How To Be Delivered

We’re going to make one very brief proclamation—only one verse, because I feel the anointing of God is upon this meeting. We’ll invite you to join us in saying it once. 1 Corinthians 15:57, only

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

If you believe that, join us in saying it, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Amen.

Now, my subject tonight is “How to Be Delivered From Evil Spirits” or demons. I preached once in a place where the pastor said, “Well, you can pray for people, but don’t call them demons.” He was in charge so I went along with it, but demons and evil spirits are used interchangeably in the New Testament. So I am going to teach on whichever way you prefer it—how to be delivered from demons or how to be delivered from evil spirits. But the important thing is how to be delivered.

I’m going to try to give, in brief outline, a pretty thorough overview of this subject, which I think is one of the most neglected subjects in the contemporary church. There are a few people who go overboard on deliverance and preach about nothing but demons. The great majority of preachers simply try to behave as if they weren’t there. But the truth of the matter is, they are there—very close. Some of them in some of you!

I’m going to read from Mark 1:23. This is the first specific recorded miracle in the earthly ministry of Jesus. It’s very significant.

“Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirits. [That’s another word for an evil spirit.] And he cried out, [not the man but the spirit in the man] saying, ‘Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!’ [It’s remarkable that demon knew immediately who Jesus was. It took the disciples about one and a half years to discover what the demon knew immediately.] But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be quiet, and come out of him!’ [In Greek, ‘be muzzled.’ Jesus was not speaking to the man. He was speaking to the spirit in the man.] And when the unclean spirit had convulsed him and cried out with a loud voice, he [the spirit] came out of him [the man].”

This is a very significant example in the ministry of Jesus. He did not put the man out of the synagogue, he put the demon out of the man. Now in many congregations today if a man behaved like that, they’d put the man out of the church and leave the demon in the man. Jesus knew He was not dealing with the man. He knew He was dealing with the spirit in the man. It was a direct spirit to spirit contact between Jesus and the man.

“Then they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, ‘What is this? What new doctrine is this [with power]? For with authority He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.’ [This is something that they had not seen before.] And immediately His fame spread throughout all the region around Galilee.”

I want you to understand that initially Jesus was known among his people as the Man who can cast out evil spirits. That was the first impact of His public ministry. Other aspects of His ministry appeared later, but the first thing that impressed the people was that He knew how to deal with evil spirits.

Then a little later it says in Mark chapter 1, verse 32 and following,

“At evening [that same evening and it was at evening because the orthodox Jews did not travel any distance on the Sabbath and it was the Sabbath so they had to wait until the sun set to move...]when the sun had set, they brought to Him all who were sick and those who were [I prefer to say demonized] demon-possessed.”

The text says demon-possessed, but that is a very misleading phrase and it has nothing to do with the original Greek. The original Greek is one word and it means “to be demonized.” I looked it up in the new Collins English dictionary and it says, “To be demonized means to be afflicted by a demon.” That’s exactly what it is. The problem with the word “possessed” is it suggested ownership. And people say indignantly, “Do you mean to say I’m possessed by the devil?” Definitely “no.” If you’re a Christian you’re possessed by Jesus. But you can be demonized. There can be areas in your personality where you are not in full control. That was what was with this man. He was apparently a regular worshiper in the synagogue. But the power of the Holy Spirit in Jesus forced out something that maybe the man didn’t even know was there. The spirit didn’t object to the synagogue. The only thing he objected to was Jesus. That was what he couldn’t stand. And so it says,

“At evening, when the sun had set, they brought to Him all who were sick and those who were demonized. And the whole city was gathered together at the door. Then He healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; [Now notice, they came to be healed of their sickness. But in providing healing for them, Jesus cast out many demons. In other words, many demons are the causes of many sicknesses. To be delivered from the sickness, you have to be delivered from the demon.] and He did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew Him. And Jesus was preaching in their synagogues throughout all Galilee, and casting out demons.”

Please note that it was not something He did occasionally in an emergency. It was a regular ongoing feature of His total ministry. Everywhere He preached He cast out demons. The two things went together. And Jesus never separated preaching from casting out demons and from healing. One of the disasters in the contemporary church is those things have got separated, so a lot of people who need deliverance don’t get it, and a lot of people who need healing don’t get it.

Now we’ll look at just one other passage on this ministry which is in Luke 4:40–41. This is the same event described by Luke.

“When the sun was setting, all those who had any that were sick with various diseases brought them to Him; and He laid His hands on every one of them and healed them. And demons also came out of many, crying out and saying, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of God!’”

Notice again, that Jesus never separated healing from casting out demons, because demons are the cause of many sicknesses. Sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly, by creating attitudes in people which prevent them from receiving healing by faith.

Then we look on in Luke 13:11 and following.

“And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and as bent over and could in no way raise herself up. [Notice, it was apparently a totally physical condition, but it was caused by an evil spirit of infirmity. If you read the record, Jesus did not pray for healing. He dealt with the spirit of infirmity. In the end He said,] ‘So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?’”

Notice, Jesus said, “Satan has bound this woman in a condition of physical infirmity for 18 years.” Apparently the situation was totally physical, but by actual fact the real cause was a spirit of infirmity. When the spirit went out, that woman who had been bent double for 18 years was able to stand up.

Now something like that happened with us in Papua New Guinea a few years ago. I was preaching in the open air to a crowd of several hundred or several thousand, and at the end I didn’t deal with the inquirers. The local leaders, the elders, stood there and received the people who needed prayer. A man of about 80, who was the father of the representative of Papua New Guinea to the United Nations, in other words a man of some position, he had been like that woman bent double for many years. He came up to one of the elders and he didn’t say, “Pray for me to be healed.” He said, “Cast this demon out of me.” And when the demon went out the man straightened up. So this is not remote history. This is a reality that is happening in the world today. Amen.

Then let’s look at what Jesus said a little later in Luke 13:32,

“And He said to them, ‘Go tell that fox, [and that was Herod] ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.’’”

The “third day” is a Hebraism for the day following. Today, tomorrow, the third day. How did He begin? By casting out demons. How did He end? By doing cures and casting out demons. You know why He did it that way? Because it was the right way. He never had to improve. He started right, He finished right. He began that way, He ended that way. All we can do is do it the way Jesus did. We do not have to improve on His methods.

Now I want you to see how He equipped His disciples. We’ll turn to Matthew chapter 10. Let me say while I am looking for the passage, Jesus never sent anybody out to preach the Gospel without specifically instructing and equipping them to deal with demons. It is not scriptural to send people out in evangelism without equipping them to deal with evil spirits. This is how He dealt with the twelve apostles. Matthew 10:1,

“And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over the unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease.”

The first authority He gave them was not to heal sickness, but to cast out evil spirits. And then these were the instructions He gave them, verse 7,

“‘And as you go, preach, saying; The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ [Don’t just say it. Demonstrate it.] ‘Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons.’”

