At two o’clock in the morning, the demon shrieked its final, parting words, “Jesus is the victor! Jesus is the victor!” As it departed, for the first time in over two years, there was peace. Awakening soon followed.
In 1838, a man by the name of Johann Christoph Blumhardt arrived in the small German town of Möttlingen to take his first senior position as the pastor of the local parish. He was looking forward to marrying his fiancée and settling down to a life of ministry. Little did Blumhardt know what lay ahead.
All was going as expected for Blumhardt until he began interacting with the poor Dittus family, consisting of two brothers and three sisters. One of the three girls was named Gottliebin. She was a songwriter and a favorite pupil of the previous pastor. However, she was consistently stricken with all sorts of diseases and ailments, including stomach troubles and one leg that was shorter than the other. Blumhardt did his best to help her by making sure she received proper medical care from physicians, but no medical care seemed to really help. Soon Blumhardt realized there was a lot more occurring than physical illness.
One day as the Dittus family sat down to dinner, Gottliebin’s older brother prayed, “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest.” At these words, Gottliebin fell to the floor unconscious. This began a long series of erratic and paranormal activities in Gottliebin’s life that caused the entire village to be greatly disturbed. As the pastor, Blumhardt was faced with Gottliebin’s condition and dubbed his experience with her over the next two years, “The Fight”.
For months Blumhardt would pray for Gottliebin in secret or with casual prayers. Nothing about her condition changed; rather, it got worse. Finally, one day as Blumhardt was witnessing one of Gottliebin’s demonic episodes, he was overcome with indignation regarding her state of torment and that nothing had worked to set her free. He firmly grabbed Gottliebin’s hands (she was unconscious) and shouted into her ear, “Gottliebin, put your hands together and pray, ‘Lord Jesus, help me!’ We have seen enough of what the devil can do; now let us see what the Lord Jesus can do!” Moments later the convulsions ceased and Gottliebin woke up and declared the words that Blumhardt had told her to speak. This led to a reprieve for some time, but the symptoms soon returned worse than ever. This encounter taught Blumhardt the power of prayer, but he had yet to find the atomic power of God through fasting. Stay tuned!
