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CBN.com – FACING EVIL
In July 2005, Joe was helping neighbors move into the house next door. After unloading the last trailer, Joe noticed he was out of breath. Everyone was asking, “Are you okay?” Joe brushed off what he was feeling.
“I thought I was just out of shape,” he says.
After returning home, Joe realized he was still short of breath and the sensation was getting worse.
“Both arms ached, and it felt like my chest was being crushed,” he remembers.
Joe told his wife, Doralee, that something was going on and suggested they go to the hospital. Meanwhile, Joe’s son called 9-1-1. Joe was alone in the dining room and said he heard a voice tell him to “bind the spirits.”
“I couldn’t believe it,” says Joe.
So he began to pray. Before he could finish praying, Joe says he heard a horrible laughter that echoed in his head.
“My head jerked backwards. I was stunned, shocked beyond words,” he says. “I was face to face with an evil so dark, so powerful, it defied any measure of description.”
He says he felt totally helpless.
“I was in the grip of an evil that is beyond comprehension. It had come for just one purpose – to kill me, and there was nothing I could do,” says Joe.
With each blink of his eyes, Joe says it became harder and harder to keep them open. Even as consciousness was leaving him, and his mind was clouded with hopelessness, Joe says one single thought emerged. Call on Jesus. With the last strength from his mouth, Joe says he whispered “My Lord Jesus.”
Instantly, Joe felt an arm around his shoulders, lifting him up. The confusion disappeared.
“I heard a voice clearer than anything I ever heard. The voice simply said, “I’m here.” Joe saw an arm draped in a white robe and a hand gripping his shoulder. Then he felt a hand touch his chest, filling him with a sensation of lightness.
“Strength poured through me,” says Joe. “The crushing sensation started to subside.”
Suddenly Joe was fully awake and alert and covered with a sense of peace.
THE SHADOW OF THE VALLEY OF DEATH
After the ambulance arrived, one of the paramedics checked on Joe. He said that all indications showed that he was having a heart attack involving the anterior part of Joe’s heart. The paramedic said, “That’s the worst kind.” The paramedics transported Joe to the nearest hospital.
Once in the ER, Joe’s pastor showed up to pray for him. As they rolled into the elevator to take Joe to the cath lab, Doralee said she felt God’s presence in the elevator. While in the cath lab, Doralee ran into a customer who said he was lost. She explained to him the circumstances and let him know he wasn’t lost but that he was there to pray!
The doctor standing by was the lead researcher for the Indiana Vascular Institute of the Indiana Heart Center. He inserted a stent into Joe’s artery that was 100% blocked, and suddenly Joe could breathe again with no difficulty. Doctors said Joe was experiencing a very bad heart attack. Four days later, Joe went home.
“I am overwhelmed with gratitude and humility when I consider what took place,” says Joe. “God’s Word is just as alive today as when Jesus walked the earth,” says Joe.
“There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that God’s Holy Spirit was present and leading me that night. It’s pretty obvious that God has a purpose in mind.”
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