My thoughts traveled back to back to 1967 when I was baptized in the Holy Spirit.

For it was soon after that life-changing event that I first heard about using the Blood of Jesus to overcome the devil. Extreme hunger for the Word of God consumes me. In one of the seminars I attended I heard the minister say, "I always say it like this. I say, 'In the Name of Jesus, I plead the Blood of Jesus.'"

I remembered how those welcome words penetrated my heart as a young mother of four. And I remembered how we used them to bring up our children without tragedy.

Several incidents came to mind.

Chip, our youngest, could be described as "all boy" including almost everything that description usually brings to mind. Athletic. Fun loving. And so on. I was particularly thankful for the right to use the Blood of Jesus when Chip as a teen driver left the house in his car.

Things would transpire something like this. Chip, usually in a hurry to get to practice or a game or somewhere, would dutifully stand while I put my right hand on top of his curly black hair and said, "In the Name of Jesus, I apply the Blood of Jesus over Chip."

Sometimes I walked out to the car and put my hand on it, and sometimes I just added these words in the kitchen with my hand on his head, "In the Name of Jesus I apply the Blood of Jesus over Chip's car, bumper to bumper, side to side, top to bottom, every working part. Chip will go and come home safe."

Once this people-loving teenager invited several members of his high school football team to the house to cook hamburgers. As they prepared to leave, I decided not to embarrass Chip. I would wait till they left and then make my confession of God's provision in Jesus' Blood.

Chip got into his car loaded with friends, then got out of it and came back into the kitchen and asked in a somewhat demanding tone, "What kind of a mother are you? Are you going to let me go without the Blood of Jesus on me?"

Later, when he was in college an interesting thing happened. Chip and three friends decided to rent a house their second year rather than to live in the dorm.

Early one morning my telephone rang. At first I didn't recognize the high-pitched distorted voices.

"Mom!" "Mrs. Brim!" They squeaked excitedly.

I figured out it was Chip and his basketball player friend, Conley. They told me their scary story.

The doublewide mobile home they rented was far out in the country. The first day when the boys arrived home from school in one car, they noticed strange things. The doors and windows were open. Hair dryers and toasters were on. The television and stereos were blasting. They thought it was someone playing a joke. But when they checked with the owner, no one else had a key. For several days thereafter when they came home the same things were happening. And then came the eventful night before they called me.

Chip was in his bedroom studying. Everyone else was in bed. He heard the front door slam hard. The whole mobile home shook. He got up to investigate. Then the door to Conley's room opened wide and slammed closed.

Chip asked Matt, who slept on the living room couch, "Did you see that?"

"Yes. What was it?"

At that Conley's door opened and slammed again.

Then Chip and Matt saw a dark figure go out the front door which opened and slammed shut.

Matt and Chip ran to Chip's room where they both spent the rest of the night in his twin bed. They promised never to tell anyone what they saw.

Rising unusually early Conley said to Chip, "I've got to talk to you about last night."

(Conley and Chip grew up together. Conley's parents were Spirit-filled Christians, too. Chip told me when we discussed this for the book, however, that he and Conley were not living for God as they knew to at the time.)

Robert evidently had heard it too, for he asked, "What was all that?"

Conley said, "Something came into my room and stood over my bed. It was hooded and carried a scythe like the grim reaper. I think he came to tell me I'm going to die."

Matt cried out, "Oh, my God!"

With that the four boys took off running down the road toward a little store a mile away where they called me from the pay phone.

Such cases are low-level devils. They can only frighten. But this one had succeeded fairly well. For I am certain those macho athletic types would not have wanted the girls on campus to have observed their shaking and squeaking.

"It's just low-level devils," I assured them. I gave them Scriptures and told them how to cast out the devils.

Then I instructed them further. "Do you have any oil? Demons don't have to use windows and doors, but as a point of contact for your faith, and as a symbol of entry into your house, anoint all the doors and windows with this oil and say, 'In the Name of Jesus we apply the Blood of Jesus. Demons, you cannot enter our house.'"

The boys chipped in and bought oil at the store. Then they went back to the house - which they'd vowed on the way to the store they would never enter again - and carried out the instructions in detail.

They had no further trouble. And as a result of the evident power of God over the power of the devil, the boys started going to church.

Source: The Blood and the Glory by Billye Brim
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers