It grabbed me by the neck and I couldn't breathe.
I physically felt two massive heads like this and it started choking me and banging my head on the floor.
I remember feeling my head bouncing off on the floor and I thought I was going to die.
Chris Garcia, it's great to have you back here on Charisma.
We recently saw a video where you were sharing a testimony of a demonic attack encounter
and I just knew that we had to reach out to you to be able to share that and to be able to go a little bit deeper because I had so many questions from that little testimony that you put out there.
But welcome back to Charisma. It's great to have you here.
Thanks so much, John, for having me. I'm super excited and super grateful to be here and as always, I feel always a part of the Charisma family.
Yes, and speaking of being a part of the Charisma family, your book Fresh Oil is coming out in November and we're really excited about that and we'll give people kind of a taste of that a little bit later.
But okay, let's jump right into this testimony that you shared the other day because I'll let you share it and then I've got some questions, brother.
So tell me what happened when this demon attacked you.
Yeah, so this testimony is one of my very first encounters with anything supernatural.
I was, you know, my ethnicity, my family's from Puerto Rico.
So on both sides of the family, both on my mother's and on my father's side, but specifically on my father's side, there was a lot of practice of spiritualism, voodoo, witchcraft, things like this.
My great grandfather was actually a what you would call like a healer who would invoke certain spirits and put curses and even like healings.
I use it in quotations because you know, Satan is a great counterfeit.
And that's kind of like where my family kind of came from.
My mom really protected me from all of those things, so I wasn't really super exposed to it.
However, I do recall visiting family members many times and approaching their homes and seeing altars, like altars to specific deities.
And in Santeria, which is a form of African spiritualism with Roman Catholicism, what they would do is they would pray to what's called an orisha or some it's a spirit mediator thing.
But it comes in the guise of a saint.
You know, that's where Santeria comes from. Saint-ism is what you would loosely refer to.
And I remember as a kid seeing certain family members, they would take like, for example, black coffee or fruits and lay it on this altar of these saints.
You know, and they would pray to it and things like that.
And now, as a kid, I would ask questions and, you know, my certain family members would tell me about those things.
And I always remember feeling, though, this strange, eerie, not right feeling.
Like it felt off to me, almost like a very scary feeling would come over me.
I was like eight, nine years old, you know.
And so that's kind of a little bit of the background.
But like I told you, my mom really protected me from that stuff.
So none of that was really brought into her home.
However, on March the 3rd of 2006, I was introduced to the gospel.
But before that, it was March the 2nd.
Well, I would say technically March the 3rd of 2006 at 3 a.m.
I was attacked by a demonic spirit, is the best way I could describe it.
I was told about the gospel and a friend of mine had invited me to go to his church.
And I went.
But before going there for seven days, I was attacked by spirits.
And I never used to experience anything like that.
I pretty much lived a normal life, quote unquote.
But anytime I would try to go near towards the things of God, I would get attacked.
Like strange things like paralyzed in my body, not being able to move,
seeing things that are not there.
I remember as a kid, I saw several things.
I saw a man standing behind me when I was a little kid.
And when I looked back, he was gone.
You know, weird things like that.
Shadows coming out of the walls.
How did you see that man behind you?
Then then you turned around and he was gone.
Tell me about that.
So I'll just.
So what happened was I was about, I want to say, 11 years old.
And I was terrified of the dark and I would sleep in my brother's room.
And I would sleep on the floor and he would sleep on his bed.
And in front of him, in front of the his room, there was an old tube TV, you know,
and you can see very clearly your reflection and the reflection behind you.
So I was laying as a child.
I was just laying there and like around 6am or so, I opened my eyes and I see a shadow person.
Like he was a man.
I can tell he was a man because it was a perfect form of a man.
I saw it with my eyes.
I did.
It wasn't a vision.
I saw it with my eyes and he was sitting behind the radiator of the window.
And when I saw that, I instantly put the blankets over my eyes.