That was there marching orders. You say, “Brother Prince, have you ever seen the dead raised?” Yes, I have. I’ve seen two people raised from the dead in Kenya when I was a missionary there. He is still doing the same things today. Why should we change. We cannot improve on what Jesus did. Let’s make it our aim to do it as nearly as possible as He did it. And then we come to Luke chapter 10 where He sent out seventy others to prepare the way before Him. It says in verse 1,

“After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go. [We don’t get the instructions that He gave them, but we do get the comment that they made when they returned. Because in verse 17 of that chapter it says,] Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.’”

What was it that impressed them most? The fact that they had authority over demons.

If you believe the New Testament, I want you to say that with me. “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” If you don’t believe it, don’t say it. This is what I want you to say. Are you ready? “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” Amen!

All right. Now we come to what they call the great commission. At the end of His ministry, when He was sending out the people who were to evangelize the whole world, in Mark 16:15,

“And He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. [And let me say that order has never been retracted.] He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. [Let me say that in the New Testament, no salvation is offered to anybody who believes without being baptized. You cannot find a single example in the New Testament. You may say, ‘I believe so I am saved.’ Well, that is your risk. But I wouldn’t take that risk, because Jesus said, ‘He who believed and is baptized shall be saved. Amen. Then He says,] And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons.’’”

The first of the five signs is casting out demons. We hear a lot about speaking with new tongues, but that comes second, laying hands on the sick and healing comes fifth. The first sign is “They will cast out demons in My name.” Why shouldn’t we do it? Can we improve on His methods?

Matthew 28:20, the same commission at the end of that chapter, He says,

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations... teaching them to observe all things that I have taught you...”

Among the “all things that I have taught you” is to cast out demons. So He said when you make disciples teach them to cast out demons, and when they make disciples teach them to cast out demons. Had the church obeyed, we would have had the same process going on for 19 centuries. Unfortunately the church tried to improve and made a mess of it.

Now I want to point out to you that there are two kingdoms, two spiritual kingdoms. When we come into this ministry of dealing with demons, the two kingdoms are brought right out into the open. In Matthew 12:26–28 Jesus had been accused of casting out be being allied with Beelzebub, that is Satan. This is His answer:

“If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.”

The great single evidence of the kingdom of God is the casting out of demons in the name of Jesus.

You see, this experience brings two kingdoms into open demonstration—the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of Satan; the kingdom of light, the kingdom of God. When they meet, the light defeats the darkness. Satan hates that. There are two things he doesn’t want revealed. One is the reality of demons. The other is that Jesus has given us authority over demons. This reveals the clash between the two kingdoms and it reveals the supremacy and the victory of the kingdom of Jesus Christ over the kingdom of darkness. Satan has done a lot of work in the church for many centuries trying to suppress the revelation of this message, because it reveals his kingdom, brings it out into the open and demonstrates his defeat. He doesn’t want that. He’s afraid of it.

Actually of all the miracles that Jesus did, all of them but one were previewed in the Old Testament; raising the dead, healing the sick, healing multitudes, miraculous provision. All of them. There’s one miracle that’s never recorded in the Old Testament. Do you know what it is? Casting out demons. That’s why it is the distinctive mark that the kingdom of God has come.

What sort of things are demons, or evil or unclean spirits? Let me say that the Bible does not give a clear account of where they comes from. There are different theories. Some people believe they are fallen angels. I don’t. I’ve dealt with so many demons that behaved in so many ways that were totally uncharacteristic of angels. In my opinion, for an angel to be encased in a human body would be a prison. But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong. There’s no absolute scriptural revelation. But the New Testament does tell us one thing about demons. It doesn’t tell us where they come from, but it does tell us how to get rid of them. That’s what is important.

My description of demons is persons without bodies. It’s very important to realize you are dealing with a person. In the early years of my ministry I suffered from intense depression. It would come over me and rest upon me like a dark cloud, shut me in, keep me from communicating, and I struggled with it. I did everything. I prayed, I fasted, I reckoned myself dead, I knew the Scriptures. And the more I prayed and fasted, the worse it got. I had no remedy and one day I reading Isaiah 61 and it said, “In place of the spirit of heaviness, the garment of praise.” The Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, “That’s your problem. A spirit of heaviness, of depression.” And when I knew I was dealing with a person, and not myself—you see I’d been blaming myself for all of this. When I discovered it was another person I was 80 percent to victory. And actually I understood, by revelation, that it was a familiar spirit; that is a spirit that follows a family up. I realized that the same spirit had affected my father for many years.

So all I needed was one other scripture. Let me share it with you. Joel 2:32,

“And it shall come to pass
That whoever calls on the name of the LORD
Shall be delivered.”

I called on the name of Jesus and I was delivered. It was like a heavenly vacuum cleaner came down over my shoulders and just sucked this thing out. I had struggled with it for years until I recognized it was not myself. It was another person seeking to afflict me. I want you to understand when you once realize you are dealing with a person who is not yourself, you’re about 80 percent of the way to deliverance.

Now, as I understand it—let me say that I have been dealing with demons for more than 30 years. I first got involved in 1963. Some people said, “Well, Brother Prince will soon give it up. He’ll change his doctrine.” I have to say, at the age of 80 I haven’t given it up and I haven’t changed my doctrine. I tell you one reason, it’s scriptural and number 2, it works.

I want to offer you three objectives that demons have. Number one: to torment and torture. They are the torturers. Number two: to keep you from knowing Christ as Savior. Number three: if you come to know Christ as Savior, then to keep you from serving Him effectively.

Now we have to distinguish between two things; what’s is called the flesh and demons or evil spirits. The flesh is the old, carnal nature that everyone of us has inherited from Adam. All of us are descendants from Adam. Adam did not beget any children until he was a rebel, and every descendant of Adam has the nature of a rebel in him. That’s the old man.

The other thing that we deal with is evil spirits. It’s important to know what you are dealing with, because the remedies are completely different. I was dealing with the spirit of heaviness and I was trying to deal with it as if it were the flesh. I was trying to crucify it, because that’s the remedy for the flesh. But you can’t crucify a demon, nor can you cast out the flesh. You have to know what you are dealing with.

A man came to me once and said, “Brother Prince, I want you to cast this demon out of me.” I said, “What’s your problem?” And he began to tell me his difficulty in relating to his wife. I said, “I don’t think I can cast that out. It’s not a demon. It’s your fleshly nature. You have to crucify it.” So we need to know, am I dealing with my flesh or am I dealing with a demon?

I’m going to try to give you some ways of finding out. You see the same word in both Hebrew and Greek is the word for “spirit, breath and wind.” None of us has ever seen the wind. Do you realize that? We all know the wind is real. Why? Because we’ve seen what it does. We’ve seen it blow the clouds across the sky. We’ve seen the trees bend in the wind. We’ve seen the rain come horizontally across the horizon. We’ve seen the dust clouds rise in the street. We’ve seen people’s hats come off. We know the wind is blowing. How do we know it? Have we seen the wind? No. We’ve seen what the wind does.

It’s the same with demons. We do not normally see them. Sometimes by special revelation people do. But normally they cannot be perceived by human senses. How do we know they are there? By what they do. I will give you a little list of characteristic activities of demons.

No. 1 - They entice. There’s not a single person here above the age of six who has not at sometime been enticed to do evil. Very often it comes in words. “You see that nice gold pencil there? Pick it up. Nobody will know. If you dropped your pencil they would do it to you.” Anything that comes to you in words comes from a person, so you know that enticement comes from a person, a demon.

