequent homily entirely avoids mention of that?
Is this because seminarians are taught it's superstition -- or is it due to fear? Or both?
There is nothing that should cause trepidation, when we have faith, noted a renowned expert, Dr. Lester Sumrall, who evangelized around the world -- an estimated one thousand towns, villages, and cities -- up to his death in 1996.
Remarkably, even in severe cases, wrote Sumrall (in a fascinating book, Demons: The Answer Book), simple words of rebuke immediately cast devils out when said with complete faith.
There is "no struggle."
There can be instant healing.
The Apostles, noted Sumrall, had no fear whatsoever. We simply have to remember, he said, that we are not personally in conflict. It is Christ in us Who does the battling. He cannot lose.
And it was in His "great commission" that we go forth using His Name to assist the afflicted or cleanse ourselves and homes.
What is the most demonized country?
In the opinion of this tremendously insightful deliverance expert, it was Indonesia, at least while he was alive.
"In the three months I was there, and in all my travels, I have never seen as much demon power and as many witch doctors anywhere as I did in Indonesia," wrote Sumrall in a book. High on his list was also India -- which despite its talented and unusually intelligent people, has been in bondage to poverty -- backwardness -- due to worshipping thousands of false idol "gods."
While the West tried to help India get on its feet (at least to an extent), said Sumrall, it's a nation "under the dominion of the devil." Sumrall mentions a Tibetan monk there who, a la Uri Geller, could twist a steel sword through mystic (read: demonic) energy.
Other nations especially oppressed: certain ones in Africa due to animistic religions, parts of South America, which have both voodooist and shamanist influences, and regions of Asia in addition to Indonesia -- in some cases, due to atheism.
Uganda was a special case. There, Sumrall learned that the brutal dictator Idi Amin was actually employing black magic. The eyes of his soldiers seemed to have gone mad with blood, he wrote; diablerie seemed at work. But all nations have spirits hovering over -- he warns, that America is no exception.
In fact, said the well-known evangelist (who died in 1996), if the U.S. doesn't quickly revert back to morality, it will suffer fascism.
"We are in a time when the devil is seeking to conquer America," he wrote.
"If our generation fails to take authority over the devil and his demons, our children and their children could well live in a country that is tyrannized by a demon-possessed dictator, an Adolph Hitler or Josef Stalin," Sumrall openly fretted.
"It is a pity that in a great country like ours, with its freedom of the press and millions of Bibles, books, and magazines, people know less about demon power than citizens of Africa or Tibet do.
"Possibly through gross neglect, the ministers of our generation have not informed the people of the reality of demon power."
As a result, Western Christians and clergy are often clueless about attacks by the evil one, who as a result -- as we see all too starkly, especially through the crisis of abuse -- finds it all too easy to infiltrate them.
His is a book well worth the read. In it Sumrall, though non-denominational, quotes Pope Paul VI's warning that "whole societies have fallen under the domination of the devil. Sex and narcotics provide openings for Satan's infiltration of mankind. One of the great needs of our time is a defense against the evil which we call the devil. We all are under an obscure domination. It is by Satan, the Prince of this World, the number one enemy."
He knows of what he speaks. Sumrall has seen people do things like writhe across the room snakelike, with frothing from the mouth, a greenish foam. He tended to an incarcerated woman who suffered severe bite marks from two evil spirits -- called in when the local bishop declined to assign exorcists due to fear of harm (a doctor and prison official who crossed paths with the young girl died immediately afterwards).
He dispelled the demon with a simple command in the Name of Jesus.
Why so little taught from our pulpits about the devil, he wonders? Satan is directly mentioned more than two hundred times in the Bible! "Jesus said more about the devils than He did about angels." points out Sumrall. "On reading portions of the Gospels, one quickly sees that much of Jesus' time was taken up with encounters with evil spirits. They seemed to crop up everywhere. In the opening chapter of Mark's gospel, Jesus encountered no less than five situations involving Satan or evil spirits."
And with ease cast them all out. The demons feared Him.
[resources: Demons: The Answer Book]