Defeating Your Goliath

One evening when I was praying, the Lord came to me and said, “If you will spend the night with Me, as the day dawns into the morning I will teach you how to have power over the devil.” You can be sure I did not sleep that night.

I sat on a daybed by the window watching for the day to break. Just as it began to crack the tiniest bit, someone walked into my room.

I looked up, and there was a young man with broad shoulders and a ruddy face. He had something strange slung over his shoulder. He looked as though he had been outdoors a lot. He was strong, but he wasn’t mammoth or tall—just a nice physique.

I realized he was not a small boy, but a young man in his late teens. My attention was drawn to the cloth on his shoulder. The Holy Spirit said to me, “That is a shepherd’s sling.”

I didn’t know what shepherds’ slings looked like before that night. I have since studied what they look like and learned they are part of a robe that is worn draped around the body. With part of it you can kill the enemy, and with part of it you cover yourself.

I looked at him in surprise and said, “You are David!” It was difficult for my intellect to grasp what I was experiencing, though my spirit responded eagerly.

Then the Lord said to me, “Watch him.” And I began to watch a drama unfold.

There was a brook at David’s feet. He reached down and picked up five stones and held them in his hand.

About that time, a huge person walked into the room. I looked up, startled by his size, and whispered, “You are a giant.” In that instant I realized he was Goliath.

The Holy Spirit told me, “I will teach you how to have power over the devil. Watch David.” David put away four of the stones he had in his hand. He took the fifth and put it in the sling that was on his shoulder. My Teacher asked me, “In what did he come and throw that rock?”

I answered, “In the name of the Lord of hosts.”

When I said that, David picked up the rock and slung it at the giant, hitting him in the forehead. The mammoth man fell. Then the Spirit said to me, “Now you get up and pick up the other four rocks.” And, in the vision, He let Goliath stand back up.

Now I had to use the stones to defeat Goliath. The Holy Spirit asked me, “What stone did Jesus throw at the devil?” (Then I understood that Goliath was a type of Satan.)

I declared, “Jesus’ response to the devil was, ‘It is written.’ He threw the Word at the devil.” As I stood there in the middle of the den, whirling my sling and throwing that stone, I hit Goliath, and he reeled and started down. But he didn’t go all the way down.

The Holy Spirit then asked, “What is the line that the enemy cannot cross?”

I said, “The blood of Jesus. He cannot cross the blood.”

He said, “Take that stone and throw it.” There I was, a dignified former Methodist professor, standing in the middle of the room throwing rocks from a shepherd’s sling. If someone had opened the door and seen me, they would have been astonished at the sight.

As I threw the stone that represented the blood, the giant went down again—but he got up part of the way.

Then the Holy Spirit asked, “In whose strength do you fight?”

I raised my arm, and it felt like it had hundreds of pounds of strength. I declared, “‘Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith the Lord of hosts'” (see Zech. 4:6, KJV). I understood we have to move by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The four stones used so far to defeat the enemy were His name, His Word, His blood, and the power of His Spirit.

I had one rock left. By that time Goliath was almost finished. He barely got his head back up.

The Holy Spirit asked me, “Whose faith is it?” I declared with Paul, “‘The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God'” (see Gal. 2:20), and I threw my last rock at the giant. When I threw that rock, the enemy was totally defeated with no strength to rise again.

I learned that morning that defeating the enemy is not about standing and yelling and stomping our feet. It involves using the divine arsenal of weapons God has given us—the name of the Lord, His Word, His blood, the power of His Spirit and His faith. These are all He tells us to use to come against Satan.

Then the Spirit said to me, “Put those five stones in the sling of praise, and go conquer the enemy.”

Removing a Demon

A few days later my Teacher—the Holy Spirit—gave me another lesson. This time He showed me, by means of another vision, how to put the five “stones” to use.

I had been planning to go to lunch with some friends after a Sunday morning service when the Holy Spirit said, “If you will spend the afternoon with Me, I will teach you what a demon is.”

I said, “All right.”

So I asked the ladies to excuse me from lunch, telling them I needed to stay and get ready for the evening service. Then I went to my room and stretched out across the bed. I wasn’t really praying. I just said, “Lord, I am with You.”

Suddenly, the Holy Spirit gave me a vision of a hospital. I was a part of the vision, and I was wheeling a patient into the operating room.

