FOREWORD AND BIO
Can an everyday Believer overcome the flesh and the opposing spirits
of this life?
Larry Lovelaw, the author of “These Radical Children of
Abraham” who has been involved in hands-on spiritual warfare
for well over 25 years says, “Yes” – and, “Yes, indeed!”
Born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, Larry completed an average secondary
education, sundry Commercial Practise Studies, including Underwriting
and Basic Scots Law. Initially (as a hobby) Larry trained as an instructor
in hand to hand combat, which practise became his first love. After
immigrating to North America in 1970AD, Larry became a full-time instructor.
In the late seventies, Larry experienced that gift, known only to those
who kneel before God in the name that is above all names and ask, in
all humility, for the spirit of Truth to live within.
He also asked the Most High for wisdom, love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, meekness, goodness, temperance and faith. Were they granted?
Was wisdom granted? Guided by Him who is the way, the truth and the
life, Larry began a spiritual journey that can only be described as
a tremendous adventure. He left his first love when he heard a voice
whisper in his right ear during a meeting, saying words something like
this,
“Tell your wife you’re going to give up teaching hand-to hand combat.”
Larry, believing that he had heard from the Lord, obeyed. Larry was
always obsessed with ‘getting to the bottom of things’ and finding out
the truth, Larry mixed experience with much research, outreach and prayer.
While wrestling with principalities in a North American city, he found
himself, his associates and his loved ones subjected to ongoing counterattacks
by unseen forces. When his son’s life was suddenly taken in an unfortunate
‘accident’, he realised that the principalities he’d been fighting were
not simply spirits that couldn’t fight back and so he set his mind and
heart to learning how to first protect himself and his loved ones and
then how to carry the fight back to the dark powers that he calls ‘the
hinderers’, quoting the passage, “You did run well; who hindered
you?”
In a quiet moment of reflection during intercessory prayer, Larry suddenly
realised that his son’s unfortunate death was no accident, but was nothing
other than a direct and deliberate counterattack caused by unseen forces.
He actually stood up in great anger, shaking his fist at the unseen
principality and shouting,
“You killed my son! Come down and fight!”
The fact is that, for quite a few years last century, Larry had been
simply praying against the evil that he had perceived was afflicting
the people of that Northern city and he hadn’t properly associated the
difficulties that seemed to plague him with counterattacks resulting
from his own intercession.
Larry had been using picture language prayers from the Scriptures to
come against the evil he saw afflicting his countrymen, friends and
neighbours. Then he had a dream where a large raging warrior came rushing
towards him all melting and burning like wax, which was synonymous with
certain Scriptures he’d used during prayer. Over a period of mishaps
and difficulties, during which he felt God was guiding him (through
dreams, circumstances, study of Scriptures, etc.) Larry began to realise
that he was being trained on how to war in the spirit but was meantime
also warned by two separate dreams to ‘hold fire’ for the moment. A
long period of difficulties, with many temptations and ongoing problems
convinced Larry that he was a marked man. He felt like one of the followers
of Moses that were kept extra busy making bricks so that the Pharaoh
would not have to let them go. It seemed that nothing he did succeeded
because awkward ‘circumstances’ kept hindering. He found that his everyday
necessities were often provided miraculously instead of by his own efforts.
Following the will of God became everything to him but he knew that
he fell far, far short of the necessary standard. He found himself helping
many different groups and ministries. Helping others to succeed, rather
than moving in any personal agenda, seemed to be the direction that
God was moving him.
In God’s timing, he found the material, that was to become a book, coming
together and he diligently kept notes on the ongoing spiritual battles
he had to fight in order to set others free and, as it were, to simply
keep his own head above water.
On the night when his son drowned, Larry had been chauffeuring his ex-instructor
from the airport to a combat-training course venue and had booked a
motel for that night. Larry had just informed the old instructor of
God’s directive to quit hand to hand combat. Larry then decided to just
sleep in his own collapsible car-seat. It was warm summer evening and
he thought, ‘Why pay for a room when I’m just as comfortable in my own
car?’
About 10.30pm, having driven all day, Larry laid back feeling very tired.
As he closed his drowsy eyes he distinctly heard that voice whispering,
“You should pray for your son”. Larry made a mental note to pray more
for his teenage son and then drifted off to sleep. It didn’t seem like
an urgent exhortation at the time.