And then my mom started calling my name.
She's like, Chris, wake up.
It's time for school.
And when I put down the blanket, he was gone and I turned around and he wasn't there.
Things like that.
You know, so fast forward to March the 3rd of 2006.
It was what I could describe as a very tall spiritual entity that went through the window
and began to straddle me and had its legs between my ribs right here.
And I couldn't move my body and I started getting scared.
And I used to be really into like different forms of like religions.
So I had like Buddha statues.
I would read the Koran.
I was just really interested in spiritual things.
And I didn't realize it.
It was something that God was putting something, eternity in my heart.
I just didn't know what it was.
And this thing comes out of the window.
And the best way I could describe it is like it was like an invisible form.
I can tell it was very tall.
I can tell it was very big.
And I can tell it had its feet right here across my chest next to my rib cages.
And when people ask like, well, how do you know if you didn't see it?
It's very difficult to explain.
But it's like in the invisible spiritual realm, you just know things that you shouldn't know.
And I can't explain it other than that.
And I felt this face put its face against my face and breathing over me.
And so what I did was, well, I did what I knew how.
I started praying to everything that I could.
And I was like, I literally said this.
I was like, oh, Allah, help me.
Because I was reading the Koran.
And then I said, Buddha, help me.
I literally just started going down the list like this.
And then I remembered my old Catholic tradition growing up.
And I started saying the Hail Mary.
And then all of a sudden, I said, Our Father.
And when I said Our Father, it grabbed me by the neck.
And I couldn't breathe.
I physically felt two massive hands like this.
And it started choking me and banging my head on the floor.
I remember feeling my head bouncing off on the floor.
And I thought I was going to die.
And finally, just out of sheer desperation, the Lord of the Rings came to me.
And I was like, Oh, Jesus.
And before I even said Jesus, I didn't even finish saying the name.
It was like a reverberation in the air.
Something was shaking.
And there was like a boom.
Like whatever that was, bled.
As soon as I said Jesus, and it let me go.
And I said to myself, Why was it that when I said that name, it left?
And automatically, I came up to the conclusion that there's something about the name of Jesus.
And so the next day, I went to the church that my friend invited me to go to.
And I said, Jesus, I'm going to go to the church.
And I said, Jesus, I'm going to go to the church that my friend invited me to.
And I heard the gospel clearly preached.
And I repented and put my faith in Christ.
And that led me to a journey of seeking God's presence and getting to know Him.
And that was one of many experiences I've had with dealing with demonic spirits.
I've had many instances of seeing things and experiencing moments where for some reason,
I was able to see certain things.
You know, one particular I can tell you, I've had several of them.
But when I used to live in Kissimmee in Florida, there's a specific place called Davenport,
which is not too far from Kissimmee.
And in that place, this was very recent.
I want to say maybe five years back, I was in a season where I would be awakened in the middle of the night
and the Lord would reveal to me certain things to pray against, specifically in my church.
I was an evangelist and I was just a part of the church where we were at in Kissimmee.
And there would be many nights when I would be awakened and I would fall on my knees and I would see things.
And the Holy Spirit would allow me to see certain things, to pray against them,
and to take authority over principalities and demonic spirits that were being assigned
even to the region where we were at.
And there was one specific moment where I kept seeing certain colors, like colors of beads.
And I knew what that meant.
It was something that was of witchcraft being thrown at our specific church.
So these are beads that were being thrown at the church?
Well, this is a vision, like I would be awakened and see these specific colors.
And in the background, I knew what that meant.
So I would start coming against that.
And there was one time where during that moment, I saw a specific person all dressed in white
and he fled in terror when I exposed it in prayer with my wife at three, four in the morning.
Well, that day I called my pastor and I told them, I said, listen, there's an assignment of witchcraft
against the church.
And I saw a man all dressed in white and he fled in terror.
And my pastor told me, you're seeing correctly.
They would pick up dead sacrifices of chickens and stuff in the backyard of their church.
