The following story is taken from the book by Dr. Ed Murphy on spiritual warfare.  Some of the terms may have changed in some groups and with the different kinds of witchcraft that there are, it may not sound like what you may be familiar with.  Some witches are as different from one another as any religion may differ from another religion.  I have noticed that many people who have left Christian churches for differing forms of paganism had a bitter taste in their mouths when they left because of people who were less than Christian, hurtful, and mean. The stories of lecherous pastors chasing young married women around a desk or making visits to women's homes to proposition them are rife.  The spectacular debacles of moral failure on the part of Christians and Christian leaders are all out in the open for people to see.  Instead of getting understanding and gentle love a lot of pagans find malice and arrogance coming from people who claim Christ.  I can tell you that I do not believe God approves of the evil that people do in the name of Jesus Christ. If you are not familiar with Christianity or know Christians well that is fine.  The Bible says that few people find life with the overwhelming majority of people taking another way, the way that leads to destruction.  Even in churches there are people who do whatever they want and do more to discourage people from knowing Jesus than anything else.  It all comes down to a choice.  This is one example of choice-making.

I was counseling a troubled, out-of-town Christian by telephone. My schedule was so full a face-to-face counseling session was not possible. Yet he was hurting badly, and I felt compelled to try to minister to him by telephone.

James was a new believer who had been a practicing warlock in a local witch coven. His wife was a witch in the same group. They had one child, a young boy named Tommy, about six years old. James came from a troubled family. He was a victim of physical and sexual child abuse by his father. He grew up with a deep sense of shame, powerlessness, worthlessness, and anger. Witchcraft gave him a sense of power over others, over circumstances, and above all, over his own life.

He had had some exposure to Christianity as a youth, and he had friends who were Christians. He had gone to church with them occasionally but did not understand the Gospel. He was greatly impressed with the person of Christ but did not know how to appropriate Him for his own life.

He met his wife while in high school. She introduced him to witchcraft. It seemed just right for him. After their marriage, he and his wife gave their lives to the spirit world. While there was "fun" in witchcraft, there were also things that disturbed his sensitive spirit. Everyone was on a power trip. Each sought to gain control over others. The spirits, while helpful to a bruised person like James, were also evil. They promoted free sex among the group. He did not like seeing his wife involved sexually with members of the group, both men and women. He felt degraded when he participated with the group in such activities.

Hate for others, particularly Christians, was a dominate feature of his coven. They were always putting curses on Christians and calling upon the spirits to harm them. Frankly, he liked a Christian co-worker who had begun to witness to him about the joy of the Christian life.

The controlling spirit of the group reminded him of the Devil he had read about and was hearing about from his Christian friend. He wondered if, unknown to him, his wife, and the other members of his coven, Satan was not manipulating them behind the scenes. As one of the coven leaders, he dared not voice his concerns, however.

One evening he, his wife, and child returned home from a particularly upsetting coven meeting characterized by expressions of deep hatred towards Christians. The spirits were upset with the group for not working harder to earn witchcraft a place of acceptance as a good "religion" which, in contrast to Christianity, stressed the values of earthly happiness, peace, and brotherhood. At the same time he recognized that they were filled with hatred against anyone who opposed them.

James voiced his concern to his wife. He also told her of his Christian co-worker and how kind, affirming, gentle, and moral he was. All his co-workers knew James’ friend was a Christian, not because he constantly preached at them or argued with them, but by his lifestyle. While he ate his bag lunch with his fellow workers, he did not participate in their dirty talk or language. He occasionally reminded them when the swearing got too bad that they were misusing the name of his Lord, and he would firmly but gently ask them to stop. They would apologize, and their language and subjects of conversation would actually moderate when they were in his presence. James was deeply impressed with his Christian friend.

His wife was furious. "Christians are our worst enemies," she replied. "They say we worship Satan, which is a lie. They also say their God is the true God and Jesus the only Savior. This is also a lie. There are many gods. Our religion is the answer to the needs of humanity. We don’t live for some future heaven. We enjoy life now. When we die, we become one with the spirits so we have the best of both worlds. How can you even think for a moment that your Christian friend may be right?"

One Sunday while his wife was away, James went to church with his friend. He loved the singing, the prayers, and the sermon from the Bible. Most of all he was drawn to the person of Jesus. He cried when he began to understand that God loved him so much that He would send His own Son to die for his sins.

No matter what he had been taught and was teaching others, he knew sin was real. All the sex, hatred, pride, ambition, and disrespect for one’s fellow man that his group was promoting was sin; he knew that. He wanted to get out. The pressure to continue promoting evil in the name of love was too much. He wanted to do good to all men. He wanted to be free.