Hospitals were not strange to me because I had practiced nursing for eight years. While I was studying in Bible college, I studied nursing as well, thinking I would be sent to the mission field. The Holy Spirit was about to draw on my knowledge of nursing to give me an analogy of what a demon was.

In the vision, after I had wheeled the patient into the operating room, I saw the man from oncology, who had come in to take a blood sample, and an X-ray technician, who turned on the light and hung up the X-ray. It was a very intense light, located at the head of the patient, and it illuminated the X-ray clearly.

The doctors and technicians all stood looking intently at the X-ray. They had studied it before, but, at the moment of surgery, they were looking at it again so their procedure would be precise.

I wasn’t quite sure what I was watching. What did this operating room scene have to do with a demon? My Teacher said, “I want you to watch this operation closely. The doctors do not proceed casually with the operation. They have carefully diagnosed the problem and are ready to correct it.”

I saw the surgeon standing over the patient while still looking at the X-ray. “What is the surgeon going after?” my Teacher asked.

I answered, “He is looking for a foreign body.”

He responded, “That is correct. And that is what a demon is—a foreign body that is usurping or leeching off a human being.” I understood that He was comparing a physical foreign body to a demon—a spiritual foreign body that preys on men’s souls.

He continued, “The surgeon and staff are going in to extricate the foreign body. But they are not going after it without knowledge. They are following strict procedure based on the evidence they have of what is wrong with the patient.”

As the vision continued to unfold, I watched the procedure. They put the patient to sleep and then began, step by step, to skillfully remove the foreign body.

I have remembered this vision when I have been in situations in which people are screaming at a demon, asking the spirit to identify itself and going through other emotional gyrations to cast it out. The surgeon and his team were resolved, prepared and skillful in the removal of the foreign body from their patient.

Once I saw the surgeon stop and confer with his colleagues about what they were seeing. Viewing that scene, I could imagine Jesus and the Holy Spirit comparing notes as They do Their work of redeeming a soul. The assisting technicians were not standing as spectators in the operating room. All eyes were looking intently at the source of the disease, and all hands were cooperating fully with the surgeon.

The analogy was clear. A demon is a foreign body that attaches itself to a human soul and will destroy him or her if not removed. But it cannot be removed promiscuously; it must be removed carefully.

The surgeon had to know what the foreign body was and how to go after it using the proper instruments. And he had to work in complete unity with the team in the operating room.

Similarly, in delivering people from demons, we must use the right instrument at the right time. It is not a task for unskilled people. We must keep our eyes on the chief surgeon, who is Jesus, and cooperate with Him in caring for the patient.

As soon as the foreign body was removed, the patient was stitched carefully to help him recover. My Teacher said to me, “Watch carefully the follow-up procedure to such a surgery.”

One of the technicians gave the patient a shot of penicillin to guard against infection. I had learned that penicillin is made from blue mold that comes from hyssop—a plant used in biblical times to cleanse. David cried out, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean” (Ps. 51:7).

It is important that in spiritual “surgery” we remember to apply the Word of God consistently to a recovering patient to avoid postoperative complications. Eradication of the foreign body is not enough to ensure future victory in a person’s life. Postoperative care is vital.

Then the doctors gave instructions to the nurses for caring for the patient after he was taken to his room. Too often we deliver a person of demonic powers and leave his “house”—his soul—open and vulnerable to the return of worse evil. We need to give the delivered instructions on how to close the door of the house to prevent further invasion of the enemy.

At the conclusion of this vision, I understood that the weapons the Holy Spirit had given me to bring down Goliath—His name, His blood, His Word, His Spirit, His faith—were instruments that could be used in the “removal” of demonic power in a person. I learned how to care for a “patient” both during surgery and afterward.

I have seen patients die because they didn’t have the right care after surgery. They needed antibiotics to kill the infection. The blood and the Word are like spiritual antibiotics for our souls. They bring healing to us.

The understanding I received from the vision of David and the vision of the operating room became invaluable to me. The five weapons God has provided for us to use against the devil are, of course, established in His Word. But knowing the power we have to use them gave wonderful hope to expect victory over every enemy.

The late Fuchsia Pickett authored seven books, including Stones of Remembrance (Creation House). Adapted from Stones of Remembrance by Fuchsia Pickett, copyright 1998. Published by Creation House. Used by permission.