Ex-banker’s search for supernatural power took him into darkness and danger

From an early age, Raymond Lim was hooked on martial arts.

Judo, karate, taekwondo, Chinese martial arts. You name it, he has tried it.  

But he was skinny and had a slight built.  

Whenever he watched movies and saw supernatural feats being performed, he would wonder if those feats were even remotely possible.  

Raymond in his teenage days.

Then, he graduated from university and started working as an assistant manager at a bank.

The altar

One day, Raymond met a man in a coffeeshop. The man was one of his contractors who was helping to build the bank branches. They began talking.   

The man told him how he was driving back from Malaysia and got into an accident. The car was a total wreck but he had not a scratch on him.

The man said: “My god saved me.”

The man told him about his god who gave him power over the elements and power to perform miracles.

To illustrate, the man took a chopstick and put it at the centre of his throat. He asked Raymond to push it in. Raymond refused. 

“Okay, I will do it then!” the man said. He shoved the hand holding the chopstick into his throat and the chopstick broke.

Raymond asked him to bring him to where he could find this power. 

His mind was filled with thoughts of violence and injury. Power consumed him.

Once there, Raymond saw the followers sparring and performing different martial art forms: The dragon, the snake, the tiger. Their moves were flawless and powerful. The master came up to him and asked him what he could do for Raymond. Pointing at the followers, Raymond said: “I want that kind of power”.   

The master told him: “See these spirits that are up there on the altar? If you will stand here and invite them into your heart, you can have the power. But you will have to put a little donation on the altar.” Raymond agreed. He stripped down to his pants and approached the altar.  

Raymond was then asked which kind of spirit he wanted.

In his search for power, Raymond found “his mind darkened”.

“If you want to fight the monkey style, then you invite the monkey spirit. If you want to fight the tiger style, then you invite the tiger spirit,” said the master. 

Raymond stared at the altar and could not decide. So he commanded his soul to step aside and then invited all of the spirits to come in.  

He felt like a passenger in a car that was his body but someone else was in the driver’s seat.  

Raymond then went outside and started sparring. His hands moved and his legs followed smoothly, as if the styles were automatically downloaded to him. He could feel the energy flow through his body but it felt unreal. He felt like a passenger in a car that was his body but someone else was in the driver’s seat.  

The “power” gave him a tremendous high. Months passed and as he continued sparring, his mind darkened. 

Just walking along the road, his mind would be filled with thoughts of violence and injury. Power consumed him and he wanted to test out his newfound prowess.   

However, he did not get into fights. He was working during the day and hanging out at coffee joints late at night. This was back in the 1970s and sarabhat coffee joints were made up of hawkers manning their coffee and tea carts under trees.   

The supernatural 

Fearing that sooner or later he may get injured or killed from a fight, Raymond went back to the master and asked for protection from knife attacks.  

The master said: “There are three kinds of protection I can give you.”  

“The first kind I can give you is an amulet. When you wear it, you will have protection. When you don’t wear it, you won’t have protection. The second way is I can write it down in blood. But on the first and the fifteenth days of the lunar month, you will have to come back here and recharge the power.

“But there is a third type that I can do. I can write it from my spirit into your spirit and nothing can ever take it away. 

“But if you ever get sick and you need to go to a hospital for an operation, you will suffer much pain because your skin will become like iron and any needle or blade will have difficulty entering your skin.”  

Raymond decided to take the third type of protection. 

He came towards Raymond, using the swords to stab and slash him.   

On the night that Raymond was supposed to receive his protection against knife attacks, he took his father and brother along. His father was the one who led his eight sons into the world of mysticism and supernatural beliefs.

Again, Raymond stripped down to his pants and stood before the altar. The master went into a trance and started spirit writing on him.  

When it was completed, two followers came to hold him by the arms, with one on each side. The master then went into a room and took out three swords: The broad sword, the double-edged straight sword and the kris. To show how sharp they were, he took a stack of paper and used the swords to slice through them. 

He came towards Raymond, using the swords to stab and slash him. It was at full thrust – front, back and in the stomach.  

His father closed his eyes and muttered under his breath that one stupid son was now gone. His second brother presumed he would be the eldest son before nightfall.  

However, the swords only grazed Raymond’s skin without cutting through it. There were red welts but no cuts. “Now I have it. Now I have the power,” Raymond declared. His mind continued to be consumed with thoughts of violence and he was eager to put his iron-clad skin to the test.  

However, he soon developed severe asthma.  

Raymond began to dread nights because each time he tried to lie down and sleep, he had to fight to breathe. On most nights he could be found sitting up in a chair, clinging to a pillow and gasping for breath. This went on for several months.  

He heard the voice say: “Why don’t you just kill yourself and everything will be all right?”  

When the sun rose, his breathing difficulties would go away.  

Raymond went to see many doctors who gave him pills and steroids and various kinds of medication. It was a strange kind of asthma as he only experienced it at night. 

His family doctor told him: “Son, there are two kinds of asthma, one that can be cured and one which cannot be cured. You’ve got the second type. Here are steroids you have to take for the rest of your life.”  

One night as Raymond was struggling with his breathing, a voice spoke to him.  

He heard the voice say: “You’re now 26 years old, look at your fiancee, how can you marry her? You don’t even know if you’ll live till you are 30. Look at your father and mother, they are not rich people, they can’t afford to pay your medical bills. Why don’t you just kill yourself and everything will be all right?”  

Raymond felt miserable and hopeless, and was desperate to find a cure.  

