Riaan’s testimony
Like many other people I grew up knowing about God, attending Church regularly, going through Sunday school, and generally being religious. I did know and understand the whole concept of salvation from an early age, and had given my heart to Jesus when I was seven years old. However, as I grew older I slowly began to drift away from God, finding the lure of this world to be quite inviting. My main purpose in my young adult life was to have fun, and it wasn’t uncommon for me to be out with my friends clubbing into the early morning hours up to seven nights a week. In this time of my life, I probably didn’t attend church more than a couple of times a year, and that was normally only after my dad had been on my case about it.
A close encounter
My life as an adult was about to begin. I was studying electrical engineering at the time, which I had wanted to do for as long as I could remember. The social part of being a student was obviously great, but the academic side was an entirely different matter. The work was not only difficult, but it also seemed to be never ending. It was during exam time in my second year that I had my first face to face encounter with something so weird and scary that it almost destroyed me. It was also to drastically alter my whole life, even though I had no way of knowing that at the time! The pressure was quite intense, and I got very little sleep due to writing three major subjects in one week. Then it happened. Somewhere in the early morning hours during that week I was awakened by a presence in my room. There was a hazy white figure hanging over me with its face very close to mine. I couldn’t see any details (praise God!) but the outlines were easy to distinguish. I was absolutely petrified. There was a baseball bat next to my bed, and I remember trying to get a hold of it. That was when I realised that I couldn’t move at all! The fear that I felt, was suffocating me. At some stage this thing actually spoke to me, and said something to this effect: “Do you want to feel how it feels in hell?” The voice was evil and extremely mocking and it repeated the phrase over and over. I felt like I was losing my mind. I tried to scream, but nothing happened. It was about this time that I began to call in my thoughts on the Lord Jesus to help me. Slowly but surely this thing began to move away from me until I couldn’t see it anymore. I passed out from pure exhaustion right after it left.
The following morning I awoke not knowing whether I had actually experienced this incident, or dreamt it. I was sopping wet all over from perspiration. This told me that there must have been something! I wasn’t going to say anything about this to anyone, I didn’t think they would believe me anyhow. That morning as I was travelling with my mother, she could see that I wasn’t doing too well. She kept on nagging away at me to talk about whatever was worrying me and eventually I gave in. She almost overturned the car when she heard my story! That evening my dad called me into his study. The topic of conversation was my experience the previous evening. I asked my dad what he thought it was, and he answered that he didn’t know. I didn’t know either, but I had a sneaky suspicion. I told him that I thought it could be a demon. As I left his study, he reminded me that there is power in the Blood of Jesus. With the previous evenings encounter now just a vague memory I studied, and went to bed in the early morning hours. Again I was awakened by a presence, and again I was paralysed and couldn’t speak. This would continue to happen every night for over a week. It felt as if my whole life was falling apart. I prayed more in that week than I had in the rest of my life. The nightly torment didn’t stop however, and I came to a point that I couldn’t take it anymore. It was arranged that I would go and see our local minister for prayer and counselling. 
I was actually quite petrified to go and see the minister, as I had no idea what was going to happen. He is a very kind and gentle man, and discussed with me what had happened. I believe that he also suspected that it was demonic, and said that we should pray against what the devil was doing. I was quite concerned that I would fall down on the floor and scream while writhing like a serpent! To be honest I had no idea what to expect, and when he finally stopped praying I was delighted that I seemed to be fine! God definitely honoured his prayer, because that night I slept well. For a couple of weeks I had no weird encounters. Then one night it was back. There was however a definite deference. Firstly, I was awakened before the demon actually got there. It was as if I just seemed to know that it was coming. I could pray against it before it really had me in its power. I also had a determination and conviction in me that I didn’t have before. I wasn’t afraid to fight! It left very quickly that night, and I began to understand that if I fight it, I get victory much quicker. God had given me a gift of discernment, to know when a demon is present and it has helped me greatly in what God has called me to do.
I wish that I could tell you that that was the end of it, but it wasn’t. The attacks weren’t as frequent, but for the next four years this still happened to me on and off. I do however thank God that it never had such a massive effect on me again. It was now more of an irritation. You would probably think that all of this would encourage me to sort out my life, but unfortunately I didn’t. I was definitely more aware of God in my life, yet I still didn’t completely turn my back on many things. I also didn’t attend church much although I did read my Bible and pray. All of that was about to change!
