“And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.” (Acts 4:31).

After the night of the tent meeting, when I was baptized with the Holy Spirit, something changed in me, it was what I called holy boldness. I was a quiet kid and the Holy Spirit gave me a lion like quality when I talked about Jesus. I was gaining more confidence in God’s Word and was studying and learning that as a believer God sent me to preach the gospel, heal the sick and evict devils.

When I went back to school the nutty kids were all making out-kissing near the lockers all the way down the hall to my homeroom it was like they were having an orgy with their clothes on. Drugs were for sale on the side of the school and the type drug was signified by the color bandanna the dealer was wearing. I remember feeling angry and sad at the condition of my friends whom I saw as living on the precipice of hell and did not know it. 

Although the occult has more influence now than ever, I did not realize the influence of witchcraft over teenagers and teachers even back in the 80’s. I remembered a substitute teacher who could hold articles of clothing or jewelry and employed a spirit of divination or clairvoyance. Somehow toward the middle of class they got on the subject. He was telling their fortunes with great accuracy. I was indignant in the Spirit.

He was holding someones ring and about to use his demons powers when under my breath I kept repeating, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” 

He said, “I don’t know why but for some reason I cannot tell you anything.” I quietly praised God. I learned that day by experience that I had authority over demons.

You have to remember I was a young convert and I was still new at conveying the gospel. I remember one girl, who smoked incessantly arguing with me, saying she did not believe in God. I was shocked and not sure how to answer her.

So, I pointed at her pack of cigarettes and said, “There’s your god.”

She was surprised at my response and said, “You’re right.” 

Well at least she was going to think about quitting smoking.

I was witnessing to everyone at arm’s length. So was my brother. We attended different classes but we had one thing in common we had had rooms with satanists in them. They even brought their satanic bible with them to school written by Anton LaVey. You can’t even get the wimpy Christian kids to bring their Bible to school today. They loved listening to anything they saw as satanic like Iron Maiden or Ozzie Osbourn.

I remember that they would see us and say things like, “Praise Satan!” and we would respond “Praise God!”

Sometimes they would see us and snicker saying, “There goes God and God’s brother.”

Or they would call us, “The Jesus Brother’s”

Man, I felt like Elijah on Mount Carmel with the prophets of Baal and Asherah all around us.

One time the Satanist head honcho came into my home room and he had his satanic literature with him. A kid named Scott was in my homeroom and he was being influenced by him. They were wondering if I was afraid of their devil bible and was scared of touching it-I was not. I took it and paged through it non nonchalantly. Then as I handed the it back to them I looked at them and said, “The highest reward Satan can give you is hell.”

Scott was freaked out and said to the devil worshiper, “Man, I don’t wanna go to no hell.” God had his way. Sometime after graduation, I led Scott to the Lord in front of a church I was visiting. It was exhilarating.

We would do all kinds of things to get the gospel message out. We would buy Chick Tracts and one time I “accidentally” dumped them on a table with kids sitting in the library.

They were like, “What are these?

I said, “Cartoons about the Bible and Jesus.”

Many of the kids took them and read them. Some were asking for more each day I saw them. I heard that one kid took bunch of them and read them in his basement all day. I was getting excited. I saw this as sowing the seed of the Word.

My science teacher passed by my desk one day and saw the symbols for Alpha and Omega written on my jean loose leaf cover and said playfully, “Gibney, you’re weird.”

One time another science teacher was teaching and to make her point she said, “Hey, this is gospel truth, just ask Gibney!” God had allowed my testimony to reach the teachers. Even my homeroom teacher called my family at home one night and was wondering why were were so “into Jesus.”

Health Class was interesting.  I boldly protested unbiblical teaching. The kids thought I was crazy or a fanatic. One time we had to do oral reports. I decided to do mine on depression. You should have seen the look on their faces and their disgruntled sighing when I said, “Now the only solution to depression is Jesus Christ.” They had to listen to the gospel in class and they could not do anything about it and I knew it.  Later on the teacher got saved.

One of those kids saw me on the bus and called me a Jesus freak. 

I touted back, “God doesn’t turn people into freaks he turns freaks into people.”

He was stunned and left stuttering. Hey man, don’t rumble with the gospel.

I remember one kid who they used to call “Peach Fuzz.” He was short and well he was very blonde. He would debate with me about evolution, prophecy and Jesus all the time. I felt he was hopeless and like I was beating my head against the wall. 

Then one day he stops me in the library and says, “Stephen, I believe I am born again!” I was shocked.

He said, “After you would talk all I could think about was God and the devil. Creation versus evolution. Heaven and hell.” I would go back to my classes and go home and it is all I could think about.”

He told me he got hold of a Bible and as he opened it in bed one night, God opened his heart to Christ. I was amazed and thrilled and learned not to judge by people outward rejection to the gospel. the Holy Spirit could be working on them and we not know it. I learned to tell people, “After we are done talking, my friend the Holy Spirit will be showing you the truth and you cannot hide from him.”

I had opportunity to witness and lead people to the Lord. God was on the move in my school.

Soon, God was going to get the entire schools attention. But he first he was going to teach me some things.

©2015 Rev. Stephen S. Gibney, give credit where credit is due.