A Texan pastor has gathered a number of churchgoers to pray against an upcoming Ghost concert that will take place in their city tomorrow night.

As CBS7 reports, Larry Long is a pastor in the Texan city of Midland, where Swedish rockers Ghost are scheduled to play on Monday night. However, upon learning about the band’s image and lyrical content, Long admits he was “shocked”, gathering a number of concerned churchgoers to pray against the impending concert.

“We’re not here to protest,” Long explained at the gathering on Friday. “We’re just simply here to pray, to pray His protection, to plead the blood of Christ over our community. This kind of band will bring spiritual influences into this area.”

“We’re concerned about it, because we believe the devil is real, just as we believe God is real.”

“And people who think that’s nonsense, probably don’t believe in God or the devil,” he continued. “But because we believe in God, we also believe in the devil. So we believe that this is a real battle, and it’s important for us to be in prayer.”

Speaking to ‘The Morning Show With Craig Anderson’ on a local radio station (via AltPress), Long expressed shock at the fact that the Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center decided to book the “sacrilegious” band.

“I was in a prayer group yesterday afternoon, so I didn’t learn about it until yesterday morning. I saw a Facebook post from a friend of mine,” Long explained. “But it was during the time that we were spending in prayer, a group of us, that it just really impressed upon me that we need to speak out against this.”

“I don’t know that we can stop the band from coming — I don’t know how that works — but this is very concerning to me.”

“I’m not so much concerned about the band as I am about the fact that Wagner Noël didn’t have better sense than to sign this band,” he continued.

“What are those people thinking? Are they a part of our community? Do they care what the majority of our community might think about something like that? It’s quite remarkable to me that they would even sign a band like that.”

When asked what it was specifically about Ghost that bothered him, Larry Long explained that the “devil-worshipping” band’s beliefs are troubling to him.

“We have a freedom of religion in America, which means a freedom of irreligion and anti-Christian faith, if that’s what people want to do. And so, from that sense, yes, the band bothers me,” Long explained.

“I think the community should be alarmed about it. This is not healthy for our community. Because we Christians believe the devil is real, so when you have a devil-worshipping band… And I’m sure the band believes the devil’s real; I doubt that they’re just doing this as a part of their schtick for music and music they produce and so on.”

“And if you were to read some of the lyrics of their songs, they’re really quite disturbing.”

“There’s [a] song about… What’s it called? ‘Satan’s Hammer’? Something about a hammer,” he explained. “And it talks about the fact that the person singing the song is seeking a relationship with the devil.”

“And if young people go to a concert like this and they think it’s all just good fun — kind of like Halloween, so to speak — and so, ‘This is all just good fun,’ and ‘Don’t make such a big deal out of it,’ I think if they’re singing along to those lyrics, who knows what in the world they’re opening their hearts and lives up to?”

“I think that they understand all of it. I think that they are doing this intentionally, and I think they really do worship the devil, because I believe… as a Christian, as a biblical Christian, I believe the devil’s real,” Long concluded.

“So I imagine maybe some people listening right now would say, ‘Oh, you guys are getting overblown with this,’ and those kinds of things. Well, you would only think that if you didn’t think the devil was real.”

While Ghost hasn’t responded officially to this controversy, their upcoming Texas show appears to be going ahead as planned on Monday night. Whatever happens because of their performance, we just hope that no “spiritual influences” manage to invade the Texas city of Midland.

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