Memorable Monday # 7

Happy Monday! The point of Memorable Monday is to showcase a book that you read in the past and share why/how the book has stuck with you.

Since Halloween is Thursday I thought I'd feature This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti.

I read this book in the fall of 1990 with our Sunday School class. It was a completely different book than I anticipated reading. It deals with spiritual warfare and in such a real way that it has stayed with me all these years. As a believer I am clearly aware that both angels and demons exist. Christ talks about it several times in the gospels and satan is a fallen angel allowing his pride to get the better of him. Within the 376 pages of this book Frank Peretti creates a world where demons are attempting to take over this little town and the people of the town are not using the power that God gave them to defeat the evil. You see, God gave us this weapon called prayer and when we engage it the demons flee and the angels take over. It's literally a battle waged in the heavenly realm. It may sound really far fetched but believe me we have angels all around us doing or waiting to do battle on our behalf. 

Since reading this book I have never looked at prayer the same way again. I know that when I pray for someone I am unleashing God's mighty angel's onto the scene. I can still picture the angel on the top of a car in one of the scenes in this book. 

About the book:

"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."
Ephesians 6:12

Ashton is just a typical small town. But when a skeptical reporter and a prayerful, hardworking pastor begin to investigate mysterious events, they suddenly find themselves caught up in a hideous New Age plot to enslave the townspeople, and eventually the entire human race. The physical world meets the spiritual realm as the battle rages between forces of good and evil.

This Present Darkness is a gripping story that brings keen insight into spiritual warfare and the necessity of prayer. 

About Frank Peretti: 

With more than 12 million novels in print, Frank Peretti is nothing short of a publishing phenomenon and has been called “America’s hottest Christian novelist.”

Peretti is a natural storyteller who, as a youngster in Seattle, regularly gathered the neighborhood children for animated storytelling sessions. After graduating from high school, he began playing banjo with a local bluegrass group. He and his wife were married in 1972, and Peretti soon moved from touring with a pop band to launching a modest Christian music ministry. Peretti later spent time studying English, screen writing and film at UCLA and then assisted his father in pastoring a small Assembly of God church. In 1983, he gave up his pastoring position and began taking construction jobs to make ends meet. While working at a local ski factory, he began writing This Present Darkness, the book that would catapult him into the public eye. After numerous rejections from publishers and a slow start in sales, word-of-mouth enthusiasm finally lifted This Present Darkness onto a tidal wave of interest in spiritual warfare. The book appeared on Bookstore Journal’s bestseller list every month for more than eight years. Peretti’s two spiritual warfare novels, This Present Darkness (1998) and Piercing the Darkness (1989), captivated readers, together selling more than 3.5 million copies. The Oath was awarded the 1996 Gold Medallion Award for best fiction.

For kids, Peretti wrote The Cooper Kids Adventure Series (Crossways and Tommy Nelson), which remains a best-selling series for children with sales exceeding 1 million copies. In August 2000, Peretti released the hilarious children’s audiocassette series titled Wild and Wacky Totally True Bible Stories, reprising his role as Mr. Henry, the offbeat substitute Sunday School teacher found in two Visual Bible for Kids videos.

Peretti released his first-ever non-fiction book, The Wounded Spirit in 2000, which quickly became a best-seller. The book addresses the pain of “wounded spirits” and was written as a result of painful childhood experiences.

Frank Peretti and his wife, Barbara Jean, live in the Western U.S. In spite of sudden fame and notoriety, Frank still lives a simple, well-rounded life that includes carpentry, banjo making, sculpturing, bicycling and hiking. He is also an avid pilot.

Visit his author's page at his publisher's HERE. 

Mr. Peretti seems to be one of the few people that is free from the chains of the internet because I was not able to find a website, Facebook, or Twitter. At least active ones. 


Now, it's your turn . . .

What book is most memorable to you? Let me know in the comments.