The Gifts of the Holy Spirit: - Vital Christianity

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3. Mental changes: uncontrollable glossollalia; understanding unknown languages;
preternatural knowledge; psychic and occult powers, e.g. clairvoyance, telepathy, and prediction.
4. Spiritual changes: reaction to and fear of Christ, sometimes causing blasphemy and adverse
reactions to prayer. 51
Acute Demonic Attack
The above diagnostic indication of acute demonic attack has been collated by the
Rev. John Richards from eight different authorities and David Pytches testifies that his own
experience in this area is similar.
1. Public Knowledge. There are extreme cases of people possessed by spirits which make them
violent and who are, therefore generally ‘diagnosed’ by the local community (“Legion” was a case
in point—Mk. 5).
2. Natural discernment: If a demon manifests itself, both those who witness it and the
afflicted person know it, or the afflicted person becomes aware of a definite pattern of compulsive
behavior (bondage) which may be symptomatic, such as addiction, sexual perversion of
some kind, self-destructive thoughts, etc.
3. Through the gift of “discerning of spirits” the kind of spirit at work is revealed (I Cor.
12:10). In one meeting Smith Wigglesworth ministered to two people who seemed to everyone but
Wigglesworth to have identical problems: both were deaf and dumb. Wigglesworth put his fingers
into the first person’s deaf ears and said “be opened in the name of Jesus.” He then placed his hand
on the person’s lips and said, “Tongue be loosed” The man was healed. He dealt with the
second problem in a different manner. He looked the man straight in the eye and said, “Thou deaf
and dumb spirit, come out of him in the name of the Lord Jesus.” The person was wonderfully
delivered and received his hearing back.
4. Through the gift of a “word of knowledge” the spiritual cause behind the affliction is
revealed.
5. When the Holy Spirit is invoked over an oppressed person there is frequently a manifest
“power encounter”—shaking, contortions of some kind, eyes rolling upward, localized pain.
6. Sometimes the speech is unusual in its pitch and strange in its content. Sometimes there is a
manifestation of a false “tongue” which is not of God--it is almost uncontrollable in its speaking or
its singing. Sometimes there is clearly another voice speaking through the person being ministered