Pastor Jonathan Pokluda never imagined that a conversation at a high-end country club in Utah would turn into a harrowing encounter with the demonic.
But as he prayed for a man struggling with prayer, the scene quickly escalated; coughing turned to growling, limbs twisted unnaturally, and the man hunched over in clear distress. It was the kind of experience Pokluda had only read about in the Bible or heard whispered about in missionary circles overseas.
Yet here it was, in America.
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“He starts coughing and then the coughing goes to growling, and then his arm flies up above his head, and then back, and then around his back, and he hunches over, and he just starts convulsing and making these noises,” Pokluda told The Christian Post.
“This is a guy that just got off the golf course; he’s got his title, his visor on and his polo tucked into his khaki shorts with his golf cleats. I didn’t expect that at all. […] In full transparency, I was scared and praying. It gets bigger and louder, and then it calms down. He calms down and says, ‘In Jesus’ name, amen.’ He just looks at me, like, ‘Wow, I didn’t expect that.’ I was like, ‘Man, that makes two of us.’”
For the lead pastor of Harris Creek Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, that moment solidified a growing conviction: many Christians live unaware of the invisible battle raging around them. It was that concern that fueled his new book,Your Story Has a Villain: Identify Spiritual Warfare and Learn How to Defeat the Enemy, a project Pokluda described as a theological deep dive and a personal journey into understanding spiritual warfare.
“I didn’t grow up in a church that talked about this,” Pokluda explained. “And I’m not the kind of person who just believes something because it’s tradition. I need to know: What does the Bible say? What’s actually happening in the world today?”
His research revealed a startling truth: Scripture says more about spiritual warfare than it does about marriage.
“I think a lot of Christians hide behind what we can’t know,” he said. “When I turn to the Scriptures, and it says more about spiritual warfare than marriage, it seems like there’s a lot we can know. There’s a lot that the Scripture says about spiritual warfare. This book is … a layman’s guide to spiritual warfare. I sought to understand, ‘Hey, what can the enemy do? What can’t he do? What are the limitations? Why does it matter?’”
“We often treat it like a fringe topic,” he added. “But if the Bible talks about it this much, we should take it seriously.”
The book represents a three-year study of what the Bible teaches about the unseen conflict and offers three key strategies that the enemy employs against believers: deception, distraction and destruction.
“We have an enemy who was a created being, an angel who rebelled against God,” Pokluda explained. “And his goal is to diminish our faith and separate us from the truth.”
One of the greatest weapons of the enemy, the Welcome to Adulting author posited, is distraction, pointing to modern technology as a prime example.
“We sit down to read the Bible, and our phone buzzes. Suddenly, we’re thinking about a text, an email or social media. The enemy doesn’t need to make us sin outright; he just needs to keep us busy, distracted and consumed with lesser things.”
He also highlights how the enemy manipulates cultural narratives to distort biblical truth. “The devil is called the ‘father of lies’ for a reason,” Pokluda said. “If he can get you to doubt God’s goodness, to question truth, to focus on what you don’t have rather than what you do, then he’s already won half the battle.”
Pokluda emphasized that the battle is real, and believers need to grasp who their enemy truly is. He explained that Satan was an angel who rebelled against God, leading to a supernatural test that humans participate in daily.
“If you ask a bunch of Christians who the God of this world is, they’re going to say, ‘Jesus, Jehovah, Yahweh, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.’ Well, 2 Corinthians 4:4 says that Satan is the lowercase g god of this world. The Bible says that Satan, the devil, is the god of this world,” he shared.
So, what does that mean? He’s trying to tempt us away to diminish our faith from the one true God, the Creator of the Heavens, the Earth, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Every day, we wake up in that test: who are we going to follow, the one true God or the lowercase g god of this world, who tempts us with the pleasures of this world, the material things of this world, the temporary things of this world?”
Pokluda explained that Satan, though powerful, is not omnipresent. “Satan himself has never been near me,” he said. “He’s likely focused on major global issues: wars, genocide, rulers of nations. What I, and most people, deal with are demons assigned to individuals, families and geographic areas.”
He also warned against underestimating the intelligence and craftiness of demonic forces. “They lie,” he says. “They replace a true relationship with God with religious rules. Their number one goal is to diminish our faith. They want us to deconstruct, doubt, and ultimately turn away from God.”
While Pokluda never set out to become a spokesperson for spiritual warfare, his own experiences forced him to reconsider long-held beliefs. In addition to the country club encounter, another eerie moment solidified his conviction.
After preaching on Numbers 21 — a passage involving fiery serpents and the bronze serpent lifted in the wilderness — he encountered a man at a skate park who eerily repeated details from the sermon, despite having no prior knowledge of the passage.
“It was like the enemy was saying, ‘I know what you’re up to,’” Pokluda recalled. “It was a chilling moment, but it also reaffirmed that this battle is real.”
Though spiritual warfare is a frightening topic for many, Pokluda said his primary message is not one of fear but of empowerment. In his book, he emphasizes the importance of prayer, Scripture and righteousness as tools of spiritual protection.
“Ephesians 6 tells us to put on the full armor of God,” he says. “Faith is a shield. Righteousness protects our heart. The Word of God is our weapon. This isn’t just poetic imagery; it’s practical, real-life strategy.”
Media, from music to films, Pokluda stressed, play a role in spiritual health. Satan is in a battle over the “real estate of the mind,” the pastor said, encouraging Christians to ask themselves, “Why am I feeding this to my soul?”
“When you sin, you let him in. Ephesians 4: do not give the devil a foothold. When you sin, you let him in. Meaning, when you consistently give yourself to sin, that sin is an invitation to the demonic realm to have their way with you. So you want to resist the devil, and he will flee from you,” he said.
“The heart does not want what it wants; it wants what it’s fed,” he added. “What you see, what you listen to, what you say, what you touch and feel […] feeds your mind, which feeds your heart. So you want to be mindful. Don’t watch horror movies unless it’s redemptive, like ‘Nefarious,’ […] but something that’s just blood and gore and horror, your heart wasn’t made to see that. That’s going to hurt you, that’s going to wound you. It’s sinful […] if we give our minds over to earthly things, we’re giving our minds over to demonic things to be influenced by a demon.”
Through Your Story Has a Villain, Pokluda said he wants to issue a wake-up call to Christians who might be sleepwalking through their faith, unaware of the battle at hand.
“You have an enemy,” he emphasized. “He hates you. He hates your family. He hates your kids before they’re born. He’s not afraid of you at all. You are not in the slightest bit intimidating to him. He’s terrified of your God. And so, you want to remain close to God. You want to remain close to Jesus. Because while he’s not afraid of you, he is terrified of Jesus. […] Wherever I’m facing temptation, wherever I’m facing demonic activity, I want to draw near to God.”
Leah M. Klett is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: leah.klett@christianpost.com
