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Pastor who 'heard the voice of Satan' reveals what he told him - he's convinced we are in the 'final days'
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A Christian pastor has claimed he "heard the voice of Satan" as a teenager, changing the course of his life forever.
Bishop Alan DiDio of Revival Nation Church in North Carolina did not always believe in God, and says he spent his teenage years desperately trying to stay out of jail.
But it was a visit to a gathering for his friend's Christian youth group in 1998, when he was 17 years old, that changed everything after he says a demonic presence spoke to him.
DiDio told the Daily Mail that the voice had told him not to believe in God or go near Christians.
He says he "instinctively" knew to respond to the voice by telling it that his sould belonged to Jesus, and says his mind then miraculously filled with a "download" of the teachings of Christianity, despite him having barely read the Bible.
He told the outlet: "I just said, 'Satan, you can't have me anymore. Jesus, I'm all yours.' And it immediately stopped, and it never came back again.
"If you hear the voice of Satan, all of a sudden the supernatural becomes very, very real to you. And if Satan is real, then Jesus is real."
This encounter sparked him to join the ministry to spread the message and found that others had had similar encounters.
He believes that the demon he rebuked that day had likely been following him for years, and now believes that demons are "assigned" to mortals on Earth to steer them away from God as the end times are allegedly approaching.
The pastor warned that the signs and symbols of the biblical end times have been cropping up more frequently, adding: "There's an interesting verse in Revelation 12 that says that Satan will come down in great wrath knowing his time is short."
Many people connect Revelations 12 with a period of intense trouble on Earth, known as the Tribulation, which the Bible says will be seven years of chaos and disasters, with evil ruling on Earth before the return of Jesus.
DiDio chillingly warned: "So, it could be that we are living in the last days, and I believe we're seeing prophecy fulfilled all around us."
He added: "And it is absolutely biblical to say we are seeing an increase in demonic activity. You have to combine that with verses like, 'when sin does abound, grace does much more abound.' And we know that if the enemy has a plan, God has a plan."
He did reassure believers that if Satan was ramping up his activity, so would God be.