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Say you hate Jesus or I'll kill you
Paddy Monaghan, a Catholic lay missionary and business consultant, who is the national co-ordinator for Alpha in Ireland, tells an amazing story of deliverance of how the Lord protected him when he was attacked with a knife.
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I grew up in the lovely town of Kells in Co Meath. At home prayer was an integral part of our home life. I am 54 now, married with four children, but when I was a teenager I was inordinately shy. Thus it was at 18 that I went with trepidation to University College, Dublin (UCD), to do a commerce degree. For the first year I was very insecure as a person, Although I pretended to be an extrovert. I felt I had no one really to talk to. I had a sheet of paper stuck up on the wall with three words written on it that summarised what I felt to be most lacking in my life – “security”, “trust” and “confidence”. I was always committed to my faith, however, and was part of the Legion of Mary. A group of us at UCD, meanwhile, had started to meet together to study the Scriptures. I didn’t really feel, however that it was making any major impact on my life. Then in December 1972 I attended a Liberation Theology workshop at York University, along with 15 or 20 or so students from UCD. There, we found ourselves at a “charismatic prayer” meeting. This was my first encounter with people praying spontaneously in public and I was deeply touched. “Something had changed” When we came back to UCD we decided to start a charismatic prayer group ourselves. I found it tough going at first. Then, towards the end of February 1973, it happened! I found the Lord for myself and I was baptised in the Holy Spirit. It was as if I had been in a dark room and suddenly the light had been switched on. I remember waking up in my bed-sit in Rathmines, knowing that something had changed. I picked up the bible and the words just seemed to jump out at me. It was no longer just the inspired, authoritative Word of God, it was now His love letter to me. I could hardly put it down. I was just so overwhelmed with the consciousness of God’s love for me personally. I remember cycling to university that morning singing the praises of God. People thought I was in love. But the love that filled me was not for a girl but for the Lord. I had given my whole life to Jesus and was prepared for him to use me any way He wanted. 
Sometime later, this new commitment to Christ was put to the test. I had moved to share a house with three other male students, who were also charismatics. A priest friend had asked us to give some temporary accommodation to a young man who had just been released from Mountjoy gaol. Since my room was the largest, I shared with him. One day, three months later, I came home to find him in a drunken state, manifesting what I later realised was demonic behaviour and terrorising the others. “Bible in hand, I confronted him” Although I was frightened, with my bible in hand, I confronted him. He snatched it from me and tore it in two. Then with super-human strength he pinned me to the wall, pulled out a knife, pressed it against my throat and shouted, “Say you hate Jesus, or I’ll kill you right now!” I felt terrified. I knew he had been imprisoned for causing grievous bodily harm. In my mind’s eye I saw the following morning’s headlines in the Irish Times “Charismatic murdered in Mount Merrion!” Although I felt far from brave, somehow by the grace of God, and through gritted teeth, I was able to proclaim my faith. “I love Jesus”, I said simply and waited for the blow that I knew would come. He moved forward to kill me, but suddenly he froze to the spot. The knife dropped from his hand and he fell to the floor, weeping. He now now so full of remorse, that he had to be restrained from using the knife on himself. “He had taken part in a satanic ritual” He later told me that he had taken part in a satanic ritual that day and was under the influence of the devil. He had wanted to kill me, but when I declared my love for Jesus, he said that some powerful force caught hold of his wrist and he was powerless to drive the knife home. I believe that this was God’s divine intervention. Recalling David Wilkerson’s book, “The Cross and the Switchblade”, I pointed out to my friend that he had just had a demonstration of the fact that the cross of Jesus was more powerful than the switchblade. Since that time knowing that the Lord is with me has given me the courage I have needed in my work of reconciliation over the years in the North and South of Ireland and presently in my evangelisation ministry with Alpha Ireland.
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