Derek Prince - Is It Possible To Have The Holy Spirit And A Demon At The Same Time?
This is an excerpt from: Take Heed That You Are Not Deceived
Now, we come to the most difficult and, in a sense, painful of all these situations. And I’m afraid what I’m going to say may shock some of you. But the most difficult people to deal with are people who have two kinds of spirit. One is the Holy Spirit and the other is not. Now people will tell you that the Holy Spirit wouldn’t dwell in an unclean vessel. That’s wrong. The Holy Spirit does dwell in unclean vessels. If he didn’t, we’d have no hope. Some people take the attitude the Holy Spirit will only come in when you’re completely pure. But the Holy Spirit comes in to make us pure. Without Him, we cannot be purified. So we need Him. It’s like, if a professor of a university would say to his class, "Now, when you’ve passed your exams, I’ll teach you"! And they’d say, "But professor, we need you to teach us to pass our exams".
After all, David committed adultery and murder and prayed, "Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me". And God didn’t. So if anything defiles, adultery and murder do. But the Holy Spirit did not leave David. That was the grace and mercy of God. Aren’t you glad that the Holy Spirit doesn’t leave you every time you do something wrong? You know, Jesus, in Mark 7 lists thirteen things that defile a man. And one of them is pride and one of them is foolishness. Dear Lord, how many Spirit-filled Christians would be left if every time we got proud or foolish the Holy Spirit left us? So the Holy Spirit does dwell in vessels that are not totally pure and sometimes He’s willing to share that vessel with another spirit from another source.
I do not appeal to experience, but I’ve had to say that I’ve dealt with dozens of cases. And the hardest thing for a poor pastor is to deal with people like that. The lady who gets interpretation and sometimes it’s right on and sometimes it right off. You’ve never been in those situations? You haven’t lived long. And moved in the circles that I’ve moved in. I remember when I was pastoring in London years ago and this happened. I really was at my wit’s end. I didn’t know what to do. I remember a man who came to me and he said, "Get this demon out of me"! "I said: You don’t have a demon. I’ve heard you speak in tongues"! I was wrong, and he was right! And I never really helped him because I couldn’t acknowledge his problem. He died later, prematurely, an unhappy man. And I have to say my theology kept me from helping him.
Well, I’ve changed theology. I’ve changed it to fit in with reality. But I think you’ll agree, as you go through your spiritual experience, one of the most difficult people to deal with is the one who sometimes has the right Spirit and sometimes another spirit. And I’m going to say something which in a way is painful, but I’ve prayed much about this, and I think God wants me to say it. Pentecostals, of whom I am one, have a kind of awe of William Branham. How many of you have heard of William Branham? That’s most of you. Well, William Branham was a man of God with the most remarkable and dramatic gift from God. But I happened to have been friends with a Bible teacher (whose name I will not give) who worked very closely with William Branham for several years. And he gave us once a personal sharing and he said, "I had to come to the conclusion that there were two spirits in William Branham. One was the Spirit of God and one was not"!
And you see, the sad thing is, and I say this with real sadness In spite of his marvelous gifts and the way God used him, his end was either pathetic or tragic, according to how you view it. He was killed as a result of a motor accident in which his car was struck by a drunk driver and he left behind a little group of fanatics who were worshipers of William Branham and who are some of the saddest people you’ll ever meet in a Christian association. Why did that happen? Because if you mix two spirits and don’t eliminate the wrong one, ultimately, it will corrupt the work of the good one. Let me read just a passage which applies, I believe, in Deuteronomy 22. This is one of those passages which are like, "You must not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain," has an application then, but it has another application now.
In Deuteronomy 22:9, 11: "You shall now sow your vineyard with different kinds of seed, lest the yield of the seed which you have sown and the fruit of your vineyard be defiled". And then it says: "You shall not wear a garment of different sorts, such as wool and linen mixed together". The principle is, serving the Lord, don’t mix two different kinds of things. Sow your vineyard with mixed seed, you'll get a crop that God does not accept as holy. Wearing partly linen and partly wool, you’re in two different spiritual worlds because linen is a type of spiritual purity. Wool is a type of human effort that generates sweat. So we, you and I, and the church, we have to examine ourselves: are we sowing with mixed seed? Is there the good and also the false? Am I wearing a mixed garment? Partly the righteousness of Jesus and partly my own fleshly nature? Because ultimately, the blessing of God will not remain on that which is pure and impure mixed.
Let me just review that because I think it is important. Different ways in which error can enter, deception. People prophecy beyond the proportion of their faith. They start in faith and then go, because they get puffed up, they go beyond their faith. Various different kinds of fortune-telling. You see, people pay a lot of money to fortune-tellers. You know that. People don’t pay for nothing. In Germany today, West Germany, which is now the western half of Germany. In West Germany most German businessmen will consult a fortune-teller before they do a business deal. They never think of going to a church or a minister.
Now, businessmen don’t spend money for nothing! It doesn’t mean that what they get is right, but part of it is right. And they can probably quote you instances in which they are marvelously helped. I think perhaps the classic example is that the previous President of the United States, his wife was in continual contact with a fortune-teller and astrologist and much of his official calendar was dictated by that lady! Including the meetings with Gorbachev, and so on. This is not something from another age. It’s right in our midst. And then I want to warn you again, Don’t accept Satan’s destiny for your life. It may be that some of you here have been to a fortune-teller. It would be very unusual if some of you hadn’t. You really need to get clear of every involvement.
In this book of mine, which I held up, I speak of a case when I was in a prayer meeting with a young man. I’d never met him before. And we were just chatting together. And I said, "Have you received the Holy Spirit"? And he said, "Yes, but". Well, anytime anybody says, "Yes, but" to that question, you know what the "but" is: BUT I don’t speak with tongues. So I commented, "Another trunkless elephant"! And I didn’t argue with him about that. I simply said I said this by inspiration: "Did you ever go to a fortune-teller"? And he thought it over. "Yes," he said, "once. When I was about 15. But I only did it as a joke. I didn’t mean anything by it". "But," I said, "you did go. And you did have your fortune told"? So he rather reluctantly said yes.
So I said, "Would you be willing to confess that to God as a sin and ask Him to release you from the consequences"? So he said yes, I think, really, just to, you know, get me off his back. So I led him in a little simple prayer: "Lord, I confess to the sin that I went to a fortuneteller and I had my fortune told. And I repent and I ask You to release me from all the consequences". I didn’t say anything more. I put my hand on his shoulder, prayed for him, and he immediately began to speak fluently in a tongue! You see, the invisible barrier had been removed. There was a shadow over his life that had to be lifted.