The next day, he and his old instructor drove the six hour journey to
Larry’s home town, where he found his wife absent. There were also several
notes, posted on their outside door. The people informed him that his
son had gone out with a friend in a rowing boat at about 10.30pm the
night before and that the boat had capsized and that his son had not
yet been found. Larry’s wife had already taken the daily one hour flight
down to the area where their son had disappeared into the dark waters.
Larry, of course, was devastated but went off to find his other (eight
year old) son, who had been left with his wife’s friends.
The ‘friends’ went out to a religious meeting, telling Larry that he
should play Monopoly in order to keep his mind off of the tragedy.
Larry complied with their instructions for a few minutes before he came
to his senses and, with his other son, he began to grieve the loss of
the seventeen year-old.
He was crying out in pain, something like this, “Aaaangg, My son - my
son!” when suddenly, he sensed a voice coming up, as it were, from his
own belly saying, “He’s with me.” – and the grief was miraculously,
and immediately, gone! Then, a few minutes later, as Larry’s thoughts
began to drift back to the reality of his older son’s death, the grief
manifested again. Once again he cried out in anguish, “Aaaangg, My son
- my son!” and, suddenly, again he sensed, as it were, that same voice
coming up from his own belly saying, “He’s with me.” –the grief, quite
miraculously, vanquished again! This happened quite a few times during
the evening until his wife’s friends returned.
These friends insisted that Larry should eat something but he refused
their offer. They persisted in insisting that he had to have something
in his stomach and, because of the persistence of their insistence,
he finally agreed to drink a quarter of a cup of milk. They told him
that he should leave his younger son with them and just go home and
try to get some sleep.
Larry complied meekly and drove off but had to pull over to the side
of the road to vomit up the milk that had been pushed on him by these
well-meaning people. He was home in bed before midnight and, surprisingly,
fell asleep right away.
At about 3.15am, Larry felt the Lord awake him and give him instructions
to pray for certain dignitaries in England, totally unrelated to his
own situation, which request puzzled him. Nonetheless he complied, got
up, went through to the living room and knelt near the couch to pray.
That area was the same ‘prayer spot’ from where he had been accustomed
to interceding for the city, over the last few months, binding the evil
influences that he had discerned were over that area. It was only when
he had finished the appointed prayer task that he stood up and considered
what must have happened.
The facts of the matter slowly dawned on him and that was when he spoke
out in great anger, shaking his fist at the principality and shouting,
“You killed my son! Come down and fight!” Of course there was no perceivable
reaction but only the silence of the night.
Larry stood there in the semi-darkness feeling anguished, devastated,
frustrated, angry and weary all at the same time. His weariness started
to overtake him and he realised he was about to go to bed, to sleep
- right after having challenged an evil and very real principality to
come and fight!
The new revelation of the reality of such a spiritual being that was
obviously able to cause great harm to a man caused him to hesitate and
decide that, before returning to his bed, he’d better ask for protection
from the Lord.
Accordingly, quoting the Scriptures, he asked that the angel of the
Lord would encamp round about him; that no weapon formed against him
would prosper; that, if the enemy would come against him one way, then
the enemy would flee seven ways, with his feet upon slippery ground
and with the angel of the Lord chasing him about. After several other
prayerful scriptural exhortations and requests, Larry slowly turned
and shuffled his way into the dark twilight of their bedroom.
That was when it happened. That was when he saw it! As he sat down on
his bed, Larry saw something that made him gasp in dumbfounded amazement.
The corner of the bedroom was about twelve feet from where he had just
sat down and there, staring at him from that corner was the image of
a face! For some reason, known only to God, Larry was more puzzled than
afraid. He was just staring open-mouthed at the spectre with a ‘What
on earth is that?’ expression on his face.
His mind was barely coping with the paranormal experience that his mental
perception was trying to come to grips with. He knew that he wasn’t
dreaming because he had been awake for about half an hour, praying for
a well-known political figure. This manifestation just didn’t ‘compute’
with anything within Larry’s experience! The face was about twice the
size of a normal man but it looked black and metallic with something
like glowing, red coals for eyes. Some years later, when the Star Wars
movie was advertised, Larry’s eyebrows went up and he pointed at a poster
of ‘Darth Vader’ and said, “That is exactly like what I saw that night
when the demonic spirit attacked me!”
Actually it wasn’t exactly the same but it was very similar to the movie
face of DV depicted in the ‘Star Wars’ movie released several years
later. On the night that the apparition appeared, Larry’s room was very
dark so that, though he could have seen a book if he’d held it up, he
wouldn’t have been able to read any writing. Of course he wasn’t holding
a book or anything. He was just gaping, nonplussed at something that
he simply didn’t understand!