And there was this one man that lived across the street who was dressed all in white.
And I explained what I saw and they told me that that was indeed going on.
And before I left that place to move to Arkansas, I didn't understand why many times I would be
awakened in the middle of the night like this and come against specific things like, you know,
a Santeria and spiritualism, those specific spiritual forces.
And, you know, the Lord is awesome because He reveals things at the right time.
And it was about a week before I moved, I decided to take a walk in Davenport next to
where I was living.
And on the high point of the hill, there were people that were practicing that stuff.
And what was going on was the Holy Spirit was waking me up to tear down those assignments
by the Holy Spirit, you know, and things like that.
I've had very unusual moments like that.
Fort Smith, where I came here, you know, like a pastor of church in Fort Smith, I was talking to
here, you know what, let me just say, before I say that part, let me tell you a crazy story
that happened in Davenport.
One particular moment, I was in prayer around 4 a.m.
I was suddenly awakened, lots of demonic attack.
And I started seeing in the Spirit a woman that had a serpent draped around her shoulders.
Right.
And when I saw that, now, when I say I see it, it's not a serpent.
When I say I see it, it was by inner vision.
Okay, that's the best way I could describe it.
It's like having a dream with your eyes open.
That's the best way I could describe it.
And my wife and I, we fell on our faces and we start praying.
And all of a sudden, it just came up out of my mouth as I was praying in tongues.
I saw this assignment and this altar of this woman with this
python serpent thing wrapped around her shoulders.
And it just, I blurted it, it just came out of my mouth.
I just said, she will fall.
She will fall.
The judgment has come.
She will fall.
And I saw a specific region in the Central America, Southern America, and then that anointing
to break that bondage lifted from me.
And literally, the next day, I get a friend request on Facebook.
And it was a picture of like an angel fighting a demon thing.
It was like an old Catholic picture of Saint Michael fighting a demon.
You know, some people know what I'm talking about when I say that, but
when I looked at that Facebook post, something told me, don't accept a friend request.
God is my witness.
When I scrolled down just to see, it was a priest of Santeria.
And there was an altar of a woman with a snake over her shoulders.
And I'm telling you, like I showed that to my wife.
She's like, I was like, babe, look at this.
And she's like, what the heck is that?
I said, wasn't that what we were praying against the other night?
So why would that happen?
Like, why would that person send me that friend request?
When you're praying and you're taking intercession, you stick out like a sore thumb in the spirit, you know,
and things like that.
You know, I'll tell you another one.
When I moved to Fort Smith, immediately when I came to Fort Smith by the discerning of spirits,
the Lord allowed me to feel that I was praying against the other night.
What spirits are in this region?
And I immediately sensed a Wicca and New Age and a religious spirit.
And there was a time where, man, I'm trying to, there's so many stories I want to tell you,
but I'm trying to pick the craziest one.
So while you're thinking about that, let me just tell everybody that's watching.
If you've had an experience like this, please let us know in the comments and how that experience was broken in the power of Jesus.
I mean, we want to hear these stories because these things are powerful testimonies,
because just like what Chris was talking about, as soon as he started to say the name of Jesus,
he didn't even get to finish the name of Jesus.
He started it.
The enemy fled.
That's right.
And he tried all these other things, Buddha, Ahamed, Allah, even praying the Hail Mary.
And none of these things had the power of the name of Jesus.
That's right.
Our father was close, but when he said Jesus, it changed everything.
That's right.
So I know, Chris, you've got a lot of stories, but I just want to make sure everybody knows.
Put in the comments your story.
We want to hear this.
So Chris, go ahead and tell us some more.
So there was one particular person when I was just pastoring, I want to say the first year or so,
where she was experiencing a lot of demonic oppression.
And I had to help her get free from some stuff.
And I told her, I said, hey, listen, how much are you reading the word of God?
She's like, well, hardly ever.
I said, that's your problem.