Baptism in the Holy Spirit.
In the meantime I had got married, and my wife was aware of the strange attacks that I sometimes experienced. She probably didn’t understand it, but at least she accepted it and prayed with me when it happened. One day my dad was telling us about a remarkable service that he had attended at the church. It seemed there was a preacher that came to minister there, and all sorts of weird things happened when he prayed for the people. When he prayed for my dad, he prophesied over him, and my dad felt how something began to fill him. He then fell down on the floor, and had this wonderful experience with God. I wasn’t so sure about all of this. It sounded mighty weird to me, and the prophecy part worried me a lot. I wasn’t too sure about some guy telling everyone about my life. Especially as I had so much going on that people would obviously frown on! At the time I knew nothing about prophecy. Today I am aware that the Holy Spirit wouldn’t expose all your dirty washing before all, as that is not the purpose of prophecy. My dad was determined that we should attend the next meeting in a month’s time when the preacher would minister again. My dad can be quite persistent, so I eventually agreed. In reality I was lying. I had absolutely no intention of being there at all! I had forgotten all about my commitment when that Sunday my cell phone rang. I was with some friends in their car, dropping someone off at their home. I also have to say that their home is about less than one kilometre from our church. When my dad asked where I was I told him. His answer to me was: “Good, I will see you at the church in a little while”. It hit me that I had just placed myself right at the church. If I had known why my dad was calling, I would have been somewhere very far off! So I found myself at the church. I went and sat right at the back. The preacher that night was Gary Kieswetter. I will never forget his sermon that night for as long as I live. It felt as if everyone in that church disappeared, and he was preaching directly to me. My heart was beating fast, I felt sick to my stomach, and it was as if I could hear a voice tell me to get out of there. I felt I had to get out of that place, yet I couldn’t seem to get up! I seemed to be glued to that seat! Every word he spoke seemed to cut straight to my heart. When the sermon was over, he called for people who wanted prayer to come forward. Without thinking I immediately found myself walking forward. My whole body was trembling, my knees felt weak. Then he was standing in front of me. He looked me right in the eye, and it seemed eerily as if he could see right into me. Again there was that feeling that I should run and never come back. Gary prophesied over me. It was quite a weird feeling. The first couple of things that he spoke were very accurate in depicting my character, and I began to feel a bit better. And then the bombshell burst. Around about that time, me and my wife were having some issues in our marriage. She wanted to have children, and I couldn’t be bothered. It’s not that I didn’t want kids, but I was too busy enjoying life. I felt that children at that stage would unnecessarily complicate everything. Gary looked at me and spoke these words: “why are you so afraid to have children? The Lord says that I should tell you that you are going to be a wonderful father”. I was shocked. Nobody knew what was going on in our home, and here this man touches on this nerve! I knew that only God could have revealed that to him. The next moment I felt a tremendous surge of peace and power well up in me, and I just couldn’t remain standing. I fell on the floor, waves of Gods power washing over me, and I spoke to God! They eventually switched the churches lights off, and I was still lying there. I didn’t want to get up! I had never felt what I felt there. The peace, the joy, the presence of God was overwhelming. That night I took a long time to fall asleep. My mind was racing with everything I had experienced that night. My whole perception about God was radically altered in one night. God was no longer some far of person who punished me for doing wrong, He was real and close and I knew he loved me. The next morning I awoke to find my wife was already gone. I sat on the bed reliving all that had happened that night. I prayed and spoke to God as I had never done before, and then I said something which at the time I didn’t understand. I said: “God, I don’t know why I am here; I don’t really know what you have planned for me. If by any chance you may want to use me to do something for you, then it is fine by me. There is one thing however, whatever that man had who had prayed for me last night, please give it to me also”. I had just asked God for the Holy Spirit without even knowing it. God not only heard that prayer, but he also answered it!