The apparition, at the moment that Larry had noticed it, had started
to glide, very, very slowly and very directly, towards him. It was a
really menacing–looking entity, dark and emanating evil from its very
presence, but Larry recalled later that he wasn’t so much afraid as
he was frozen with amazement like a rabbit watching a snake slithering
towards it! This just didn’t compute! It had traveled towards him about
one third of the distance from its starting place in the corner of the
room when Larry heard that voice again!
It had seemed like a long time but actually, it was only about seven
or eight seconds after the apparition initially appeared when that voice,
rising up from Larry’s belly, spoke and said, through Larry, something
like this; “As David slew Goliath, so shall my words destroy you,
O spirit of darkness. As the stone from David’s sling struck Goliath
in the forehead and brought him down, so do my words strike you and
bring you down this very night!”
Larry says that he didn’t think to take note and memorize exactly what
he had spoken at that moment but, in any case, immediately the words
had been spoken, he saw the red glow (in the apparition’s eyes) dim
down and go out. Then the whole of its face slipped slightly sideways
to its left, as if it had sunk about one third down into something like
(spiritual quicksand?).
Larry squinted in puzzlement. What on earth was going on?
Still staring nonplussed, Larry saw that the face was almost immediately
replaced by another, even stranger, face. The new head was about the
size and shape of a horse’s head. It had large dark grasshopper-like
eyes and somehow Larry could sense that it had large fangs, though its
mouth wasn’t open.
It was still moving menacingly towards him and Larry was still in his
original state of great astonishment. Larry said afterwards that he
didn’t understand why, though he did have a (subconscious?) sense of
great danger, he had no feelings of fear, but only amazement. As the
spectre approached more closely – about halfway towards Larry from the
corner – he again heard that voice from his belly beginning to say,
with real words, something very similar to what was said previously,
beginning with, “As David slew Goliath . .. . ..- But at that
moment it seemed that something (like the image of a large TV screen)
jumped out from the second apparition and took up a position near the
bottom of Larry’s bed. Larry, being startled, turned his head towards
this new phenomenon.
It was something like a screen featuring the torso of a fancily-dressed
go-go dancer, or perhaps a belly dancer, jiggling around in a red and
gold dancing costume. However, the torso of the dancer had no limbs
or head attached! Larry’s attention had been momentarily distracted
from the second apparition and his (intended?) words had been halted
in mid-sentence when, suddenly, there was nothing anywhere in the room.
He looked around. Nothing. The silence of the darkness roared like a
vast empty cavern.
Larry’s comment, after several moments taken to gather his sensibilities
was, “Wow!”, and, then, after a few more moments he remembers asking
himself,
“What on earth was that?”
It was an experience that he could not deny. He had been wide awake
and on his way to go to bed so it wasn’t a dream and he knew that this
was not simply imagination. What on earth happened that night? Later,
looking at things logically, Larry says that he reckons some kind of
spiritual being had responded to his angry challenge and had come to
destroy him ‘somehow’. However, in answer to his request for the Lord
to protect him and possibly by the actual declaration of inspired warfare
scriptures, the Lord had not allowed him to be destroyed.
Larry speculates that, because he gave the enemy permission, by the
words of his original challenge, that spectre had felt legally justified
in attacking him.
Larry makes this conjecture. “It was probably some kind of two-headed
demonic spirit-being. The first ‘head’ manifested as the DV-like apparition
and was simply defeated by a declaration that brought it down. The second
‘head’ then manifested in another horrible form but, when faced with
the same problem of being linked to a Scriptural warfare barrage in
which it must lose, chose to use a distraction technique. That effectively
caused my attention to be turned away.” Somehow, Larry’s reckons that
the breaking of continuity of speech and concentration, gave the second
‘head’ an opportunity to make good its escape. Whether the visual images
presented reflected the real form of the demon/s or was simply two scary
images put forward by them as a front, is a moot point. They, (or it)
were (or was) defeated by simply linking the situation to victory experienced
in the Word of God.
Later, when sharing the experience with others after a men’s prayer
meeting, Larry was surprised at some of the reactions. Some were not
even surprised, not showing any real interest as if that sort of thing
happened every day! Some were very quick to change the subject to something
they felt more comfortable with, and one man, with obvious sarcasm and
envy, sneeringly indicated that now Larry was a special spiritual hero,
‘greater than all the others at the meeting’. Such a concept had never
even occurred to Larry because, if anything, he’d felt almost like a
childish spectator during the whole confrontation and certainly no hero!