No. 2 - They harass. I have this little example in my mind. It is not directly based on any single experience. There’s this business man and he has had a terrible day in the office. Everything went wrong. The air conditioning failed. His secretary didn’t type his letters right. Then he got in the car to go home and he got in a jam in the motorway and he spent an hour sitting in his car amidst all the fumes. Finally when he gets home his wife hasn’t got supper ready and the children are running around screaming. At that moment, as they say in America, he blows his stack! He loses control. He begins to shout and scream. And that demon of anger that has been following him around all day slips in. After that he’s a slightly different person. At times something comes over him and he wounds the people whom he love most—his wife and children. His wife looks at him from time to time and sees something in his eyes she never saw before. Then he’s repentant and penitent and he says, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what made me do it.” Well, we do know what made him do it. It’s the demon of anger. It had harassed him and in the moment of weakness it slipped in.

No. 3 - Demons torment. They are the tormentors. They torment spiritually with the suggestion, “God doesn’t love you. You’re not really saved.” That’s a common form of torment. They torment emotionally with fear. They torment physically with all sorts of horrible things like arthritis and so on. They are the tormentors. Jesus said, “If you don’t forgive your fellow believer, God will deliver you to the tormentors.” Who are they? The demons. A lot of Christians are in the hands of demons because they have refused to forgive some other person.

No. 4 - Demons compel. They make us do things we don’t really want to do. Some of the things they compel you to do are really comical. I had a letter after a deliverance service from a woman aged 25. She said, “For the first week in my life that I can remember I haven’t been biting my nails.” What made her bite her nails? A demon. Can you believe that? I know it’s true. I’ve been in some situations that is so comical. Once Lydia and I were dealing with a woman who needed deliverance from all sorts of demons. They were terrible things like adultery and all sorts of bad names. Then there was this demon that wouldn’t come out. I had the impression that she had got to give it a name. So I said, “Just tell us the name and we’ll cast it out.” She said, “I’m ashamed. I don’t want to. I’m embarrassed.” Eventually I took her aside and I said you don’t have to tell everyone, just tell me what is the name of this demon. She looked at me and she said, “Thumb sucking.” And just on the way down here we stopped in a guest house and there was young man of about 22 sitting at the table opposite me sucking his thumb. Did he know it was a demon? Did his parents know? But it was. Almost anything that you can’t help doing and you don’t want to do, is a demon.

Number 5 - Demons enslave. They make you slaves. You see, people can sin and stop sinning if they decide. For instance, a man may get drunk and then decide he won’t get drunk, so he doesn’t drink anymore. He’s sinned but he’s not enslaved. But an alcoholic is a man who can’t stop drinking. He is enslaved. Now if you put compel and enslave together, you get the word addiction. In my personal opinion, almost every addiction of any kind is demonic. There are a lot of respectable addictions. Some very unrespectable, some respectable. But if you are addicted you have a problem. Your problem, I think, in 90 percent of the cases is a demon.

Number 6 - Demons defile. They make us feel dirty and unclean. They project evil, impure images and thoughts and words into our minds. I have talked with people at various times who said, “Just when I am getting closest to the Lord. When I really want to worship Him, these horrible things come into my mind.” And I said, “You can be sure it’s a demon.” Anything that wants to keep you from worshiping God is a demon.

Number 7 - Demons deceive. They are behind all forms of religious deception. Paul said in 1 Timothy chapter 4:1,

“Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.”

And believe me, my dear brothers and sisters, there are a lot of different deceiving spirits with doctrines that are demonic and they’re very near to all of us.

Number 8 - Demons make people weak or sick or tired or kill them. I dealt with a woman once—this is a remarkable situations—72 different demons came out of her. She was a respectable woman. She was a registered nurse. She was charismatic, Pentecostal, but she had 72 demons. I didn’t count them but there was a woman making a note of the names. And in the middle of this, it lasted five hours, she said, “Oh, I am so tired. I can’t go on. I can’t take any more.” And I thought, “Well, poor woman, she really is tired.” And then the Lord showed me that’s not the woman, that’s the demon. I said, “You spirit of tiredness, come out of this woman.” It said, not the woman, “That’s right. She’s always tired. She’s tired when she gets up, she’s tired when she goes to bed. She’s too tired to read the Bible, too tired to pray.” When that spirit of tiredness came out of her she was no longer tired. We finished the deliverance. Demons make you go to sleep. There’s a spirit of slumber. It’s referred to both in the Old and the New Testament. Have you ever considered that you can sit up until 2 a.m. watching something that you probably shouldn’t be watching on the television. But if you decide to read your Bible, you’ll be asleep in ten minutes. Is that right? That’s not natural. There’s something there that doesn’t mind your watching television, in fact probably wants you to watch it, but it does mind your reading the Bible or praying. We dealt once with a woman. If things went wrong in her life, she just lay down and went to sleep. She would sleep 16 hours at a time. A friend of mine, not me, was dealing with her and casting the spirit of sleep out of her, and the spirit said, “You can’t cast me out. I’m her salvation.” And I understood later what it meant. Really, when she can’t stand life, she just goes to sleep. That’s her salvation. It’s just like drugs or alcohol. It’s a false salvation. Those are some activities of demons.

The main areas in which they operate. I discovered about ten different kinds of spirits or demons mentioned in the Old Testament and about twenty in the New. That’s thirty, but that’s just a little sampling. There are hundreds of different kinds of demons.

The main area that they affect, I believe, is the emotions and the attitudes. Behind every negative emotion and attitude, there is a corresponding demon. That doesn’t mean you’ve got the demon, but it means the demon’s there trying to get you. For instance, you can get angry and it’s not a demon. It’s just you. It’s your flesh. But if you get angry and can’t control yourself, and get angry when you don’t want to get angry, that’s a demon. Let me give you a list of some of the commonest names I’ve dealt with. Another thing about demons is they operate in gangs. When one gets in it opens the door for the next. If you find certain demons, you can always look for their friends.

Let’s take one. Pride, rebellion—rebellion almost always follows pride—and then witchcraft or the occult, because 1 Samuel 15:23 says, “Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.” Wherever you find rebellion, look for witchcraft. The great historical example of this is the young people of the United States in the 1960’s. Almost a whole generation went into rebellion, and almost everyone of them ended in the occult because rebellion is as the sin or witchcraft. I thank God I saw scores of them gloriously saved and delivered. But I learned a lesson.

Then one of the commonest spirits is the spirit of fear. Paul says, “God has not given us the spirit of fear...” So it doesn’t come from God. But, fear is something that we easily, all of us, give way to. It is followed by other things like rejection. One of the commonest emotional problems in the church and in the world today is rejection. It’s a sense of feeling unworthy, unwanted, nobody really loves me, I’m on the outside looking in. And I would say, in my observation, at least 20 percent of professing Christians today that I’ve met with, need deliverance from rejection. It’s really due to the breakup of the family. The thing that gives a child a sense of security is the love and the care of a father. Where that is missing, there’s something that cries out, “I don’t know who I am. I don’t feel secure. I don’t know that people really love me.” I want to tell you one thing. Jesus really loves you! But the devil will do his best to convince you, “It’s true of everybody else, but not you.”