I said, you've got to stay in Ephesians, in Philippians, in Colossians, and ask the Holy
Spirit to begin to give you revelation of your authority in Christ.
She was getting attacked all the time, all the time.
And what I had discovered was she wasn't really getting into the word and Satan was having a
field day with her.
And so that day, I was talking to her about the authority that we have in Christ as believers.
I was talking to her about what has been given to us in heavenly places in Christ.
I was talking to her about how Satan is defeated and we, uh, principalities and powers have been
disarmed.
But there is a wrestling that takes place, but it's from the standpoint of victory, you know?
And so I'd finished praying with her and that night, I want to say around 4 a.m., I felt
something slither across my feet and my bed sheets started tightening up.
And when I looked to my left, there in front of me was a massive, massive serpent.
The head was like this big.
And it was, it looked at me and then it descended into the floor and disappeared.
Well, this was no vision.
This was like I saw it with my eyes and immediately fear tried to grip my heart.
And the only thing I could do at that moment is just begin to worship the Lord.
And the Holy Spirit began to speak to me.
He said, do not mind what you saw.
I want you to magnify and praise my name.
So I got up, I started magnifying and praising the Lord.
And there was such an overwhelming power and peace that flooded my soul because he was
teaching me how to fight from this position of authority.
And I'm not saying that there aren't moments where we have to be in the position of
authority, there aren't moments where we have to renounce.
And I'm not saying there are moments that we have to specifically rebuke specific things.
But you have to do things by the Spirit of God.
There isn't a formula.
You do it by the Spirit.
There have been moments where the Holy Spirit has told me, you ignore this and you worship
me.
There are other moments where he'll say, I want you to say this specific thing.
I want you to expose this specific spirit and then it would flee.
The key is getting to know the presence of God for yourself.
I'll tell you another really cool story.
When I started starting the live stream, we would do fresh oil every day for two years.
And in one occasion, we did something called midnight oil between me and my wife, which
I am so wanting to do again.
It's like midnight to 330 in the morning.
And we just spent time, three hours, three and a half hours of worship.
In one particular occasion, I was sleeping and I just felt the beautiful presence of
the Lord.
And as I started to doze off, two demons, two demonic spirits approached me.
And I heard them talking and they said, we can't touch him.
He's in prayer.
They left.
He said, he's praying.
We can't touch him.
And I want to quickly share this, John, because as I was kind of just contemplating what we
should talk about, I want to just share this that there are several reasons why demonic
attacks come.
One is there could be an open door.
Sometimes if we're doing things that we shouldn't be doing, if we're violating our
conscience or living in a way that's displeasing to the spirit, we open ourselves up to the
wrong thing.
That's one aspect.
Another reason why demonic spirits come is to intimidate.
It's to get you to stop praying.
It's to get you to stop pursuing the Lord.
Many, many, I can't tell you how many times I get people all the time to say, man, every
time I try to pursue the Lord, it seems like these spiritual attacks are getting worse.
Yes, because they don't want you to pursue God's presence.
But there comes a point where those things begin to cease in that way.
And then there are other moments.
There are other moments where God allows you to experience something for the simple fact
of opening your eyes for prayer.
And I can't tell you how many times I'll be praying for someone and then I'll get an
attack and the Lord will show me this is what's going on.
And so that's what I would say.
I would say open doors, intimidations, or sometimes God is allowing it as an assignment
for prayer.
And so, yeah, I've had many of those things before.
That's wild, brother.
I know you are a prayer warrior and you spend a lot of time, as you mentioned, fresh oil
for people that aren't aware of that on your YouTube channel.
You take people into the presence of the Lord simply through waiting
and reading the scriptures.
And it's not a complicated thing, but it is a you have to make an investment of your
time and your attention to reap the benefits of that fresh oil that God wants to pour out
on us.
Now, you recently wrote a book that is going to be coming out with Charisma in November
called Fresh Oil.
Can you kind of explain what is the premise of this book and how it's going to help
people in their walk with the Lord?
