Derek Prince - Demons Are Real Persons Without Bodies
This is a clip from the full sermon: War In Heaven And Earth - Part 2
I just want to give you a brief description of what demons are like me understand. My understanding is limited, but I'll give you the best I have. I think it's best to say they are disembodied persons. Demons have real personalities. They have distinct personalities. One demon is not just like another. I remember something so vivid. I was dealing with a man. His wife had come to me and said, "Brother Prince, my husband needs deliverance." And I made a mistake. I prayed for him based on what his wife asked.
You see? I never did t done more. If he needs liberation, let him tell me he needs liberation. Well, I started praying for the man and he started getting violent. And his wife took me aside and said, "Brother Prince, at home he throws chairs at me." So I said, "Why didn't you tell me before we started"? Anyway, the demons spoke out in the man and one of them said, "I am unclean". And I thought, I don't want to embarrass the man in front of his wife. I could think of all kinds of unclean things that could be the problem. But I said, "You spirit of unclean thoughts come out of the man." He said, "That's not my name." I said, "Come out." He said, "That's not my name." I mean, it's not easy to understand how much a demon really is a personality. It wanted to be recognized by its proper name. Well, eventually it came out, but the last thing it said before it came out was "That's not my name".
I am trying to give you an impression of the fact that we are dealing with real persons with characteristic features. I've already pointed it out, but I'll say it again, two things; first, the word is not devil. The word devil comes from the Greek word diabolos, which means slanderer and which is a title of Satan himself. The things we are dealing with are daimonions demons and they are not devils. They are a different kind of creature. Where do they come from? Well, I don't believe anyone has an absolutely authoritative answer. In my mind, the most likely explanation is that they are disembodied spirits of a pre-Adamic race, who perished under the judgment of God between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. I'm glad to find that our pastor thinks about the same. Am I right? Good. Thank you. That's encouraging.
I mean, we could be wrong, but that's the best I can think of. But the most distinguishing fact about demons is that they desperately crave a body to occupy. They are not satisfied until they can enter a body. Preferably they occupy the body of a man or a woman, but instead of being disembodied they would rather go into the body of pigs. Because you remember the man in Gardara, where the demons said, "Send us in those pigs. We don't want to be disembodied." What they didn't realize was that going into the pigs would cause the pigs to be killed and then they would be left with the same problem again.
But what I'm doing is you're with a person who has no body and desperately longs to be in a body because, as I believe, only through a body can they exercise their wicked lusts. If it is a demon of alcohol, it must have a human throat through which they consume. If it is a demon of sexual immorality it must have a sexual organ through which it can work. If it is a demon of hate it must have emotions that it can tap into to work through. In other words, we are surrounded by an invisible crowd of persons without bodies who desperately desire to occupy bodies, and who struggle desperately not to get out of bodies.
Now I think I must say, just briefly, how I got involved n hit. I have not volunteered to join this ministry. I was forced into it. First of all, when I became the pastor of a very small Pentecostal church in West London in the early 1950's. I had a serious, ongoing problem with depression. I know none of you have ever struggled with depression, but be patient with me. I do. And it threatened to destroy my ministry because I constantly felt like a failure. I can't do it, I can't. And I struggled and struggled. I didn't know the answer but I was referred to a passage in Isaiah chapter 61. What I thank God for is that I always had the Bible and I always turned to the Bible and I have always accepted the Bible as authoritative and definitive. That has protected and preserved me through many different problems and situations.
But it is this famous passage that Jesus quoted in the synagogue at Nazareth, Isaiah chapter 61. "The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD hath anointed me to bring good tidings to the meek. He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and to those who were in bondage, the opening of the prison; to proclaim the year of the favor of the LORD, and the day of vengeance from our God; to comfort all that mourn, to ordain concerning the mourners of Zion, that they may be given adornment instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, a robe of praise instead of a distressed spirit. And when I was reading that passage God showed seeing me, "That's your problem. It's a stuffy mind. It's a mind of sorrow. An unhappy mind."
And let me tell you that the protection is a robe of praise. If you wear a robe of praise, that spirit cannot have access to you. But I had grown up, I can't go into all my background but I had exposed myself to demons in many ways. And there was this stuffy spirit. And then God brought me to this passage in Joel chapter 2:32, It shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be saved. So in my despair, I, all alone, called on the name of the Lord. I said, "Lord, deliver me from this troubled spirit." And something moved in me, in my chest. I let out a sort of mixture of a sob and a groan and I felt something like a dark cloud rise from me. And I realized that I was delivered from a stifled spirit, or a spirit of mourning, or a spirit of sorrow. But that didn't immediately immerse me in public ministry.