Another common one, and here’s a whole gang, in the order in which they usually come in; resentment, unforgiveness, anger, hatred, violence, and murder. If the gang goes all the way murder will be there. Remember, murder doesn’t mean you’ve committed murder, it comes in to make you commit murder. The Bible says, “He who hates his brother is a murderer.” Not “will be a murder” but “is a murderer.”

Then this is the opposite list. Some people react aggressively. Some people react passively. “I can’t take any more.” And so we get this little list; disappointment and that is a powerful spirit. If you’ve had a serious disappointment in your life you need to check whether a spirit of disappointment has entered you. Disappointment, loneliness—”nobody loves me, I’m all on my own.” Misery, depression, self-destruction or suicide. Have you noticed in our contemporary culture how powerful the forces of self-destruction are? People deliberately destroying themselves. That’s just a little glimpse. I could speak for two hours on that whole area without covering it all.

The next are is the mind. I think the mind is the greatest battlefield in the world today. Much greater than what’s going on in Yugoslavia or Middle East. It goes on in people’s minds. Satan has a lot of demons with which he assails the mind. Number 1, unbelief. Let’s renounce unbelief right now all of us together. “Lord, we renounce unbelief. We are believers. Unbelief has no place in us.”

Then doubt. Doubt is a mental demon. I had a very interesting experience years ago. A young theological student from, I think, Yale, I forget which one, one of the top American universities, heard about my ministry of deliverance and he got interested. So he came to a camp where I was teaching, but before he came he made up his mind, “Nobody’s going to change me. I’ll leave that camp the same way I came.”

So, he came, he watched, he saw what happened, but he was true to his determination. He left the same way he came. But in the airplane on the way back he got such a terrible headache he thought he was going to die. He began to cry out to God, and God showed him it was a spirit of doubt. God showed him when it had entered him. One of his fellow students had said to him, “Christopher, do you really believe Jesus fed five thousand people with five loaves and two fishes?” He gave this sort of compromise answer, “Well, whether it really happened or not it doesn’t really affect my faith in Jesus,” which is a lie. And he realized that is when the spirit of doubt had entered. Well as he cried unto the Lord he felt it leave him through his left ear.

Sitting next to him in the plane was a woman he had never met before in his life. He didn’t know her name. He turned to her and he said, “I believe Jesus fed five thousand people with five loaves and two fishes.” That’s the way to cancel a wrong statement is to make a right statement.

Then there’s compromise. That’s another mental demon. I had a minister in what they call an old line denomination come to me once for counseling. After I listened to him for a while I said, “You know, I think your problem is compromise.” He said, “That’s right. I’ve struggled with compromise all my life.” He was a very quiet well-mannered man, but when I came against that spirit it became violent. It threw him across my office, to and fro. I couldn’t believe that compromise could be such a powerful spirit.

Then there’s forgetfulness. I think of a woman I dealt with once to deliver from the spirit of forgetfulness. The spirit said, “I can’t come out. If I come out she will memorize all those scriptures.” It did come out and she did memorize those scriptures.

Then confusion. A very, very common spirit. Torment, tormenting you with lies, with insinuations, with denials for the word of God. And insanity. It’s surprised me how many Christians are secretly fighting against the fear of going insane. The devil says something like this, “You know, your aunt ended in a mental institution, and so did your cousin, and you’ll be the next.” They can go through life fighting that fear of insanity. It is a demon, a horrible demon.

Another very important area is the tongue. There are various demons that affect the tongue. Lying, some people are compulsive liars. They don’t even know when they’re lying, because another spirit has taken over. Cursing, blasphemy. I was delivered from those two demons when I was saved. I could not speak five sentences without cursing and blaspheming. When I was saved and all these demons came out of me, the next morning there was no cursing, there was no blasphemy. I didn’t give it up. It gave me up.

Then there’s the two that are the church-going demons. Gossip and criticism. I was in a meeting once and a woman came and said, “You have a spirit of criticism.” I commanded it to come out of here and she stared to cough and three other people all around her started to cough at the same time. I said, “I know the problem in this church.”

Then there’s the subject that nobody ever talks about in church—that’s sex. Let me say, sex is not evil, it is good. Get that clearly in mind. God created man sexual, and after he created him He saw everything He had made was very good, including sex. However, sex is so powerful that if the devil can get in there he’s got a major way of influencing your life. Here are some of the names. They are very obvious. Fornication, and you can call it premarital sex, but it’s still a demon. Adultery. I think of a woman Lydia and I dealt with years ago. She was member of the Episcopalian church. She was a Sunday School teacher and she had a real desire for God, but she told us that twice she had committed adultery. I had the impression that she really hated it. She didn’t want to do it. So talking with her I discovered that when she was conceived, her father was living in adultery, and the result was she was born with the spirit of adultery in her. Well, she got delivered, and then she said, “Do you think I have to tell my husband.” I said, “That’s your decision, not mine. But if you want God’s real blessing on your marriage, you have to be honest with one another.” “Well,” she said, “He’s a green beret.” I think they call it the special force, these specially tough soldiers. “He always carries a gun.” I said, “Well, it’s your decision.” We didn’t hear any more for a while and then we’d heard she’d told her husband, he’d forgiven her, and there marriage was better than it had ever been. But you see, she was totally innocent in a way. That’s why deliverance is so important, because a lot of people suffer who are innocent. They’re suffering as a result of sins of others. We need to offer them deliverance.

Then there’s masturbation. Some people say masturbation is natural. I don’t believe that, but I’m not really concerned about that. Let me tell you this. If you have a problem with masturbation and you can’t overcome it, you hate yourself for doing it, and yet you go on doing it, it is a demon. I can say without exaggeration, I’ve seen hundreds of people delivered from the spirit of masturbation. Let me tell you now so I don’t embarrass you latter, it usually comes out through the fingers and I’ve had scores of people say, “Brother Prince, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. My fingers are going stiff, they are going numb, they are bending backwards, they’re tingling.” I say I can tell you your problem. It’s masturbation. Listen, it’s a very stubborn spirit. So if you want to get it out you’ve got to be determined. Shake it out of your fingers. Go on until it’s not there any longer. And plead the blood of Jesus against it. Now if you’re happy masturbating, don’t let me spoil your happiness. But if you’re a slave to it as millions of people are, then I want to tell you you can be delivered! We will come to the point where that will happen.

Then homosexuality. Lots of people say that people are born homosexual. They may be born with a homosexual demon in them, but that’s not being born a homosexual. I had a letter just recently from a Baptist pastor who had been dealing with a young man, a Christian. He came to him and said, “Pastor, I’m tormented. I have this thing in me and I don’t want it.” The pastor sat in front of him and quoted scriptures to him for about ten minutes, and suddenly the young man lurched sideways out of the church, collapsed on the floor and was delivered. He rose to his feet and walked up and down in the office saying, “Thank God, I’m free! Thank God I’m free! Thank God I’m free!” I have all the sympathy in the world for homosexuals, but I don’t believe they need to stay homosexuals. The church can welcome them provided they change. Paul said to the Corinthian church, “Such were some of you.” Not are some of you, but were some of you. Jesus has the power to deliver homosexuals.