Learning about the Spirit
There was an immediate change in me after that day. I could never speak to people about God, or anything personal. I had no boldness to do anything like that. There was no way that I would ever pray out loud, never mind pray for people. That had all changed. Suddenly I had tons of boldness. I spoke to whoever would listen, and also too many who wouldn’t. If someone had a problem, I prayed with them. Things were happening quite fast in my life. I began to speak in tongues spontaneously about a week after that first night, and things were just jumping at me from the Bible. The Word of God was opened up to me, and I could understand things that just never made sense to me before. It was a great experience. Then demons began to manifest in people when I prayed for them. This was something very new to me, as our church never really taught on anything such as this. With the help of the Holy Spirit the demons were eventually cast out, and the people out of whom they had gone were amazed at the changes that came into their lives as the demons left. I never went and looked for this to happen; it just started to happen when I prayed for people. I was learning something new every day. The people that were delivered of these evil spirits in turn told others. Pretty soon I had people over at my house six to seven nights a week. It was wonderful to see how God ministered to them through the Holy Spirit. At about the same time the demonic attacks upon me also seemed to intensify. I just couldn’t understand it. Here I saw God do all these amazing wonders as I prayed for people, yet I was also tormented by evil spirits. Many Christians do not believe that demons can really afflict believers. I began to look at things quite differently. How could I not with what I was experiencing! I became more and more convinced that there must be a demon at work in my own life. By now I had seen them manifest in people as I prayed for them and some had even spoken through the people admitting their role in the people’s problems.  When I tried to talk to other Christians however they were usually adamant that Christians are filled with the Holy Spirit and the devil cannot touch them. That sounds pretty good in theory, yet it didn’t help me much when these things came and afflicted me at night. It took me a while to get to the place where I understood, and accepted what I needed to do. There was obviously a demon in my life, and it would have to leave before I would have any peace. Since I had prayed for quite a few people by now with demonic problems, I had the faith in God that He would help me. At the time I had started a business of my own. One morning I went into my office, locked the door and began to pray. I confessed any sins I could think of or remember, and I forgave all who had ever hurt or wronged me. I couldn’t say for absolute certain, but I believed the demon tormenting me to be a spirit of fear. Fear had always been a great part of my life. Since a young child I was always afraid of the dark. I was also deathly afraid of anything supernatural such as vampires, werewolves, aliens etc. I often felt something breathe down my neck as I walked alone in the night, and the fear would consume me. It sometimes made me quite paranoid. The time had come to confront this fear in my life! After asking the Lord Jesus to help me, I commanded the fear to get out of my life in the Name of Jesus. A strange sensation came over my whole body. Everything felt quite tingly. Then a scream started coming out of my lips. It came from somewhere deep down, and I wasn’t in control of it. As the scream continued, my body began to tremble, and then it was over. I was quite stunned at what had just happened! I remember feeling completely different. This may sound a bit strange to some of you, but it was as if something that had been like a veil over me was removed. My head felt much clearer, my mind felt sharper, the colours looked brighter, and it felt as if some invisible mountain had fallen off me! 
A couple of days later I experienced for the first time the fruit of what Jesus had done for me the day He delivered me of that demon. I had been out to go and pray for a family, and by the time I got home it was well past midnight. Our home was quite secluded, with an open koppie right next door. There were lots of shadows and trees to help along the eeriness. The gate was manual, so I had to get out and open it before I could enter the property. I opened the gate, parked the car and then took the long narrow pathway to the front door. All the time I was aware of a strange feeling within me, yet I wasn’t quite sure what it was. At one point I stopped, and looked around me, and then it hit me! The fear was gone! There was no breathing down my neck, no vampires on the roof, no paralyzing feeling at the base of my spine. For the first time that I could recall, I was standing all alone in a dark secluded place and I had peace! Fear no longer influences my life, and I have prayed for countless people who were tormented by the same spirit. I feel that I should also relate something that happened in my youth that definitely gave this demon a lot of power over me. I was about ten years old when I watched a late night movie on the TV called “The Devils triangle”. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was actually a horror movie. My Father was asleep as usual on the couch next to me; otherwise he may have sent me to bed. The true nature of this movie only surfaces right at the end, when it turns out that the priest is actually the devil himself. At that moment the priests face begins to transform into Satan’s face. The moment that happened, I was petrified with fright, and I actually saw something jump out of the TV and hit me in the chest. I was trembling all over. My father woke up and put me and my brother to bed (thankfully my brother was also asleep during the movie). The moment the light went out I lost it. I had never experienced such an amount of fear, I felt as if I was falling apart. I had to switch the light back on. My mother came by later and told me to switch the light off. I begged her to please leave it on, but at the threat of a good hiding the light went out. I was beside myself with fear. There was something behind the curtains, monsters under the bed, and ghosts in the closet. My mind was running away with paranoia. There was only one answer. My brother would have to wake up! I couldn’t be alone. That night we spent the whole night awake. I would play whatever he wanted as long as he didn’t go to sleep. The next night followed much the same pattern, and the next. It all had to stop when my brother’s teacher called my mother to say that he was sleeping in class! From then on I just had to learn to try and cope with my fears. That was how my life was until Jesus set me free from that demon, praise God! I always thought that I was just a timid, fearful person, because I was made that way. How the devil lied to me! I was in reality nothing like that, that demon was forcing me to be like that.