Day after day at lunch break he talked with his Christian friend. One day he bowed his head, prayed, and received Jesus as his Savior. He could no longer continue calling evil good and the goodness of Christ and God, evil.

When he told his wife she was beside herself in rage. "You always have been a weak person," she said. "I don’t know why I ever married you. Unless you return to the coven I’m leaving you and taking Tommy with me." They talked for hours. Rather, he tried to talk, but she railed at him, heaping insult upon insult. The next day when he returned from work she was gone. Just as she had threatened, she had taken Tommy with her.

She left no phone number where he could reach her. James called one of the leaders of the coven to see if he knew of her whereabouts. He did, but he would not tell James where she was. "You have become a Christian," the man said. "You are a traitor. You have joined our enemies. Unless you renounce Christianity and return to the coven you will never see your wife and child again." With that he hung up.

It was then that James began to come under demonic attack. The spirits would bombard his mind with threats and insults. They would not let him sleep at night. They confused his mind so badly he had difficulty doing his work. He was desperate. His Christian friend took him to one of the leaders of his church who was gifted at expelling evil spirits. He supposedly had special gifts of discernment which would help him identify the spirits operating in James’ life. Many demons were cast out. At first James was greatly relieved. In time, however, the demons either came back or others came to torment him. They were spirits of "slavery to fear" (Romans 8:15). He was terrified. They threatened to kill him, and he feared they would.

At this point, James called me to help him get rid of his fears and bondage to the accusing spirits. Instead, I went through the Scriptures with him to help him understand who he was in Christ. I wanted him to recognize that Satan was already defeated by the Son of God in his behalf. I told him that though the Devil might not immediately and totally back off, he would eventually have to cease his accusations and fear tactics. He always does. He has no choice in the matter (James 4:7–8).

I call this pre-deliverance counseling. It would have been ineffective just to try to cast demons out of a life so severely demonized with powerful demons of witchcraft, fear, and bondage. Because he had been into witchcraft for years, including several years as a warlock, his deliverance was not instant, but progressive.

On more than one occasion the demons came into manifestation while we were talking by phone. I would bring them into subjection and continue with the scriptural counseling. James faithfully studied Dr. Mark Bubeck’s book, The Adversary. He began to do Doctrinal and Warfare Praying.

He purchased and carefully followed my 16 audio-cassette tape series with accompanying study syllabus called Spiritual Warfare. Eventually he began to sense the demons releasing their hold on his life and in his mind. While it took several months, the final self-deliverance occurred all at once one night while James was alone in bed. He suddenly became aware of the exodus of the last of the bondage spirits. 

They screamed their protest in his mind, 

"This is not fair. You belonged to us, but we have to go. Jesus is saying we must leave you right now. This is not fair. This is not fair."

With that they left.

As James drew near to the Lord in worship, prayer, and thanksgiving, the Lord drew near to him (James 4:7–8). Never had he experienced such a sense of the Lord’s presence. He was finally free. He now understood Paul’s words, "For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit [the Holy Spirit] of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’ (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6). James now knew for sure that he was both a child of God, an heir of God, and joint heir with Christ (verse 17). He knew that his sufferings were sufferings with Christ. All were meant for his good. He also knew that some day he would "be glorified with Him" (verses 16–17).

This is an overview of Paul’s teachings on the ecstasy of the normal Christian life. While some agony is involved, the focus is on ecstasy, the freedom from the law of sin and death through the indwelling Christ and His Holy Spirit.

Be Accountable, Be Mature, Be Responsible Act Out of Love

Before I go further with this I must make a note.  I know of some people who trusted the LORD and came out of witchcraft many years ago.  A preacher had them come up with him and proceeded to quote the following verse.  They were afraid of retaliation from the people they were associated with and felt that they had been betrayed by this man.  They killed themselves. Spiritual matters are not the object of a showman to strut about and cause harm with in any way.  Spiritual warfare, spiritual deliverance, and salvation are not to be taken lightly and we are accountable for what we say and what we do.  Do not use your position in Christ to commit such an act of irresponsible abomination as he did.  Many innocent Christians have been persecuted and killed because someone played on people's ignorance.  This verse shows what God's attitude is toward spiritual harlotry and betrayal of Him but He is quick to forgive and we are not under the Law but under the Law of the Spirit.¹

Exodus 22

¹⁸Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

The enemy of our souls works through the ignorance and pride of people who say that they are Christians.  The choice is to follow Jesus and not let anyone or anything get to you so that you give up.  I remember about ten years ago praying with someone to renounce her former life.  Some time later it was obvious that she got scared and the prayer had an effect on the demons that were there around her.  Don't let them scare you either.

¹    Edward F. Murphy, Handbook for spiritual warfare [computer file], electronic ed. of the revised and updated edition, Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997, c1996 by Edward F. Murphy.