Prostitution, pornography. They call pornography a billion dollars industry. What an industry, but it has a very strong hold and there are many in the church contaminated by pornography. Ruth and I dealt, a few years ago, with a pastor who came to us for help. He said, and I have to get this right because I don’t do these things, but he was in a motel and he wanted to watch the pornographic movies. He wouldn’t register, because it would be shown on his bill which movie he’d been watching. But he was a slave to pornography. He could not get himself free. I believe today, I’ve heard from him, he’s free. His life has changed.

Finally sexual fantasy. There’s a whole lot of people that fantasize about sex. Basically fantasy is evil. So if you have it get rid of it.

Then, there are what I call lusts. Other strong desires. One of the obvious ones is nicotine. If you are a compulsive smoker and you can’t give up, you probably have a demon of nicotine. You can be delivered. I can say I’ve seen dozens of people delivered. Alcohol. Again, if you are an alcoholic, you want to give up and you can’t, you can be delivered, if you deal with it as a demon and hate it.

Gluttony. That’s just as dangerous as alcohol. Ultimately it destroys life. Then there are various drugs. We can’t go into the whole drug thing, but there are strange addictions like sniffing airplane glue which is quite common with young people. Lydia and I once dealt with a woman who was a member of a Pentecostal church, and she told us with great embarrassment that she was addicted to nail varnish. She said, “If I walk into the cosmetics department of a big store, I’ve only got two options. I can either buy nail varnish or run out of the store. I’ve got no other option.” When that demon came out of her it tore her and it came out screaming. It was powerful.

Now many addiction are branches that grow on a bigger branch. So if you are going to deal with the addiction, you probably have to deal with the bigger branch. The bigger branch is usually frustration. When people are frustrated they turn to something for consolation—drink, food, drugs, who knows what. So its not enough in many cases to deal with the addiction. You have to deal with the frustration.

Let me give you a simple example based on experience. You’ve got two women, each of whom has a husband whose unfaithful, runs around, spends too much money, and doesn’t show much love for his wife. So they are both frustrated. One of them is an Anglican. She moves in pretty high society and her solution is the cocktail cabinet. She just has to walk across the room and take a drink and she becomes an alcoholic. The other is a church of God. Cocktail cabinets are not even in her vocabulary. But she has to find some comfort. Where does she go? The refrigerator. Takes out an ice cream and becomes an addict. Yes or no? Are there people who are addicted to soft drinks? There are. You have to decide, where do you go for comfort? In times of pressure we need something to take the pressure off. Usually what we need becomes an addiction.

Then there’s the occult. A major area. I think 90 percent of people in Britain today are involved in the occult and most of them don’t know it. I couldn’t give you a list, but let me just tell you one thing, the New Age is a kind of catalog of the occult. It is not new. They all go back for thousands of years.

There are many ways into the supernatural. But there’s only one way that leads into God’s supernatural. That is Jesus. Jesus said, “I am the door. By Me if you enter in.” If you get into the supernatural by any other way, and I did myself before I was saved. I tried to become a Yogi. I got into the supernatural, but it was not God’s supernatural. Let me warn you against Fortune Telling. One of the biggest snares of Satan today. In Acts 16 Paul and Silas arrived in Philippi and there was a girl with a spirit of divination. That’s fortune telling. Actually what the Greek says, she had a python spirit. That’s all it says, because python was the snake associated with fortune telling in Greece. She followed Paul and Silas saying, “These men are the servants of the most High God who show to us the way of salvation.” Remarkable. Every word she said was true and she was the first person in Philippi to identify the apostles, and she was a servant of Satan. The fact that a fortune teller can tell you truth does not mean it comes from God.

My wife has permitted me to tell this. Before she was saved she was recommended by somebody to go to a fortune teller. A woman. The woman never saw her before and never saw her again, thank God. She knew nothing about her and she told her three things about herself. “You cannot bear children, you have three adopted children, and your husband has left you.” None of those did she know by natural means. But she was a servant of Satan. Why did Satan tell her the truth? To ensnare her. It was his bait to get her into the occult. Oh, there are so many dangers.

Ruth and I dealt with a young woman here in Britain who was a Christian, but she had gone to a fortune teller. She knew she shouldn’t, and the fortune tell told her, “You will be a widow very young.” Shortly afterwards her husband was killed in a freak accident. When we came she came to me and she was pleading with me to tell her that the fact she had gone to a fortune teller had nothing to do with her husband’s death. I couldn’t tell her. I did everything I could to comfort her, but I believed in a way, it was a connection.

I remember once I was praying for a woman who needed deliverance. She had been a spiritist. I was getting pretty tired because she wasn’t really cooperating. In the middle of it all she said, “I see you in a car and it’s wrecked against a tree.” I thank God I was on my alert, and I said, “You lying spirit, I am not going to be in any car that was wrecked against a tree.” And I never have been. That was more than thirty years ago. But, suppose I had said, “Oh, isn’t that awful. I’m going to be in a car that’s going to be wrecked against a tree.” You know what I would be doing? I would be submitting to Satan’s destiny for my life, and I would easily open the way for it to be fulfilled.

There is a move in the Charismatic movement which is mistakenly called “Prophecy,” which tells people you can get a word from the Lord. We’ve had them in some churches we’ve been in and they come around and say, “How many of you want to hear from the Lord? I’ll pray over you.” I call it “Charismatic Fortune Telling.” I do not believe it is from God. I have seen lives and churches wrecked by it. We need discernment.

Listen, there’s two different ways of being guided. Number one is the regular, normal way—it’s from the Scriptures. Number two is special guidance by prophecy, revelation, vision. But if you are not following number one, you have no right to ask for number two. You understand me? In other words, if you are not walking according to the revealed will of God and the Scriptures, don’t ask God for a supernatural revelation, because you will get the wrong god.

False religions. I believe every false religion is demonic. I will list some without commenting on them. Christian Science, Unity, Islam, Bahai, Freemasonry. I want to comment on that. One of the most deadly snares of Satan and it usually makes people violent. We have seen some very violent deliverance from people who had an involvement in Freemasonry. It also affects children. We’ve seen some terrible cases of children that were not normal as a result of involvement in Freemasonry. Ruth and I were ministering to a tour group in Tiberias, in Israel, in a hotel. We had been praying for the sick and praying for deliverance and it was nearly midnight. I said, “Shop closed. We’re going to bed.” And this little pastor from Canada, who had been faithfully helping us said, “But you haven’t prayed for me.”

“Well,” I said, “what’s your problem?” He said, “I was a Freemason. I’ve renounced it but many of the members of my church are Freemasons and they’ve put a curse on me.” So we had to deal with that. So Ruth and I prayed with him and there was one dear lady of about 60 who was helping us. As soon a we came against Freemasonry he became violent. He became like a beast. And all our helpers scattered except this 60 year old lady. He tried to kick Ruth in the stomach. Well, he was gloriously delivered, but I saw what a wicked, violent thing Freemasonry is.

