Tony Loeffler shares how the powers of darkness tried hard to convince him that his prayers were useless but the Lord was showing him something else...

Tony Loeffler

Two years after my first experience with being physically attacked by a demon, I had round two. You would never believe it, but it was the same demon in another person and just as angry, if not more than the first time. This spirit was determined to be a troublemaker.

Before our confrontation, I was told by one of the registration people at the music festival that someone by the name of Allen had come to the festival looking for me and had been there for two days. They said he seemed pretty anxious to find me. Apparently, he was in the Channings Wood Prison at some point when I performed at that prison some years ago in England. What in the world this demon was doing in this young man now when it was in a woman at the festival in 1997, was beyond my wildest imagination.

What I remember of the situation is that I was getting ready to make my first musical appearance for that year's Festival in Devon, England. Just as I was getting ready to go on stage, this man introduced himself to me by saying, "Hi, remember me? I'm here to kill you this year." Now a statement like that you just don't want to hear as you're stepping on stage.

We were nose to nose and you couldn't have put a sheet of paper between our noses. Well, immediately my spirit remembered who this was and it certainly wasn't the young man, Allen. Was I shocked? You bet! You don't get appointments like this everyday.

This wasn't funny. This wasn't just a bad joke. This was a serious spiritual confrontation and I surely wasn't in the mood or in the shape for this type of an experience again. Well, what I did was muster up as much courage as I could and said, "Yeah, I remember you. Do you remember what happened to you the last time we met?" Now I have to tell you I wasn't ready for this. First, I don't like that kind of aggression. I left the world of violence in 1971 when I received the Lord, Jesus Christ as Savior. And secondly, I just don't like demons.

If there is anything about demons, they lie, cheat, destroy, create divisions, cause fear, anger, death and a score of other things that I now am opposed to. So, of course I didn't want to have this encounter. Plus, I was caught by total surprise. I didn't have a chance to think of how to respond. I was in survival mode.

I did manage to get that one sentence out about, "Yeah, I remember you. Do you remember what happened to you the last time we met?" But I was still in survival mode, not offense mode. What I needed to really do, was teach this demon a lesson or two that it would never forget, and that is not to mess with Christians. Today I do that, but not back then. I didn't really know how to use the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a confrontation like this even though I had been doing street and prison ministry for over twenty-five years.

I have seen the power of the Gospel at work in regard to salvation. Thousands of inmates were coming to the Lord faster than we could count. But, I never had demons in my face like this one. Well, I didn't like it in 1997 and I didn't like it now. So I prayed, "Lord, I don't want to deal with this. Please, either chain up that demon or make me invisible. I'm just not ready for this stuff."

Allen continued to stalk me like some animal trying to kill its prey. Allen would be only ten to twenty feet from me and you could see he was looking everywhere to find me. I know because I kept my eye on Allen as I knew that spirit meant business. Somehow, and I don't know how, but in our conversation that spirit knew that I was a novice at this kind of stuff and let me know about it.

After the sixth time that Allen had passed me by, I said to Linda, our sax player, "Look at Allen, he is looking for me and can't even see me." It was at that moment that I knew the Lord answered my prayer. But it wasn't going to be good enough for me.

When I got back to the United States I felt horrible and ashamed for not being available to the Lord Jesus Christ to use me in the possible deliverance of Allen's problems. He needed help and I didn't want to be uncomfortable. He needed help and I knew the answer.

At the Festival after I prayed my prayer, the spirit in Allen was powerless but I didn't really have the assurance and didn't want to get involved. I came to play music, not cast out demons. During that time I remember Allen making a very interesting comment to me after my prayer. What he said was, "I can't function like this, I can kill people but I can't function like this." He was frustrated, angry and yelling because he couldn't do anything because the prayers of the righteous avail much and the Lord answered my prayer.

I wish I had that understanding and awareness before I left for the United States because then I could have perhaps helped Allen come to freedom in Christ. But I didn't and I just wanted to get out of that place. I didn't know it then but I know it now that through the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ my prayer had been answered and the demon was restricted from being operational.

The demonic world is simply no match for the Christian who knows where the authority comes from and is willing to use it. Today, I know this more than I did in 1999 but only because I taught myself through the help of the Holy Spirit.

It wasn't until 1997 when I first got attacked by a demon, that I developed an interest in this topic. That is where I first experienced the power and authority of the blood of Jesus and the very mention of His name in a spiritual confrontation. My advice now is why wait till you have a problem? Why not start using the power of the Gospel to clean up your city, school, town or church. Demons tremble at the very mention of Jesus name and they do know where the power comes from. The greater blessing is identifying with the power of the Gospel and seeing people delivered from their misery.

I don't get beat up any more. As a matter of fact, that demon in Allen wasn't able to do nothing but listen. And more recently in my former town of Midland Park, NJ some demons moved into our town and opened a sorcerer's shop. One day when I noticed their presence I prayed a prayer like this. "You foul demonic spirits, you don't bear any good fruit and because you don't, you will not prosper no matter what you do in this town."

Right, wrong or indifferent, that business never prospered. The owners were arrested and the business closed forever in a matter of two years. The powers of darkness tried hard to convince me that my prayers were useless but the Lord was showing me something else. Greater is He who is in me than all the demons from hell. I simply told those foul spirits to get out of my town and they did!