Prostitute Repents in Elevator

 

PROSTITUTE REPENTS

The Meeting in the Elevator

 

For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb,

and her mouth is smoother than oil: But her end is bitter as wormwood,

sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death;

her steps take hold on hell.

Proverbs 5:3-5

 

It’s around 9am Manilla time, I have to head down to the café opposite our apartment because for some reason the Wi-Fi signal in the apartment isn’t strong enough to download and respond to yesterday’s UK work emails? I’d prefer not to be there, but needs must. Sometimes the Lord is guiding and we do not realise it. This was such an occasion.

 

Waiting for the elevator on the same floor as me was a young attractive Filipino lady. We enter together, her in front of me. We are the only two all the way to the ground floor. It was hard not to notice that she has been staring at me since the moment I came around the corner from our door. On entering the lift, instead of the usual turn and anonymously face the door as most everyone does, she wants to stand sideways to directly face me and overly close as if we were old intimate friends comfortable with each other’s presence. And comfortable I was not. I am aware and instantly wary as to how wide-eyed staring she is at me and overtly keen to engage in chat. 

 

Sin is readily available in the Philippines and I had hardly seen it as available as this. But, Praise the Lord, the devil wanted a battle for my body and soul and I was ready to give him one. I had been here before and I know how this scenario plays out. It’s a battle between two kingdoms and you have the casting vote.

 

The Holy Spirit is kind to warn us in such situations to instantly be on our guard and tighten our armour. We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against demonic entities. So, how would I know that this was a demonic entity and not some usual friendly Filipino simply inquisitive as to where I’m from and why I am there in her place?

 

I know because I have unintentionally been there before … numerous times and by Father's grace found the wherewithal to flee or the opportunity to witness and the person concerned has repented and given their life to Christ.

 

 

For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread:

and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.

Proverbs 6:26

 

In my younger days, among countless temptations thrown at me, it truly seemed to hunt me. Satan had upped the stakes on several occasions by staging on my behalf no less than five unsuspecting occasions when in broad daylight women opened the door to a pre-arranged sales appointment with me (we had a Home Improvement business) and they were dressed in nothing but a scanty see-through nightie and a smile. On those occasions, I managed to flee every time.

 

If you saw me you would soon realise it was not because I’m classically good looking. Sadly, not at all. I know it was because I loved Christ and sought Him with all my heart. He had saved me from a background of vile sin and depravity. And I have been so blessed to witness His power and see many mighty deliverances from satanic strongholds both for myself and others.

 

It would be foolish to think that Satan does not have a black heart of raging revenge against any that he lost to Christ's love, worse still when those same ones go on to win others for Christ also. His minions will not rest from trying to again enslave that lost trophy any which way they can.

 

Sadly, not all such encounters that I had were victories. This writer also knows the pain, shame, and humiliation of being caught off guard. Instead of having enough godliness to run as Joseph did from Potiphar’s wife, unfortunately, I didn’t and paid the price thereof … for years! 

 

That one shock & horror failure opened the door for many further failures. Because for a long time that sin was never confessed, I was trapped by guilt and shame. Therefore, there was no further power to defeat sin when it comes calling again, and it did. 

 

Oh, the darkness and condemnation of those days. Outwardly appearing a young successful evangelical pastor, inwardly defeated by guilt and shame never knowing when the next attractive temptation would appear to defeat and control me further. 

 

The deliverance came when the confession came. And even that came about by an involuntary exposure. Actually, as mortified as I was, I was in fact glad. For over a year after fighting myself free from a cycle of infidelity and defeat, I prayed daily for what was hidden in my life to somehow be brought to the light. As nothing, I suffered outwardly compared to the pain of broken fellowship with Christ or the exhaustion of the masquerade of pretend Christianity with no power.

 

The entire episode was tragic indeed but not as awful as spending eternity in hell wishing that I’d had confessed whilst I could.

 

Surely, I can identify with Paul, except that I WAS a believer when he wrote:

 

This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came

 into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

1 Timothy 1:15

 

And I write that to say this that now over a quarter of a century later I feel somewhat qualified in awful failure AND in the hard journey back through the necessary stages of forgiveness, deliverance & healing. And not only for myself but for those wounded by my indiscretions. Harder still is receiving the grace to forgive yourself. No way does Satan want you to embrace that essential restoring gift. 

 

I often say these days when preaching that I have never met anybody that has failed as much as I have neither had, I met anybody that has received as much forgiveness as I have. I’m still to this day astonished that He would save me both the first and second time. What a Good & Kind God we serve.

 

Thankfully, our ongoing deliverance is not borne out of sheer self-will. Not at all, it comes from a deepening love for Christ, a commitment to please and obey Him in all things. There is a power that is released from the Holy Spirit towards the soul that has determined in their heart to obey Him even in that which is small.

 

Father knows that illicit sex is unfortunately an easy way to trip and trap many believers. And in gracious response, He has made much warning & provision for escape through His word.

 

For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light;

and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:

To keep thee from the evil woman,

from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.

Lust not after her beauty in thine heart;

neither let her take thee with her eyelids.

For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread:

and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.

Prov 6: 23-26

 

So, back in that elevator … years after my own deliverance I felt quite qualified for me of all people to be there that day with a Jezebel spirit that was in full-on hunt & destroy mode.