Going on, and if it’s in your background, you need to renounce it. You may have an uncle or a grandfather who was a Freemason. It’s bringing a curse on your life.

Jehovah’s Witnesses, Theosophy, Humanism, and all Oriental cults in my opinion, are demonic.

Then there are heresies, that is departures from the Christian faith. My list, which is by no means complete, Mormonism, Reincarnation, and all religions that emphasize salvation through works. They are all demonic.

Then there’s the physical body, and the list here could be endless. Many different forms of infirmity and pain are demonic, and you only look at the ministry of Jesus to see that. He dealt with many sicknesses by casting out the demons. I’ll just give a little list of some of the evil spirits of infirmity or sickness that I have personally dealt with, and this list could be three times as long.

No. 1 - Epilepsy. I do not say that all sicknesses are necessary demonic. You have to have discernment. But if I did have to pick one sickness that I consider to be demonic it would be Epilepsy. I have seen many Epileptics delivered. If an Epileptic comes to me now for prayer I say this, “I’ll listen. I’m willing to pray with you, but there could be a battle. If you’re willing to fight along with me, I’ll pray for you. But if you expect me to do all the fighting, I won’t pray.”

Then another very common one is stress. Stress is a person, not a condition. Migraine, many different forms of head pain and nerve pain. Allergies. Now I don’t say all allergies are demonic, but I know a whole lot are.

Let me tell you one really fascinating story. Years ago a mother came to me with a boy of about four. She said, “Pray for my son.” I said, “What’s the matter with him.” She said, “Allergies.” I said, “What kind of allergies?” She said, “Food allergies.” I said, “Tell me what he’s allergic to.” She said, “Tell me what he isn’t.” I said, “If I pray for him I’m going to deal with it as an evil spirit. Do you accept that?” She said, “Okay.” So I sat down beside this little boy and I said, “Now, I want you to know that there’s a bad spirit it you that keeps you from eating the things you really like. I’m going to command that spirit to go in the name of Jesus. When I command it to go, I want you to blow it out. Do you understand?” I mean he was like a soldier. He sat there, I did my prayer. I said, “Come out in the name of Jesus!” And he blew out four times. That was all. No emotion, no excitement. So I thought, “Who knows what happened.”

So off the mother went, taking the son with her. Two days later she was back. She said, “Pray for me.” I said, “What’s your problem?” She said, “Allergies.” I said, “Tell me first what happened to you son.”

She said, “I took him home with me and he marched right up to the refrigerator, opened the door, sampled everything in the refrigerator, and nothing did him any harm.” So I want to emphasize this. It doesn’t necessarily depend on emotion. Deliverance demands your will. You have to set your will against the thing that’s tormenting.

A young man came to me once and he said, “I rather think I have a spirit of lust. I rather enjoy it. Do you think God will deliver me?” I said, “Definitely not.” God delivers us from our enemies, not from our friends. But if you make your friend your enemy, then God will deliver you. So you may have a friend tonight you’ve got to make an enemy before he will come out.

Then a very remarkable case. I was conducting a deliverance service, incidentally in Murfreesboro, and there’s this young man of about 25. I said, “Now, when I pray the Holy Spirit may easily give you the name that you’ve got to renounce. So you renounce that thing by name and it will go. It’s like dealing with a dog. You’ve got a lot more authority over a dog when you know its name.” So he came up to afterwards and he said, “Brother Prince, is there a spirit of tooth decay?” I said, “Well, I’ve never heard of it but if the Holy Spirit says there is, then there is.” He said, “Well, that’s what I’ve been delivered from.” I still know him today, many, many years later. He told me later, “Before I was delivered I would have a tooth filled, and decay would set in under the filling. I would have to have the filling taken out and refilled. Since I was delivered that’s never happened.” So I believe there is a spirit of tooth decay.

Now one of the commonest is crippling that twists your body. It makes you go crooked. I have seen at least a hundred cases of people with crippling. I used to pray for people by checking their legs and if the two legs were uneven, the short leg would grow out and I would say to the people, “Now you’re plugged in. Help yourself.” I get people still coming to me today. I got a man just the other day and he said, “My wife was delivered when you lengthened her legs. She was delivered from back pain. She’s never had any more back pain since.”

But many times when I did that, and Ruth was with me, we would see this spirit begin to do this, and the legs would begin to move. We discovered it was the spirit of crippling that would twist the body and we had to come against it. I’m sure there are some here.

Insomnia, and one of the commonest is the spirit of death. I can say, Ruth and I have seen hundreds of people delivered from the spirit of death. Obviously the spirit of death doesn’t come in because you are dead. The spirit of death comes to make you die. Remember, Satan is a murderer, and he kills physically. One of the commonest spirits he uses is the spirit of death. There are many ways it can come in. You can just get weary with life and say, “I wish I were dead. What’s that good of living? I might as well be dead.” You know what you are doing? You’re inviting the spirit of death, and it doesn’t need many invitations. Or you may have been through a serious illness, or surgery. And especially when you’re under an anesthetic, the spirit of death can enter. One of the first dramatic deliverance I dealt with was a woman that Lydia and I prayed with for five hours. I had never seen this happen before. I was totally new to it. Various spirits manifested themselves, and named themselves. I am not saying I did the right thing, but when the sixth spirit that named itself was death. So I said to myself, “Death. Is that all right. Yes. Revelation 6. Death is a person not just a condition.” So I said, “When did you enter into this woman?” And it answered, “Three and a half years ago when she nearly died on the operating table.” I discovered later that she was not aware of anything that she was saying at that time. Her own personality was totally bypassed.

So later I said, “Did you ever have a serious operation.” She said, “Yes. Three and a half years ago I nearly died on the operating table.” You see it’s a moment of emotional or physical weakness. I talked to a doctor once in America who had his own clinic. I had been teaching about this and he said, “You’ve helped me to understand something. We have patients from time to time who die without any adequate physical cause. I realize the spirit of death has killed them.”

Let’s have a proclamation while we are about it. This is just a little change. This is Psalm 118:15-18.

“I shall not die, but live, And declare the works of the LORD. The LORD has chastened me severely, But He has not given me over to death.”

If He has not given you over to death, you do not need to die. I would like everybody here to say that. There are a lot of you that need deliverance from the spirit of death. It’s on the basis of your confession. We’ll say it once, just the one phrase and you say it after. “I shall not die, but live, And declare the works of the LORD.”

“Spirit of death we serve notice on you in this auditorium, you are no longer welcome, and we are going to drive you out tonight in the name of Jesus!” Amen. Gird up your loins because it is going to happen.

One other spirit that we’ve dealt with very commonly is arthritis. Please understand that I am not saying that every one that has arthritis has a demon. That’s why we have the gift of discernment. But in South Africa, a good many years ago, I was conducting a seminar on deliverance. There were about one thousand people present. We called people forward for prayer and a lady came forward and I said, “What’s your problem?” She said, “Arthritis.” I said, “I’m going to deal with it as a spirit.” We prayed against the spirit, she was delivered and healed.

