在芬兰首都赫尔辛基以北大概600公里（370英里）的小镇拉赫，莉娜和朋友们正在家中学习《圣经》。突然，莉娜转向她的朋友亚妮丽和蒂莫说：

“我有一种不详的预感，我们赶紧一起祷告吧。”

三位大学生跪下向上帝祈祷。就在那时，一个高大的黑影闯入客厅，直冲向亚妮丽，想要抓她，亚妮丽吓得浑身发抖。

于是，蒂莫和莉娜更加急切地恳求祷告。

紧接着，一个光影进来把黑影赶了出去。那黑影站在门口还想进来，但是光影都成功拦阻了。十分钟后，黑影放弃并离开了。

一切恢复平静以后，瑟瑟发抖的学生们把刚刚发生的事情拼凑起来。莉娜描述了光影和黑影之间的交手过程。蒂莫只看见地板上一道光和一个黑影从他身边飞过。而亚妮丽不想谈论她所看到的。

后来，学生们得知在那同时，附近有人在家里自杀了。

“这就是我那时有不详预感的原因。”莉娜说。

亚妮丽不再沉默，她承认自己以前练习过招魂术，现在她还是会受到邪灵的侵扰。但是，上帝更有能力，她说道。那天的袭击发生以后，晚上亚妮丽独自一人躺在床上，她看见了那个光影进了房间，并且一直坐在她床上直到黎明。

在亚妮丽受洗加入复临教会后，魔鬼的攻击就止息了。

对于蒂莫来说，这是他第一次亲身经历基督和撒但之间的斗争，但这并不是最后一次。蒂莫通常都睡得很好，但是有一天他半夜醒来，感觉到有人在暗处盯着自己看。然后他听到了一个声音。

“别受洗。”那个声音说。

蒂莫是一位软件工程专业的学生，当时他正准备受洗加入复临教会。蒂莫凝视着那黑暗，虽然什么也看不见，但是他能感觉到那里有个邪灵，于是他祷告祈求，那灵就离开了。

第二天，莉娜告诉蒂莫，昨天晚上他家附近有人自杀了。

“你知道具体的时间吗？”蒂莫问道。

莉娜确实知道，就是蒂莫前一天晚上醒来的时候。

那天晚上邪灵的警告并没有阻止蒂莫受洗，而且他后来还成为了复临会的牧师。

蒂莫亲身经历的超自然现象和自杀行为还不止这些。

一天，他和几位复临会的牧师登上渡轮，去瑞典参加一个牧师会议，他们将在渡轮上度过一整夜。

那天晚上，蒂莫焦躁不安，辗转反侧也无法入眠，他突然感觉到自己迫切地需要祷告。几乎就在蒂莫祷告的那一瞬间，他听见了恶魔般的笑声，这可怕的声音很难描述，像是疯子在狂笑。蒂莫感觉到发生了什么不好的事，但他不知道到底发生了什么，为此他祷告了两个小时。

第二天早餐时，一位年长的牧师走近蒂莫。

“昨天晚上你怎么了？”他问道，“圣灵让我为你祷告。”

昨天这位牧师半夜被圣灵唤醒，为蒂莫祈祷。

然后另一位牧师也来到早餐桌旁。

“你们不知道昨晚我经历了什么，”他说，“我醒来之后，特别急切地想去外面透透气。然后我一到甲板，就看见有个人正要跳海。”

这位牧师慢慢地引导那位想跳海的男士回到甲板上，并且劝导了他整整一小时，劝他以后不要轻生。

三位牧师比较了他们夜间经历的时间，发现这三件事是同时发生的。

今年45岁的蒂莫在芬兰复临教会担任通讯主管，在他看来，这三次关于自杀的遭遇和超自然现象是善恶之争的明证/证实了基督与撒但之间的争斗是确实存在的。

“尽管这些事情就发生在我们身边，”他说，“但是耶稣已经胜了撒但，我们没有什么好害怕的。即便发生了这些可怕的超自然事件，耶稣仍然一直在保护着我们，撒但无法伤害我们。”

Demons and Death

Leena abruptly turned to her friends, Anneli and Timo, during a Bible study in her apartment in Raahe, a Finnish town located about 370 miles (600 kilometers) north of the capital, Helsinki.

“I have a bad feeling,” she said. “Let’s pray.”

The three university students sank onto their knees. At that moment, a tall dark figure burst into the living room and darted over to Anneli. She reeled in stark horror as the dark figure tried to grab her.

Timo and Leena prayed more earnestly.

Then a light figure entered the room and chased out the dark figure. The dark figure stood by the door and tried to reenter but the light figure blocked every attempt. After about 10 minutes, the dark figure gave up and left.

When calm returned to the room, the shaken students pieced together what had happened. Leena described the exchange between the light and dark figures. Timo had only seen light and dark shadows streak past him on the floor. Anneli didn’t want to talk about what she had seen.

Later on, the students learned that the attack had unfolded at the same time as a suicide in a nearby home.

“That’s why I had that bad feeling,” Leena declared.

Breaking her silence, Anneli acknowledged that she had practiced spiritism in the past and was still harassed by evil spirits. God, however, was more powerful, she said. Alone in bed after the attack, she had seen the light figure enter her room and sit on the bed until dawn.

The demonic attacks stopped after Anneli was baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

It was the first time that Timo had encountered the great controversy between Christ and Satan up close. It was not the last. Timo, usually a sound sleeper, woke up one night with the sensation that someone was staring at him in the darkness. Then he heard a voice.

“Don’t get baptized,” the voice said.

Timo, a software engineering student, was preparing to be baptized into the Adventist Church. He peered into the darkness. He couldn’t see anything, but he could sense someone’s presence. He prayed, and the presence left.

The next day, Leena told Timo that someone had committed suicide near his home the previous night.

“Do you know what time?” Timo asked.

She did. It was the exact time when he had woken up.

The nighttime warning didn’t prevent Timo from being baptized, and he went on to become an Adventist pastor.

His experiences with the supernatural and suicide didn’t stop.

One day, he and several other Adventist pastors boarded a ferry for an overnight trip to a pastors’ conference in Sweden.

That night, he was restless. After unsuccessfully trying to fall sleep, he felt a sudden urgency to pray. Almost as soon as he started to pray, he heard demonic laughter. The dreadful sound was indescribable, something like a maniac laughing. Timo sensed something bad was happening, but he didn’t know what. He prayed for two hours.

At breakfast, an older pastor approached Timo.

“What was going on with you during the night?” he asked. “The Holy Spirit told me to pray for you.”

He had been woken in the middle of the night and prayed for Timo.

Then another pastor came to the breakfast table.

“You don’t know what happened to me last night,” he said. “I woke up and felt a huge urgency to go outside for some fresh air. When I reached the deck, I saw a man about to jump into the sea.”

The pastor coaxed the man back onto the deck and counseled him for an hour afterward not to kill himself.

When the three pastors compared the timing of their nighttime experiences, they realized that all three had occurred simultaneously.

Timo, now 45 and the communication director for the Adventist Church in Finland, sees the three encounters with suicide and the supernatural as evidence that the great controversy between Christ and Satan is very real.

“It is taking place all around us,” he said. “The encouraging thing is Jesus has already won. We have nothing to fear. Even with these supernatural and terrifying events, Jesus still protects us. There is nothing the other side can do.”