It didn’t occur to Larry at the time that spirits can attack using such
things as discouragement and scorn through friends, family and even
church, synagogue or mosque members!
Of course there were a few men at the meeting who saw the discourse
on the event as something positive where a dark enemy of the people
of God had been defeated by the grace and action of the Lord. These
men then, of course, placed the experience on their spiritual memory
shelves, just in case something similar happened to them. That seemed
to be the wise way to treat such a phenomenon.
Larry, for a very short while thereafter, continued his prayer attacks
on the principalities but claims he was consequently warned in two separate
dreams to cease because he simply wasn’t ready and perhaps wouldn’t
fare so well in future encounters if he didn’t wait for the time being
at least.
He finally got the message and made his ongoing intercession more geared
towards protection of the saints than towards ongoing aggression against
the evil that was all around. Larry had a theory that, because of that
confrontation, there were certain spiritual hinderers assigned directly
to him that were allowed to create problems for him specifically for
many years.
There is a Scripture that many have treated as if it were a rhetorical
question but that is more likely a little hint to teach the people of
God what part of their problem is. When one fails in their walk with
the Lord, is it ever caused by ‘hinderers?’ “Ye did run well; who
did hinder you . .. . ?” Galatians 5:7
The truth is that God has made a way!
Many commentaries look at the question posed in Galatians 5:7 as a rhetorical
exhortation to do better or to recognise that some physical person had
seduced the reader by wrong doctrine or the like, which is no doubt
one application of that Scripture. However, it seems to be a rare commentary
that places the blame on the same lap as did Eve, who had failed in
her spiritual walk with God. When Eve placed the blame squarely on the
back of the serpent (though I’m not sure whether serpents have shoulders
to lay the blame onto or not:) then God pronounced judgement on the
one who’d hindered her spiritual walk. That seemed to Larry to be a
good place to start, looking forward to the time when these hinderers
would all be judged.
Larry became convinced that there were specific, real, nameable, spiritual
beings that were hindering, meddling and attacking everything he did,
from his own commercial undertakings to his personal relationships.
These hinderers even tried to curtail his walk with the Spirit of the
Word, who states, “Be ye holy, for I am holy”. He also knew that he
wasn’t the only one being ‘hindered’ in this way.
Was there a way to overcome these hinderers?
In addition to studying relevant passages throughout Scripture, Larry
did much meditating on the memory of that apparition which was apparently
‘defeated by a declaration that brought it down’. The principle seemed
to be that the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any
two-edged sword.
Larry wondered,
“Can spiritual beings be defeated simply by speaking words,
just as, by the sword, a physical enemy can be defeated?”
Though author Larry Lovelaw says that he often laid awake in the late
evenings, and in the early mornings, listening to the silence, remaining
open to Rema words from the Lord, while also meditating on words pertaining
to spiritual warfare that would bring truth into print, he did not set
out initially to write a book. Instead, his ongoing notes seemed to
come together in a lucid way, which led to an organised format that
he had made available temporarily on a web site for a number of years.
When he found himself to be semi-retired from commerce, Larry felt lead
to look for another way to make the information more generally available.
He also felt that he was led by the Lord to accept the offer to publish.
The rest is ongoing history.
Hopefully, dear reader you, like the publisher, will see the great value
that some of the concepts in this book can offer to those who are able
to receive, especially for the purposes of spiritual warfare at the
end of this age, which is certainly nearer than when you first started
reading this foreword.
Larry and his beloved wife often read the Scriptures together after
praying for guidance and asking for elucidation. Using a principle found
in the Book of Daniel, they also share and compare their dreams with
each other. That principle, of course can be applied to wherever you
walk and to whatever you are led to read.
I know that Larry would exhort you to pray to the Lord for understanding,
especially whenever reading any book containing words from the Word
of God.
It has been said that his book, “These Radical Children of Abraham”
can be read over and over with great benefit because it contains so
much of the Word.
I personally hope and trust that you, with Larry Lovelaw, will continue
to ask God directly to give you ongoing elucidation, wisdom and understanding,
in addition to love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness,
faith, meekness and temperance; against which there is no law. SHALOM
This site contains only short excerpts (taken from the new Tate AUDIO and old cyber files) of:
By Larry Lovelaw