Well, I thought I’m never going to have time to pray individually for all the people who have arthritis, and there’s a spirit of faith here. So I said, “All of you who have arthritis anywhere in the auditorium stand up.” About thirty stood all over the auditorium. I said, “Now I’m going to command that spirit of arthritis to go from each one of you. And when I do, you let it go.” Then I did—I prayed it. “Now,” I said, “I don’t want you to sit down until you are free from pain. Remain standing.” After about twenty minutes every one of those thirty persons had sat down. The spirit of arthritis had left them.

Later, traveling in South Africa, we met several of them and confirmed that they had been healed. Now I’m not saying that everybody who has arthritis has a demon. On the other hand, it’s just about as typical a demonstration of what demons do as you could wish for. They torture, they torment, they twist.

How demons come in. I’ve got to do this very quickly. First of all, an occult background in your family. In Exodus 20, the Lord said, “If you become a worshiper of idols or in the occult, I will visit it on the third and fourth generations. A lot of people suffer demonic oppression because of what their ancestors did. If you counted back, you have thirty possible ancestors that could involve you in the occult. How many of us can say for certain, “I know none of my thirty ancestors were ever involved in the occult.” Very few.

So that’s a possibility. So you say, “It’s not fair.” Well you have to deal with God about that. He said, “I will visit the iniquities of the father’s to the third and fourth generation.”

You know one great reason why we need the ministry of deliverance is because Satan isn’t fair. He oppresses who don’t deserve to be oppressed. We need to be able to help them.

Then personal occult involvement. That’s reason number two. Here is a remarkable passage in Deuteronomy chapter 18 verses 10 and following.

“There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire...”

that is offering your child as a living sacrifice to the Lord to be burned on the altar of Molech. Now notice the other things included with that in the same verse. You might say I would never offer my child as a sacrifice. Well let’s look at the other things.

“or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer.”

Basically those are different aspects of fortune telling. So fortune telling is put in the same category with offering your children to God in a fire. You see, I’ve been forced to realize through writing this book, millions of Christians are involved in fortune-tellings one way or the other. They don’t realize what God thinks about it. God hates it intensely. It doesn’t mean He hates you. But He hates what you are doing.

“or one who confers spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, [those we’d all call spiritism] or one who calls up the dead. [All those are different aspects of spiritism. As far as God’s concerned, that’s the same as offering your children in sacrifice through the fire.] For all who do these things are an abomination to the LORD...”

Did you hear that? All who do these things are an abomination to the LORD. That doesn’t mean the Lord hates you, but He hates the things you’ve been involved in.

Then prenatal influences, and I’ve dealt with many. It isn’t a fetus in your womb. It’s a person. It is a living person, and if you get rid of that personal, you’ve committed murder. I’ve discovered that unborn babies are very sensitive to what people feel and say about them. At one time in the United States I was casting out a spirit of rejection from people in a certain age bracket. There were so many of them I asked myself when were they born. My wife Ruth is one of them. It was about 1929 to 1931. Now you British people will not even know what that means, but for every American it means the great depression, and they say that word with a certain feeling that you have to empathize with to understand what it meant.

You understand what happened? Here’s a mother. She’s got five mouths to feed and she doesn’t have enough food and along comes the sixth. She says, “I wish I wasn’t pregnant.” That little think in your womb feels rejected. “My mother doesn’t love me.” It’s born with a spirit of rejection. That is amazingly common. Such a person will tend to go through life saying, “Nobody really loves me. I’m not important. I’m not wanted. I’m on the outside looking in. Others can, I can’t.” You can be delivered. Then you know for the first time how much God really loves you, because that spirit of rejection keeps saying, “God doesn’t love me. He loves other people, but He doesn’t love me.”

Then there’s what I call soulish domination or manipulation by another person. This is a very common cause of demonic problem. I met a man. He’s an evangelist. He was about 28 when I met him. He said, “Since I left home [and that was before he was 20] I’ve phoned my mother long distance wherever I am in the world every night.” You know what happened to him. The umbilical cord was never cut. His mother has dominated him all through his life. There are many strong men—bank presidents, sports heroes, politicians—who are dominated by a mother. Thank God for mothers. But don’t thank God for mothers who dominate. It’s not always the mother. It can be the father, it can be anther person, it can be a minister, it can be a priest, it can be a dabbler in the occult. But if you are tied to another person, that’s demonic and you need to renounce that involvement and be set free. For the first time in your life you will become a totally real person on your own.

I preached here two years ago on preparing for revival. One of the messages I preached was “Witchcraft in Disguise.” That is witchcraft. It’s in disguise, but it manipulates, it intimidates, it dominates. It does all the things that witchcraft does. It is very respectable. And it says to this little boy, “If you love your Mommy, you’ll go to the store.” It’s wicked for a mother to ever to say, “If you love your Mommy you would...” That’s manipulation. Every mother should let every child know, “Your mother loves you unconditionally.” And fathers can do the same. Ministers can do it very easily. I appreciate the way that Don (Double) takes up offerings, because I’ve seen a lot of manipulation. “There are ten people here tonight each one of whom will offer ,1000. Stand up.” And nine people stand sheepishly. There’s this one man, he doesn’t really want to do it, but he thinks I may be...have to do it.

I had a Swiss business friend who did that once in America, and he want home kicking himself. He knew he didn’t have to do it. But he was manipulating. There’s a whole lot of manipulation in taking up offerings. It’s sinful. It’s demonic. It’s wicked. “If you send me $10 I’ll pray for all your family and they’ll all get healed.” Liar. You know where liars end up? Somebody said, “Liars are fryers.” And Charismatic liars are not accepted.

The next way they come in is pressures in early childhood. James says, “Where envy and strife are there are confusion in every evil work.” In a home that’s divided and torn by strife there are all sorts of evil sources at work that a small child does not have power to keep out. My personal observation is most demonic problems begin before the age of 8.

Then there’s the moment or the place of weakness. I worked once in Westbourne Grove with a Catholic doctor, who was real minister in his own way. He had his own house in Harley Street and he was a really special doctor. He would come where we were in Westbourne Grove. He would come in and he would say, “Bring out your dead.” We would pray for all sorts of people. He understood things that I didn’t understand at the time. He said, “Remember the devil chooses the weakest moment and the weakest place.” I have never forgotten that. It’s a profound truth. The weakest moment, or the weakest place. I want to look at 1 Peter 3:6, a message for women, which can well be digested by men too. It says,

“You are daughters of Sarah if you do good and are not afraid with any terror.”

Did you ever hear that? If you ever give way to sudden terror, you’ve lost your protection. That has happened to thousands of people.

I dealt with a woman once the spirit of fear entered her because she was standing in the street and a horrible accident just took place in front of her. In that moment of weakness, the spirit entered her.

Sinful acts or habits. You can sin without a demon entering. But if you persistently sin, you can almost be sure the demon that corresponds to that sin will be in you. Also some specific acts open the way to a demon. My friend, Don Basham, who is now with the Lord, was praying for a woman once who needed to be delivered from a spirit of lust. So he commanded to come out of here and the spirit said, “I’m not coming out. She invited me in.” So Don said, “When did she invite you in?” “When she went to that dirty sex movie.” And Don knew. The spirit was right. You see, Satan is a legal expert. He knows when he’s got a right. That woman had to confess that sin and repent before she could be delivered.

