Derek Prince - Discernings of Spirits
But we'll go on to the next which is discerning of spirits. Actually, both parts are plural. It's discernings of spirits. Like gifts of healings, workings of miracles, kinds of tongues; there are several of the gifts which are plural in both parts in the original. Now, “to discern” is to recognize and to distinguish between, so discerning of spirits is recognizing spirits and discerning or distinguishing between them. It's a kind of spiritual sense.
You see, God can reveal that kind of thing two ways. He can give a word of knowledge. “Such and such a person has a spirit of fear or a spirit of epilepsy or a spirit of death.” That's one. Or He can show the servant of God, you can see it, not with the natural. Like there are certain spirits that Ruth and I encounter so frequently we almost immediately identify them. One is the spirit of death. There's something about a person who has the spirit of death that shows in their features, in their eyes. Another is witchcraft.
We were in Holland several years ago now, five years ago. We had a healing service and a lot of people were coming forward. There was this young woman, I think she was from Indonesia, she was highly pregnant. I mean, she must have been at least eight months pregnant. She came forward. As we put our hands on her she became like a scolded cat. I mean, she reached for my eyes with her fingernails and became violent. A couple of men had to hold her. We identified the spirit of witchcraft. We commanded it to come out, she was released and became a lady again. Then she told us this, which is interesting. I don't fully understand it, but she said she made a covenant with Satan not to come to that meeting.
So, you know, she was in a strange background. After that, the next fifteen people we prayed for, every one of them we just went for the spirit of witchcraft and there it was. I want to say that discernment is not restricted to demons. It's important to discern the Holy Spirit, where He is, what He's doing. I believe you can discern a human spirit like when Jesus said of Nathaniel, “He was an Israelite in whom was no guile.” That's a pretty rare thing, I want you to know. But Jesus discerned that guileless spirit in Nathaniel. Okay. Now that's a little summation of the gifts.