 

Why, though wary, did I feel undaunted and confident in God considering my past failures? The following story of Inventor Edison's light bulb comes to mind.

 

EDISON & THE LIGHT BULB

 

Edison and his team of scientists had laboured all night long to get their working light bulb finished and at the patent office at 9am ahead of his competitor. On joyful completion at 5am he handed the now complete bulb to his young apprentice and told him to run fast and get first in line at the patent office.

 

The lad took the bulb and turned to run up the stairs from the basement lab they were working in. In his willingness to please and haste to obey the lad tripped smashing the only bulb against the stair. The team was furious though Eddison himself said nothing. He wasted no time in beginning again with the task at hand.

 

 Still, before 9am the second bulb was complete and working, to everyone's amazement and shock Eddison again handed the bulb to the downcast and dejected young lad and told him a second time to run fast and be first in line.

 

The scientists protested loudly, this was a big mistake, he had failed already, Eddison quietly and calmly turned to his weary, exhausted and hardworking team and simply said, there is now no one more qualified in the handling of this bulb than this young man. No one will take better care of the prize we have than him...

 

I wept when I first read that story and am close to weeping now when I think again today, I am here because He didn't quit on me, everyone else did, they were gone and I was near gone too. It seemed easier to be dead than alive. I think perhaps my heart was more broken by the rejection of the body of Christ than the sin I had committed.

 

Who of us could stand if He withdrew His precious mercy? You may be reading this and can identify with secret sin, failure, shame, and fear of rejection if you confess it. May I assure you, there is hope, abundant hope, victory, and power can be returned to you in a way that you cannot imagine … But know this, for sins hold to be broken it MUST be confessed. Sunlight (exposure) sanitises germs.

 

He that covereth his sins shall not prosper:

but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

Proverbs 28:13

 

So, I’m in the elevator with a pretty full-on female trying her best to seduce me. Eyes, body language, hair flicking, facial gestures, little and whispery, giggly voice. 

 

I felt that I should be calm, clear, and direct without any nod or smile of approval as to her girly weapons of warfare. I told her quietly, but firmly, with direct eye contact, no hint of judgment or condemnation. That she was in great danger because the Lord had shown me that a spirit of lust and prostitution was in her. Her eyes almost bulged out of her head she was so shocked. Then as if a horror came upon her and she burst into tears throwing her arms (unthreateningly) around my neck and sobbing for all she was worth.

 

 She walks, staggers & reels with me supporting her into the café opposite our apartment block. She was neither drunk nor under the influence of any drugs. But she was under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. She could hardly stand for bawling. Needless to say, that attracted several unwanted stares from patrons already in the cafe.

 

 I got her seated and called Jo my wife asking her to please come down straight away and take over the situation as it doesn’t look appropriate. Young woman bawling whilst with an older foreign man. Jo arrives and takes the girl in a big motherly hug. 

 

The young lady begins to pour out her sad story. Her daddy back home in her village is a pastor. She was brought up with the rest of her family, all her life in a good Christian home. And had latterly become the Sunday school teacher at their church. Which position she loved and taught the children the scriptures and to accept Christ as Saviour. But after a couple of years in that role opportunity beckoned with a job in a call center in Manila City. So, she left her rural village to go to work there. 

 

 Sadly, before long, she was dazzled & mesmerised by the city lights and worldliness of her colleagues. Soon she was joining them at clubs and parties and had become cold in heart towards the Lord. 

 

 The night before we had our strange meeting, she had finally succumbed to her persistent Polish manager's advances to sleep at his apartment. Which she did. Did it fill her with shame and remorse? No, it did not. Quite the contrary, she felt empowered in sexual sin as a means of manipulation and control. Basically put, the spirit of an adulteress had come upon her. More commonly known as a Jezebel spirit.

 

 She had just left his apartment in the morning, he lived on the same floor and around the corner from us when we met outside the elevator.

 

She confessed that she thought since white men (her boss at least) was so easy, then why not try to seduce the guy in the lift also. That would be me. Flattering as it was that that the young lady would make the effort for an older guy like me.Bby God’s grace, I was able to discern something different going on and was pressed in my spirit to tell her so.

 

 She said that when I told her that I was a Christian Missionary to the Philippines and that I saw a demon of lust & prostitution on her It had immediately shocked and pierced her heart. She wept with shame and the fear of God came upon her and that brought immediate brokenness and repentance. God in the same rich mercy that had rescued me was now extended to her before she was swallowed up in sin and lost to the enemy camp.

 

 She spent the morning in the cafe with Jo & I weeping, repenting & rejoicing that Father had rebuked her to bring her back into His fold.

 

 We stayed in touch for several years after that. She always shared with us by email how she was, still living for the Lord and was now a wife & mother in Brazil. 

 

In closing, consider this … Perhaps the Lord has had you read this for your own repentance and cleansing. Perhaps, you are the one seduced and defeated by temptation. Maybe you are the one doing the tempting. Lastly, and don’t miss this one, perhaps you are the one Father wishes to use to reach out to some lost sheep. Everyone has a story. Every broken life need’s healed and rescued. May we all be willing to be the extended hand that He uses.

 

 Regards

 George