Yeah, the premise of the book is to whet your spiritual appetite for the things of God's
Spirit.
And I share specific things that the Holy Spirit has shared with me to be a blessing
to the body of Christ.
It's funny because it's called Fresh Oil, Secrets to Intimacy with the Holy Spirit,
but it opens up with the secret is the secret place, you know, and everything comes out
of that place.
Everything comes out of that place.
And really what it is, is the book is designed to be an impartation for prayer and for fellowship
with the Spirit of God.
I love the phrase Fresh Oil because it's inspired from Psalm chapter 92 verse 10, where
it says, My horn you have exalted like a wild ox.
That means my strength you have exalted.
And I have been anointed with Fresh Oil.
And the reality is the Spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord searching all the inner depths
of his heart.
And what is a lamp?
A lamp is a container, a vessel for oil.
And what is the purpose for oil?
To combust into light.
And when we spend time in God's presence, it's like our vessels become
endued with oil.
Our vessels become flooded with the presence and the glory of God.
We live from a different fuel source.
Many people live from what they can do or what they can muster or their own strivings,
but God wants us to operate from a different fuel source, from his oil.
And so the premise of the book is all about experiencing God for yourself.
I break things down very easily.
I share a lot of stories in my own personal life because I find that sharing stories and
being vulnerable helps people really connect to prayer.
And the thing is, as people look at people that pray a lot, like, oh, wow, that person
must be special.
And the reality is, no, God wants to use everyday normal people who would make themselves
yielded and ready for him.
And so the whole desire for this book is I want you to walk away with, man, this makes
me hungry for God.
That's pretty much the heart behind it.
That's so good.
And as you're hungry for the Lord and you spend time with him, you're hungry for God.
You will be more prepared and more able to deal with those demonic attacks whenever they
come, because they're not going to scare you because you know where your power comes from.
It is that fresh oil that you seek the Lord every day and he restores your soul and he
gives you that fresh oil.
And so, Chris, I just want to ask you to pray for those that have been watching that they
would experience the power of that fresh oil, but experience that God's saving grace when
it comes to these demonic attacks like you were talking about at the beginning.
Well, let's pray.
Father, I just thank you, Lord, for every single person that's tuning in, that it's
not a coincidence.
It's not an accident that they're tuning in.
Father, I thank you for those that are watching, those that are watching that may be plagued
by various attacks from the enemy.
Holy Spirit, I pray that you would give them the revelation of Christ and them the hope
of glory, that in Christ there is no other name under heaven, which would we be saved.
I pray, Lord, that you would infuse your people with the spirit of authority that comes from you.
That as we focus our attention on your manifested presence, as we focus and gaze on you, Lord
Jesus, and relish in the finished work of the cross, that you, Lord God, would begin
to open our eyes to see that which you have already given us.
All things as it relates to life and godliness are made available through your precious promises.
And we become partakers of your divine nature.
So, Lord, I thank you for the revelation of the kingdom of God, the revelation of Christ,
the revelation, Lord God, of our authority in you that there's no fear in your presence.
That perfect love casts out fear.
I pray, Lord God, that you would begin to bring people in a journey as to seeing what
has been given to them.
That as they're reading the scriptures, that the scriptures would begin to leap out the
promises of God into their belly, that they would be nourished and sustained by the truth
of your word, becoming sound and becoming powerful conduits of your glory.
I thank you that you'd so desire that we would be carriers of the glory of God, and that
every person, Lord God, would be blessed.
Bring us to the overflow of fresh oil, I pray, in Jesus' name, amen.
Amen and amen.
Chris Garcia, thank you so much for joining us today on Charisma to share your powerful
testimony of overcoming.
And I want to encourage everybody, get your copy of Fresh Oil because it will change and
enhance your time with the Lord and to make it something that makes you thirsty for his
presence.
Chris, thank you so much, brother.
Thank you so much, John.
I appreciate you.