Derek Prince - Why Some People Are Not Delivered?
This is an excerpt from: How To Expel The Enemy
Now we're going on to the problem area why some people are not delivered. This is mainly for those who are going to be in this ministry. Why some are not delivered. Basically its for not meeting the conditions. Listen, deliverance is not so much a test of your spiritual power it's a test of whether the people have met the conditions. Don't focus on yourself. Focus on getting the people to meet the conditions. Then they will be delivered. You may feel yourself a little midget but you're representing a victorious Christ.
Number one, lack of repentance. There’s no guarantee to anybody who is not willing to repent. Number two, lack of... desperation. I say deliverance is for the desperate. I often say to people: When you come back and are desperate... Desperation, thank you. Lack of desperation. Summed up in one word, passivity. You'll find that particularly in people who’ve been in Oriental cults. They encourage you to kind of putting your mind in neutral. And many times you've got to do something to prod them. I want to say again, Christ has given us authority over evil spirits, but not over the human will. You cannot will for the other person. The person has to will for himself.
Number three, wrong motives. Alright? The Scripture I'll give you there is James... 4... and verse 3, which says: You ask and you receive not because you ask amiss... that you may spend it on your lusts. We are not delivered just to get off the hook. A lot of people would like to get off the hook. We're delivered in order to serve the Lord. People who come merely to get off the hook, do not qualify for deliverance.
Number four. You better go down this list and check yourself while were going through it. Self-centeredness. Alright? Desire for attention. Some people don't get delivered because they wouldn't be the center of attention any longer. You find some of the chronic cases of deliverance never want to get delivered because they're poor, neglected, rejected people. This is the only time they get the center of the stage. One thing you'll notice about all people affected by demons is in some way or other they are self-centered. Self-centeredness is an invitation to demon attention. Sometimes you just have to let the person go and say: You can do it for yourself and if you don't do it for yourself, nobody else is going to do it for you.
Number five. Failure to break with the occult, etc. And that includes getting rid of occult objects. OK? Such as little Buddhas, or charms or horseshoes. Anything that savors of superstition is demonic. Moses told Israel, If you bring an accursed thing into your house you become accursed like the thing. Most Christians need to go through their homes and clean out a lot of rubbish. I make it a principle, I don't want to keep in my house anything that dishonors Jesus Christ or honors Satan.
One of the big steps in my life was I had inherited from my grandfather four beautiful tapestry Chinese dragons. Imperial dragons with five claws, not four. And they were beautiful. And they were not actually objects of worship, but the more I thought about it... The dragon really is a picture of Satan. I cannot afford to advertise him on the walls of my home. So I got rid of them and I would have to say without a conscious effort on my part, my income doubled from the day I did that. That's a little extra motivation. I was not planning it, I wasn't in need. I didn't have any such motivation in mind, but I just observed. I prospered in a totally new measure once I got the dragons out of my house.
Number six. Failure to sever... evil, soulish relationships. Sometimes you have to break some relationships. If they're evil, if they're binding, if they're... I don't know what word, I want to say the word gooey. A kind of sloppy sentimentality that isn't honest.
Number seven, under a curse. We're going to deal with that, so I'm not going to get involved in it now. But some people are under a curse and will not be delivered or healed till the curse is broken.
Number eight. I'm running out of space. Failure to confess a specific sin such as the one obvious example is abortion. Anyone who has procured an abortion deliberately in God's sight, is guilty of murder. And that has to be confessed specifically as murder. Now this isn't my decision; I'm not making the rules. I'm just interpreting them. I've tried to get people delivered you could get the demon up as far as the throat and it would not come out. Stop and check. I remember a girl of about sixteen, her mother brought her. I said: There's something you're going to have to confess before this will come out. And she eventually confessed she had an abortion; her mother didn't know about it. The moment she confessed, it came out. It was so sweet to see the mother and daughter fall in one another's arms and receive one another. But that, in my opinion, is a unvarying principle.
Number nine. I have to go back to the top of the list if that's alright by all of you. I can't do anything else. I wipe out the first three and we'll go on with nine which is This is a controversial one: Not separated by... guess what? What's the separating ordinance in the New Testament? Baptism, that's right. Water baptism. Alright. Remember, Israel were delivered in Egypt by the blood of the lamb. But they were separated from Egypt by the water of the Red Sea. The water prevented the Egyptians following them. They could follow as far as the water. People that are not willing to be water baptized, in my opinion, do not qualify to stay free. This is not an option. I'm not dealing with this as a denominational issue. I'm simply stating that's the way it is. If you can get God to agree, fine. But I'm not going to be a party to that agreement. Ten.
Now this is a very complicated one. Part of a larger battle... I think I will fit all... Requiring... corporate action. OK? Some people are what I call Satan's battlefields. And he will not let them go, not because of what they are themselves, but because of what they stand for. I don't have time to go into this. But there are people for whom the whole body has to take the responsibility. An example. There was a young man I knew who had Hodgkin's disease. You know, it's incurable; it's just a question of time. He was part of a fellowship which, when the fellowship flourished he did fine, he wasn't sick.
If anything went wrong spiritually he began to get sick. And ultimately Satan got right into the fellowship split it open and destroyed it, and he died. You understand? His physical condition was an accurate barometer of the spiritual condition of the fellowship he was in. There are people like that. You don't have the choice.