It was later when I was in Seattle, Washington State, pastoring another small Pentecostal church, being much involved with the Full Gospel Business Men, that one day a Baptist pastor called me and said, "Brother Prince, I have a woman in my congregation who needs deliverance from demons". Well, I wasn't used to Baptist ministers saying things like that. But what he said next was even more astonishing. He said, "God has shown me that you and your wife are the instruments of her salvation." Well, I don't let the revelation of people dictate to me so I sent a quick telegram to heaven: "What am I to do with this"? And I got the answer, "Well, this is Mine." So I said OK. I've made an appointment, bring the woman and we'll do our best.
Well, we chose a Saturday morning and at that time I had just befriended a Presbyterian couple who had just been baptized in the Holy Spirit. And while we waited for the Baptist woman to come, the Presbyterian couple came by. So we said, you might as well stay. We don't know what's going to happen, but it can be quite exciting. Well, the Baptist minister comes with this lady who was once the secretary of the church. She was about thirty-five I'd say. She was a perfectly normal American housewife. I've been watching her from every angle. I saw nothing strange about her. No metallic tone in her voice, no fire in her eyes, just an average, neat Baptist. But the pastor was sure of it. So he put her in the chair and said, "Well, she's already rid of a demon of nicotine." I thought, "Oh, is that so"? But he said there are others. So he stood in front of her and started yelling at the demons.
Well, I learned that later through experience, you don't get more power by yelling. Demons are not deaf. Even ghosts of deafness are not deaf. You don't have to yell and you waste energy. Anyway, he stood there and yelled at that demon, "I command you: come out"!, and nothing seemed to happen. Then he said, "In the name of Jesus I command you to come out", and the woman's face changed. A different expression crossed her face. Well, he stood there for quite some time and didn't get any further, so he stepped back a little and I thought, "Well, if he can do it, so can I". So I stood before the woman, and I had all the theology, and I said, "Now, you spirit that's in this woman, I'm speaking to you and not to the woman, what's your name? And it wouldn't answer. So I said: "I command you in the name of Jesus to answer. What's your name"?
We went on like this for a while and suddenly it answered. But before it answered, she changed. She crossed her hands over her throat and started strangling herself. And I had this Presbyterian brother who was bigger and heavier than me It took our combined strength to pull her arms from her throat Well then we were past that stage and suddenly the demon reacted "My name is hate" And when it said hate every crease of her face showed seeing the most unspeakable hatred I had never seen such pure hatred in anyone's eyes So I said "You demon of hate come out of this woman" And this gruff male voice replied from the woman "I'm coming here not off. This is my house. I've lived here thirty-five years and I can't get out."
Well, I checked everything in my mind with the Bible. I thought, That's right. Jesus said, "When the unclean spirit went out of a man, he went through dry places seek rest." Then it says, "I will return to my house from which I left". So that's Biblical. So I knocked it down with the name of Jesus and with the Scripture. And suddenly it came out with a loud long roar. And when it came out, the woman slumped forward, relaxed and the tension in me melted away. I knew the demon was gone. But the demon had said before he came out, "Even if I come out , my brothers are here, and they will kill her." So I knew there was more than one demon.
So anyway, we went through with this, it must have been two or three hours, and there came about seven or eight different ghosts out. One that really impressed me was self pity and I started a few ways understand what people react to that are not natural. The last ghost that came out was a ghost of death. And again I checked. I thought, "Is this Biblical"? I thought death is a physical state, but then I remembered in Revelation chapter 6 there was a rider on a horse whose name was Death. So death can be a person. Well, when the ghost of death came out, this woman was sprawled on her back on the floor, all limp, her face was all pale, there was no color, her skin was cold. If you had come in and looked at her, you would have said there was a dead man on the floor. Well, she lay there for about ten minutes and then put her arms in the air and started speaking in tongues.
One of the things the demons said, I said, "How did you get into this woman"? And it had said, that was death. I said, "When did you get into this woman"? He said: "Three and a half years ago when she almost died on the operating table". So I saved all this. Well, then apparently the woman was free, so I gave her back to the Baptist minister. He drove away with her. About halfway through the week, the woman called Lydia and me and said, "I think they're trying to come back. Can you come and help me"? So we drove to her house, spoke to the woman, and determined that it was fear, that she was afraid they would come back, and that opened the door. But while we were there, she had a six-year-old daughter who was a shy, thin, rather unhappy-looking girl. And wherever we walked, she walked with us. But every time I looked at her, she averted her eyes. She didn't want to look at me.
So I said to the mother, "You know, I think your daughter has the same problems as you." She said, "Will you pray for her"? I said, "Definitely". So the next Saturday morning we had the daughter there. In fact, we have experienced much of the same with the daughter as with the mother. Most of the same spirits that were in the mother also came out of the daughter. Not all. But hatred was one and so was the spirit of death. And when death came out of the little girl, she lay flat on her back on the ground, looking like a dead man. So I checked them for about two years, apparently they stayed free. The little girl had been assessed as mentally retarded. She became a normal, happy, healthy girl.