Yearning for healing

One Saturday night, a Christian couple invited Raymond’s father to a Christian gathering at a house in Siglap. He agreed to go. When he came home at one o’clock in the morning, he had received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour.  Throughout that sleepless night, he saw Jesus in a white robe. 

The next day, Raymond’s father shared his newfound faith with his wife and eight sons. He was ecstatic. But his family members were dismayed. The family always made decisions together. The culture of family loyalty was strong and they esteemed and followed their father’s example. They felt that they had lost their leader and that their father had created a new life without consulting them.   

“Healing? Yes, that I want. But Christianity, no I don’t want it.”

When Raymond’s father spoke to them, he exuded peace. He said: “Sons, for 54 years I have been searching for God, and last night I found Him. His name is Jesus Christ. Now it is my dearest wish that all of you follow me to follow Him. But even if none of you follow me to follow Him, I will still follow Him.”

Raymond had never heard his father speak like that.  

His father said: “Raymond, why don’t you come to this meeting? They will pray for you and God will heal you”.

Raymond replied, “Healing? Yes, that I want. But Christianity, no I don’t want it.”

His father replied: “Never mind, come anyway. They will still pray for you.” So that Saturday,

Raymond and his fiancee, Sally, went to the gathering.  They sat at the back row and just watched.

Raymond and Sally fishing in the Maldives during a holiday.

When the Christians started worshipping and praising the Lord, God’s presence entered the room. Raymond felt his seat becoming hot, his hair standing on its end and his face turning red. He felt very uncomfortable.

Raymond was in turmoil as he could feel the spirits in him jumping around, seeking an exit.

He turned to Sally and said: “I am looking very funny right now.” But she said, “No, you look perfectly normal.”

The moment the meeting ended, Raymond grabbed Sally by the hand and said: “Let’s get out of here.”  

Fierce battle within

Raymond’s father invited him to return the following Saturday to the gathering. Raymond agreed because he was desperate to be healed and to get a good night’s sleep. He sat there, indifferent to what was going on. Then he heard the speaker inviting those who needed healing to come forward.  

Raymond strode up to the front, turned around, looked everyone in the eye and said: “I have a few words to say.”   

He was full of arrogance and defiance. Before the audience, he wanted to tell God: You heal me first and when I am ready, then I will come back and say yes to be a Christian.  

There was a fierce battle going on within him and Raymond feared he would not survive the night. 

At that moment, Raymond’s hands shot straight up into the air and his spectacles flew off his face. Tears and mucus streamed down his face. Raymond felt jolts of super-charged electricity running through his whole body.  

He had been struck by God.

“I knew I was in God’s presence. I also started to manifest the spirits within me, as my hands started doing all the martial arts movements I had learned,” he said.   

The Christians formed a circle around him and prayed, commanding the spirits to leave him.  

Though his eyes were closed, Raymond saw thick, dark, swirling clouds. There was a fierce battle going on within him and he feared he would not survive the night.  

He decided to say: “I want to be a believer of Jesus Christ!” However, the word “Jesus Christ” would not come out of his mouth. 

Raymond saw two disembodied and bony hands with grey fingernails reaching from the inside of him and holding on to his vocal cords. He did not know what to do and cried out: “Jesus, help me!”  

Raymond’s hands shot into the air and his spectacles flew off his face. Tears and mucus streamed down his face.

Immediately, he saw a light, like a laser beam, hitting him straight on the forehead. The light splashed on his body like oil, and it flowed down his body in a torrent, sweeping away the darkness until it was completely gone.  

“God allowed me to see inside my body. It was bright, clean and pure. There was no more trace of darkness. Jesus Christ, the Light of the world, had come into my life,” said Raymond. 

That night, January 31, 1976, he said the Sinner’s Prayer. Both his mother and fiancee who accompanied him also prayed to receive Christ.  

The marathon

When Raymond went home, he suffered another asthma attack. But this time, there was no voice telling him to kill himself. 

Since he still could not sleep, he took a Bible and began reading through the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. He also started reading books on spiritual warfare, deliverance and divine healing to understand more about them.  

He went from smoking 70 cigarettes a day to zero the day after. 

While his asthma persisted, his smoking addiction disappeared immediately. He went from smoking 70 cigarettes a day to zero the day after. 

Eager for complete healing for his asthma, Raymond prayed: “Lord, when you have healed me, I want to testify of what You have done for me. But people will question, ‘How do I know he is healed? How do I know that he isn’t taking medication even now?’”  

He told God: “Lord, I want to show them proof of your healing. I want to run a marathon … I will train for it and I will run the 42km. Lord, if your healing is not total and permanent, then somewhere along the way I will fall in spasms and people will say You didn’t do a good job.”   

Raymond rafting during a teambuilding activity with his bank colleagues in Turkey in 2005.

Raymond ran the marathon in 1976 and completed it.

Later, asked he God, “Dear Lord, I know you can heal instantly. You took away my smoking addiction immediately but why did it take six months before my asthma was healed?” 

Raymond said God told him that his spiritual needs were greater than his physical need for healing. 

Raymond realised that if God had healed him of his asthma instantly, he would given thanks to God but gone about his old life. It was through the six months of reading God’s Word that he slowly built the foundation to anchor his faith.  

After Raymond and his immediate family’s spiritual transformation 44 years ago, over 120 relatives and friends came to faith – all within a year. 

Raymond and his wife Sally, with their two children Ben and Michelle.

His family experienced the truth written in Acts 16:31: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 

Said Raymond, who is now 71 years old: “I have absolutely no regrets about the decision I made that day when the Lord reached out and brought this sinner from darkness into His marvellous light.”

This is an excerpt of an article that first appeared in Salt&Light.

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