Gods call to full time ministry
Going through deliverance myself just intensified my desire to help others. The Lord brought many people across my path who were desperately in need of help. Some of the people didn’t even make it to my home, the demons would start to manifest in them before they even got there. I was on fire for God. I began to feel that maybe God wants me to become a pastor so that I could help people full time. I discussed this with my wife, and began to source information on the different options that was available to me at the time. I had narrowed it down to about four different seminary schools when we attended a conference in Pretoria on the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit. After the conference, people were standing around talking about the meetings when a man approached me out of the blue and said something to this effect: “The Lord has called you to work for Him full time. Do not go and study, the Lord will teach you what you need to know.” This quite freaked me out, as it was in that week that I was to decide what to do about my future. My mind was spinning very fast with what had just happened, and I started looking around for my father. I eventually found him on the other side of the building talking to one of the main pastors of that church. As I joined them, my dad introduced me to this man. He took my hand, looked at me and said: “The Lord has called you to work for him full time, do not go and study as God will teach you all you need to know!” I was shocked. This man had just spoken almost word for word what I had heard not more than five minutes earlier. Having heard this word spoken over my life twice, was enough to convince me that God didn’t want me to go into ministry the way that I had been preparing to go. Yet I also wasn’t sure as to how exactly I would ever be able to go into ministry any other way. I remember many people telling me in that time that it is ridiculous to think that any church would allow me to preach or minister there if I don’t have the qualifications. I chose to be obedient to God, and the brochures on my desk for the different seminary schools went into the bin. As this was all too much for me to comprehend, and at the time I simply told the Lord that I accept what He wants to do with me even if it doesn’t make sense, and then I went on with my business, and part time ministry. It took about four years before I got to the place where I knew it was time to go into ministry full time. In faith I closed the doors of my business, and from that day I have lived by faith. Many people don’t understand the concept of living by faith, all I can say is that if that’s Gods will for you, then He will make sure that you are taken care of. 
The preaching ministry
Up to now I had mainly seen people individually in my home. It was wonderful to be a part of Gods healing and deliverance in these people’s lives. It was comfortable, but God had bigger plans for my life. One day I got a telephone call from a woman whom I had prayed for earlier that year. God had done wonderful things in her life, and she was testifying all over what God had done for her. They lived in quite a small town in a rural area, and their local minister was going on leave. The minister who normally stood in for him wasn’t available, and she had suggested that I be asked to come and preach. This was quite a shock to me! She needed an answer that day so that arrangements could be made. My mind said no, but my heart said yes. I had never preached a sermon before; I didn’t even know how to start. I felt the Holy Spirit speak to me in my spirit. This was from God, I shouldn’t be afraid, I have to do this. One week later I gave my first sermon in very traditional Afrikaans church! There was a lot of stress and panic up to the moment that I started talking, and then it all disappeared. Many people came to me afterwards and said how much they had enjoyed the sermon. Many of them also came and asked for prayer based on the message they had heard. It was a wonderful day for me, and God had proven Himself faithful in what He had said. A couple of weeks later I received a call at two in the morning from a mother whose daughter was being afflicted by evil spirits. Her pastor was a man whom I had met recently, and who knew about my ministry. He had given her my number. I went over there and cast quite a few demons out of this girl. She and her sister had dabbled with astrology and fortune telling. The next morning Basil, her pastor phoned me to check on how things had gone. I gave him the relevant feedback, and also told him that he may have to speak to his youth about the things they were playing with. Without hesitation Basil said “well, why don’t you come and preach about this stuff at my church?” This posed a new challenge. I come from an Afrikaans background, and this church was English. I knew I could speak English fairly well, but preaching it was obviously different. Basil didn’t seem too worried about all of this, and soon I was working on my first English