Finally, a person without self-control is like a city without its walls. Let me read that passage in Proverbs 25:28. This applies to almost all drug addicts.

Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down without walls.

So when you lose real control of yourself, your emotions, your appetites, your relationships, all your spiritual defenses are broken down. Almost any demon can walk in anytime.

Let me do that once more and then we are going to come to the most important question which is how to be delivered. But let me just give these ways they come in.

1. An occult background.
2. Personal occult involvement.
3. Prenatal influences.
4. Soulish domination or manipulation by another person.
5. Pressures in early childhood.
6. The moment or place of weakness.
7. Sinful acts or habits.
8. A general picture of a person whose walls are broken down.

We come to the really important issue which is how to get rid of them. If I didn’t have that to tell you I wouldn’t bother to tell you all the rest. I can say without exaggeration I have seen thousands of people delivered from demons. They got delivered the way I’m going to tell you how to be delivered. You can be delivered tonight, but there are certain conditions you have to meet. Number one you have to be humble. You know why? Because pride is the greatest barrier to deliverance.

A very, sort of, aristocratic southern lady in one of the southern states in America had been listening to my teaching. She said, “Mr. Prince, if I understand you rightly, if I seek deliverance I may end up screaming.” I said, “It could happen.” She said, “I was brought up that a lady doesn’t scream in public.” “Well,” I said, “If you were in a river drowning, and about to go down for the third time, and you thought there might be somebody on the bank who could save you, would you be too ladylike to scream?” That’s all I needed to say.

Number two - be honest. You see, you will not be honest if you are not humble. Call your problem by the right name. If it’s lying, call it lying. Don’t use some fancy psychiatric terminology to describe a filthy sin. Think of the worst name you can and call it that.

Number three - confess your faith in Christ. Jesus is the High Priest of our confession. If we make no confession, we have no High Priest. If we confess our faith in Him, we release Him to act as our High Priest.

Number four - confess any known sin of your own or your ancestors, because your ancestor’s sins can be the cause of your problem. You’re not guilty because of their sins, but you are suffering because of their sin. In order to be delivered you need to confess their sins. If the Holy Spirit shows you your aunt was a Christian Scientist, confess that sin. That is the way to be delivered. You see, God is old fashioned. He still believes in confessing sin. It says in Proverbs 28:13 the next thing is repent. It’s not enough to confess, you have to repent. Repent means accept personal responsibility. You say, “I was the one that sinned. I’m sorry Lord. I don’t want to do it again. Forgive me.” Proverbs 28:13 says,

“He who covers his sins will not prosper.”

That applies to every one of you. If you go out of here covering your sins, you will not prosper. It will not be well with you.

“But whosoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.”

So the remedy is, confess and forsake. Then you need to break with every contact with the occult. Renounce it. Confess it, renounce it. If you have objects that relate you to the occult, make a commitment to God to get rid of them. Burn them if you can. Bury them. Do something with them.

We had a young woman who had been a Satanist. She came for deliverance and she was getting delivered, but she told us she had a ring on her finger with which she had been married to Satan. So we said you have to take that ring off. She took it off and the demon made her swallow it. But there was a young man there who had supernatural faith and he commanded her to regurgitate it and she coughed it up. He picked it up and threw it in the lake. Then she was delivered. But before she could be delivered, she had to burn, publicly, every garment in which she worshiped Satan. The Bible says, “Hating even the garment spotted with the flesh.” Break every contact. Get rid of everything. It may be very valuable. A woman said to me once, I’ve got all these occult books. They are worth thousands of dollars. I said, “How much is your soul worth.” That’s a question you have to answer. How much is my soul worth.

Then you have to forgive all other people. Jesus said, “If you stand praying and you have anything against anyone, forgive.” That leaves out nothing and no one. If you forgive, God will forgive you. If you do not forgive, God will not forgive you. That’s absolutely flat out. So you have to make up your mind.

Now, let me tell you, forgiving a person is not an emotion. It’s a decision. It comes from the will, not the feelings. When you will it and say it, the Holy Spirit will give you the grace. But don’t seek deliverance if you have bitterness, resentment, or unforgiveness in your heart against anyone.

Then, it’s important to stand on Scripture. So I will give you four scriptures, any of which you can stand on. No. one my favorite I think, Joel 2:32,

“...Whoever shall call on the name of the LORD Shall be delivered.”

Let’s say that together. “Whoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered.”

Luke 10:19, Jesus said,

“I give you the authority over all the power of Satan that nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

1 John 3:8,

“...For this purpose the Son of God was revealed, that He might destroy the works of the evil one.”

Colossians 1:13,

“God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.”

Now the way we are going to deal with this in a moment, I am going to lead in a prayer, if you want. You don’t have to. I’m going to say the words and you will say them after me. I am putting the words in your mouth. So many people say, “I want to pray but I don’t know what to pray.” Well, I’ll give you the words. But you are not praying to me and you’ve got to mean them as your own words. But before I do that, let me go just quickly through this list. Now I know a lot of people get delivered without consciously doing these things. But these are the scriptural basis.

1. Be humble and remember God says, “Humble yourself.” God never promises to make us humble.
2. Be honest. Call a spade a spade and not an agricultural implement.
3. Confess your faith in Christ and I’ll give you the words. “Lord Jesus Christ, I believe that you are the Son of God, that you died on the cross for my sin and rose again from the dead.”
4. Confess any known sins of yourself or your ancestors. Now when we come to that I will pause and give you time, quietly, to confess any specific sins that you need to confess.
5. Repent. Remember repentance is a decision like forgiveness. It’s not a feeling. It’s the will, turning around, turning your back.
6. Break with the occult.

If you’ve been involved with any form of occult, just quietly say, “Lord, I renounce...” whatever it was. If you’ve got things in your home, tell the Lord you’ll get rid of them. Don’t go out of here and go back to a home that’s infested with demonic objects. Forgive everybody else, and again I’ll pause and give you time to name quietly the people you specifically need to forgive—my pastor, my wife. It’s usually the people closest to us. You don’t have a problem with the people at a distance. But the person who shares your bed, that may be a real problem. Stand on Scripture, and I think we will stand on “Whoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered.”

And finally expel. That’s a modern translation of “cast out.” I like it because it’s not religious. We get so many religious phrases we don’t know what they mean. But if you’ve inhaled something that you don’t want, what do you do? You expel it, or exhale it. Like the little boy that blew out four times. Now, when you do that what first comes out may be just natural, human breath. But if you go on, sooner or later something else will mingle with the breath. That’s your enemy. That’s what you’ve got to get out. Now, at that point, do not go on praying. Don’t speak in tongues. Because while you are praying and speaking in tongues, you’re holding the demon in. Be like the traffic in the street when the ambulance comes by. Get off to one side and let the ambulance off. Then, you can go back to praying.

Now, it may be that you need deliverance from many demons. That’s all right. We’re not in a hurry. If you’re not in a hurry we’ll stay with you. Don’t stop when the first one goes. Just go on as long as you need to get rid of any of them.