Robert A. Jaffray

A.W. Tozer, the celebrated writer with the Christian and Missionary Alliance, and one who would never be accused as having a fanciful or overactive imagination, wrote a biography of one of the Christian and Missionary Alliances’ most famous missionaries—Robert A. Jaffray.

In Tozer’s book, Let My People Go!: The Life of Robert Jaffray, Tozer retells the account of when Jaffray had a physical altercation with a demonic power while he was on the island of Borneo (now Kalimantan), in the country of Indonesia.

As missionaries in Indonesia, we also have had similar occurrences. And not only in Indonesia, we have also had direct confrontations with these powers of darkness in the USA, a land that is increasingly becoming pagan.

Here is Tozer’s account of Jaffray on the island of Borneo:

One year while Jaffray and Rev. Gustave Woerner were traveling in Borneo visiting newly opened stations, they came to Kalosi, which up to that time had been marked by a strange unresponsiveness to the gospel. It was as if an invisible ring had been drawn around the place and the people living inside the circle had been struck deaf and dumb. However the truth might prevail everywhere else, not one convert could be made inside that circle. In addition to a total apathy toward the gospel, there was among the people an active hostility wholly foreign to the rest of the island. Here the two missionaries stayed overnight.

Jaffray lay down at the usual time to sleep, apparently in normal health. In the middle of the night, Woerner was suddenly awakened by the sounds of a commotion in the room where Jaffray slept. He rushed into the room and found Jaffray struggling and groaning in agony. All his motions were those of a man wrestling with someone trying to choke him to death, an invisible antagonist who seemed about to kill him. This continued for a short time and then suddenly ceased. Immediately Jaffray came to consciousness weak and badly shaken. Woerner prayed with him and ministered to him as he was able, and Jaffray’s strength returned slowly. By morning he was feeling well again.

The struggle of the night before he never doubted was a personal engagement with the devil himself. He stated boldly that he had met and in prayer had conquered the “prince” who had been responsible for the strange bondage of the people in and around Kalosi. By quick accommodation of Scripture to his needs, he saw in this “prince” Pharaoh who was holding the people in bondage. Jaffray sternly commanded him to “let my people go!” He had no doubt that the prince had been routed and the way opened for the deliverance of the people from the bondage.

Were we to stop here the whole thing might be smiled off tolerantly as the pardonable weakness of an intensely religious man, and nothing more. But there is a significant sequel. Almost at once the whole situation changed within that previously barren circle. The indifference of the people melted like ice before the summer sun. The work of conversion that was sweeping across Borneo broke out at Kalosi and the men of the district began to turn to Christ in large numbers. The gospel began to triumph. From that time on there was great fruit and the opposition ceased.