Pastor who preached entire Bible in 96 hours says witch converted after cursing him: ‘We wanted you to die’

The Mississippi pastor who recently preached through the entire Bible for 96 consecutive hours says a young witch in Texas who attempted to curse him as he was preaching the Gospel from Romans became a Christian after her black magic backfired.

Pastor Matthew Olson of First Baptist Church of Sharon in Jones County, Mississippi, recounted to The Christian Post some of the physical struggles and spiritual opposition he faced when he set an unofficial world record for marathon speech last month, preaching continuously through Genesis to Revelation from May 30 to June 4.

During a video interview with CP in which he was joined by fellow Pastor Jonathan Strickler, Olson said he learned through the experience that “God allows hostility.” He said he later learned that some of the pushback against him during his preaching included formal curses from a group of occultists, one of whom later reached out to him after she was baptized following her unusual experience.

“I have permission to share this story. She asked that she not be contacted about it, but about a week after the 96 hours wrapped up, I got a text from a young lady, college-age student named Lindsay, and I’ll just summarize the story,” said Olson.

“You don’t know me, but I’ve been trying to get a hold of you. I need you to know this: God used you to save me during the 96 hours,” the girl reportedly told him. “I was a witch up until last week.”

Olson said Lindsay confessed that when she and her other friends who dabble in witchcraft became aware that a group of Christians they knew were gathering to watch the livestream of Olson’s marathon preaching, they decided to join with the intention of invoking curses on him.

“She sent me this text, and in the midst of her texting, she said, ‘I’m so sorry we did that, but I’m not sorry for what happened.’ She said, ‘My friends and I started cursing you, watching you and calling curses on you.'”

Lindsay claimed that as she and her friends were spiritually attacking him, she began to perceive that the message of God’s love that Olson was preaching was being aimed at her.

“We watched two men hold you up, and you looked into the camera, and Matt, you said that you could see us, that you loved us and that God loved us,” Lindsay told Olson, adding that such a message at first only pushed her to keep cursing him.

“We cursed you, and said that we wanted your insides to shrivel up, and … for you to choke and [your throat to] fill up with blood and close your throat up,” Lindsay told Olson, who noted similar symptoms sometimes afflict him because of his Crohn’s disease.

“We knew you would die. We wanted you to die. But you didn’t,” Lindsay told him. “In fact, the two men that were holding you up, they stopped holding you up. You started walking around and you started getting stronger.”

Lindsay recounted that she and her friend Marcus, who was also participating in the cursing, gave up their attacks when each of them physically heard Olson address them personally during his sermon. While Lindsay heard Olson say her name to tell her Jesus loves her, Marcus told her that he had heard Olson deliver the same message to him.

“Their friends got upset and left. They stopped and just sat down. And the people who had gathered, who were praying, came to them. And Lindsay said she got saved that night and was baptized a week and a half later. That is, to me, one of the best stories of the entire thing,” he said.

In an email correspondence with CP following the recording of the video interview, Olson clarified that Lindsay and her friends were cursing him on June 2 as he was preaching the Gospel from the book of Romans.

According to footage of the livestream, Olson had been preaching continuously for 72 hours when he reached the declaration of the apostle Paul in Romans 1 that he is “not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.”

Overcome by exhaustion and struggling to speak, Olson began to weep as he was proclaiming that true salvation comes from acknowledging one’s sin and trusting in the sufficiency of Christ’s righteousness.

“This world has been robbed by false religions that have made you feel that if you just tried more, if you just worked harder, if you just paid another dollar, or if you had that relationship, if you performed, that somehow then you would be loved,” he said as he leaned on the pulpit and his voice was breaking.

“And I serve the one true God, who, not in our performance but in our sin, demonstrated His love in this way: He did not wait for you to come to Him, He left the throne for you.”

He went on to say that salvation comes “not because of our endurance, but the endurance of the Son, who went to the cross, poured out His heart for you, and died for you; and it is that love that has endured for 2,000 years, and long, long, long from now will endure past any other false religion and any other lie.”

“Our Jesus lives, and He lives not because I hold Him up,” Olson said as two men came to keep him from collapsing. “I cannot hold Him up, but I know what it feels for Him to hold me, to hold against my sinful heart, for Him to say, ‘I love you. It is finished.'”

Olson told CP that it was only by the strength of God that after the men held him up for 30 minutes, he was able to start walking around the church without any help as he preached of God’s strength being made perfect in weakness.

“It was during this time that [Lindsay and Marcus] said they heard me say Jesus could save them, and they heard their names. Though I did not actually say their names,” Olson said. “I actually do not remember any point of that particular session. It’s the only time that I have a complete block of the sermons.”

Throughout the rest of his nearly 20-minute video interview with CP, Olson offered other reflections on his days-long preaching, such as what he described as a miraculous recovery of his voice after losing it. He said despite fielding cynicism from some Christians who seemingly thought his marathon was a gimmick, his goal was to proclaim the Gospel.