sermon. On the night that I was to preach, Basil had invited a lot of people. The Church was packed. The congregation seemed to enjoy the message, and afterwards I invited people to be prayed for if they believed that they were afflicted by evil spirits. There were about twenty people who came forward. I lead them in a prayer to renounce Satan’s power, and ask Jesus to deliver them. Within a couple of minutes there was pandemonium in the church. People were screaming, convulsing and rolling around on the floor. I had brought some friends along to help me, but there was too many people manifesting at the same time. I asked Basil if there weren’t any more people to come and help us pray. Basil went into the foyer of the church to fetch some of the church leadership who were still there. As he came back into the church with them they both fell down on the floor and were delivered from evil spirits. Basil looked at me and said: “What on earth is going on here?” I could only laugh. Eventually everything had settled down, and we all went home. The next day I got a phone call from Basil. Would I please come and see him at about three o clock that afternoon? When I got there I wasn’t sure what to think, was there going to be trouble about what had happened that previous night? As I entered his home I was surprised to see his entire leadership sitting there. This was worse than I thought! Basil explained that they had assembled earlier to discuss what had happened in the church that night. The next thing he said was so unexpected that I initially had no answer. They had decided to invite me to preach there once a month! Of course I accepted! God blessed us wonderfully during those first meetings. Many people were healed and delivered, and a lot of people’s lives were changed. I had to work very hard on learning how to prepare sermons, and how to preach. Basil gave me some constructive criticism now and then, but he never interfered with what I preached on, and let me do what I felt God wanted for which I am very thankful. Then one day I received a phone call from another Pastor. They had heard of me, and wanted to know if I would come and preach there. I asked what he wanted me to speak on, and he said that he’d heard of the deliverances that took place in Basil’s church, so could I please speak on that. I don’t really think he knew what he was letting himself in for! That Sunday many evil spirits came out of people. There was also a Satanist who was in the church to try and destroy it who got saved and delivered. The pastor was astonished. The next day I got a phone call from him saying that he’d spoken to the leadership, and would I please come and preach there once a month! Shortly after that there was another invitation to preach at a church, and the following day the pastor invited me again to come and preach once a month. Within about a year from the time I started preaching, I was preaching every Sunday of the month, sometimes twice a day. I often think back to that day when I received the prophetic word that God had called me, and He would equip me. I could never have guessed how things would turn out in my life, but looking back all I can say is God will make a way! The things of God often don’t make sense to us, but God always knows best. In time I stopped ministering at some of the churches, and other invitations would come. I am in the very privileged position to have ministered in both Afrikaans and English in most of the different church denominations in our country. This has given me a unique insight into people’s lives, and the church as a whole. The Lord has spoken to me many times about the importance of unity in the church, and all I can say is that we still have a long way to go.
Finally
There is much more to say, but that’s a story for another day. As time has gone on, the Holy Spirit has taught me many new and wonderful things. I started recording my sermons back in 2003. In 2007 I felt that the Lord wanted me to make CDs and hand them out to people as a means of spreading the Gospel. To date we have distributed about 5000 CDs, and the amount is growing by the month. Each of these CDs is guaranteed to give the devil a headache! Besides preaching on weekends I also have meetings every Wednesday night at the AFM Revival City church in Brackendowns, and Monday’s at the Reformed Church in Van Der Bijl Park. The amount of miracles that God is doing at these meetings is simply awesome. 
There was a time in my life when I didn’t have the foggiest idea what I was doing on this planet. When God came into my life through the Holy Spirit all of that changed. None of us is the same. What God has for me, he will not copy in you. Seek His will and ask the Holy Spirit to lead you and see what God will do in your life. 
I could not have done any of these things without the Lord Jesus in my life. All the glory belongs to Him alone.
I would like to thank my wife Elna, and my two sons Matthew and Migael for their sacrifices to this ministry. May God bless you all richly for your love and support.