Derek Prince - Deliverance
Well, so we took up residence in Minneapolis and I became for awhile an associate pastor with my friend in this Assembly of God church. I began to make contacts and invited to speak in various places. Then I received an invitation from Seattle, Washington, to pastor an independent Pentecostal church there, and having a spirit of adventure. Lydia and I talked it over and said, We’ll take it. Now they had told us that all twelve members of the board were united in inviting me. What I didn’t know was the church had passed through a typical church crisis and was falling apart. But when I got to Seattle we were met on the outskirts of Seattle by the only member of the board who had not resigned, because all other eleven members had resigned. The church had been through a very typical crisis. I was completely innocent of American church politics. I had no idea really what was going on.
Anyhow, I pastored there for a year and we made some very wonderful permanent friendships there. Looking back, the most significant thing that happened was that I got involved in the ministry of deliverance. I had no ambitions, I had no plans, but what happened was a very unusual thing. A Baptist pastor called me up on the phone and said, I have a woman here in my church who needs deliverance from demons. And the Lord has shown me that you and your wife are to be the instruments of deliverance. Well, no Baptist pastor had ever said anything like that to me before. So I sent up a little message to the Lord while I was still on the phone, Is this from You? And I felt the Lord said yes. So I said all right. We made an appointment for him to bring the woman with him.
Well it so happened while we were waiting for the pastor and the woman to arrive at a certain day, a Presbyterian couple who had become friends were visiting us. They had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So we were four people and then the pastor and the woman arrived. And I thought she’d look strange and there’d be a fiery glint her eyes or her hair would be all out of order but she was a perfectly normal looking American housewife. So I was a little skeptical. Then the pastor said, remember, this is a Baptist pastor speaking, he said, She’s already been delivered of one demon of nicotine, but there are more. So I thought, I’m going to check this thing out carefully. So he planted her down in a chair, stood in front of her and started to shout at the demons commanding them to manifest themselves. Obviously there was something strange about the woman, but the demons didn’t respond.
So eventually, and I think he made a mistake thinking the louder he shouted the more power he had which is really not Scriptural. So eventually I thought, if he can do it, I can do it. So when he got tired I stepped in front of the woman and theologically I knew exactly what to do. So I said, You evil spirit that’s in this woman, I’m speaking to you and not to the woman and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I command you to answer me. What is your name? Well, I was completely taken aback when the demon immediately answered, and it said one word, Hate. And when it said hate, I had never seen such pure undiluted hatred expressed in the eyes and face of any person. So I thought, I got the answer, what do I do next? So I said, You demon of Hate, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I command you to come out of this woman. And this surly, masculine voice answered, I’m not coming out! This is my home. I’ve lived here 35 years and I’m not coming out.
Well, I continually checked everything mentally with the Scripture, and thought, that’s right, because the demon that went out of the man said, I’ll go back into my home. Do you remember? So I thought, what do I do now? So I thought, I’ll just beat it down. So I entered into one of the most intense spiritual conflicts I’d ever been in speaking to this demon of hate. Well, suddenly the demon changed its tactics. The woman’s arms rose up, crossed over her throat and she began to throttle herself. And, I mean, it was no imagination. Her face was turning purple and her eyes were popping out. So the other man there, the Presbyterian who’d come along by accident, came to me and we both used our united strength to pull that woman’s hands away from her throat, and it took all the strength we had to do it. And then she ceased to throttle herself and I spoke to the spirit again and it came out. And how I knew it came out, it was like there was balloon inflated inside me pressuring this demon, but when the demon came out, the woman relaxed, her head sagged forwards, her whole body slumped, and this balloon inside me was deflated.
So, I knew that the spirit had gone. Then I thought, there are more. So after a while I said, Now the next spirit, I command you to manifest yourself. Without going into all the details I think six or seven, I don’t remember, six or seven spirits named themselves and came out. Hate was the first, and then Fear, and I don’t remember them all. But one was Self-pity. When I heard the name Self-pity, I thought, now I begin to understand why some people act the way they do. And then there was Infidelity, and I realized, I mean I reasoned this out afterwards, that there was a spirit in the woman tempting her to be unfaithful to her marriage vows. Well, several of them came out and then the last one named itself as Death. And again I thought to myself, Is this Scriptural? But I remember there in Revelation chapter 6 there was horse and the rider on it was named Death. So death was not just a physical condition, it’s a person. So I commanded the spirit of Death to come out.
Well, by this time the woman had sagged on her back to the floor, and as the spirit of Death came out she looked exactly like a dead person. There was not a sign of life. Her face was colorless, pallid and colorless, and her skin was absolutely cold. But the spirit came out and she laid there relaxed for maybe ten minutes. Then she put her arms up in the air and began to spoke in tongues and praised the Lord, and I knew she was delivered. Well, that changed my whole understanding of dealing with demons. It didn’t change my theology, but it gave me a practical approach to the whole subject. Well, then I faced my precious Pentecostal congregation. And I thought, now I begin to understand what’s going on with these people. I could see in their eyes and understand from their behavior that some of them had problems with demons, but I thought, If I just talk to them about demons they’ll never receive that.
So I’d just skirt about that subject, and they sat back with indulgent smiles on their faces. The pastor’s got a bee in his bonnet, but he’ll be all right. I had helped them and they were grateful to me. But who knows what would have happened. One Sunday morning I was preaching my Sunday morning’s service. Actually I didn’t know this, this was long before the days of cassette recorders, but there was a man in the congregation, who’s become a firm friend to this day, and he was there with a reel to reel recorder, recording my message so I listened to it afterwards and I was able to check that I was accurate to what I’d said. And I don’t know what I was preaching about, but I waxed very, very bold, and my theme was Elijah. And I said, in effect, it doesn’t matter what the devil does, God has the answer. Satan had his Pharaoh; God had His Moses. Satan had his prophets of Baal; God had His Elijah.
And at that moment the young woman who regularly played the piano for the morning worship service and was sitting on the row in front let out a piercing, blood-curdling scream and collapsed in a writhing, I don’t know, just writhing and turning on the floor, right in front of my pulpit. So I was absolutely on the spot. I either had to prove what I was saying or stop saying it. And it didn’t occur to me to stop saying it because with the little experience I’d had in private I knew what was going on. So I mean my congregation were absolutely in a state of shock; I mean their eyes and their mouths were wide open. So I thought, I need some help here and I knew I could count on Lydia, so I called her forward and then I thought I need a little more help and I saw the Presbyterian couple near the back, so I said, If brother and sister so-and-so will come forward we’ll minister to our sister.
And at that moment she was so different from the woman that played the piano, I really couldn’t be sure it was the same woman. Anyhow the Presbyterian lady was very bold and she didn’t wait for anything, she started to jump up and down in front of this woman, and say, You demon that’s in this woman, what is your name? And out of this woman there came this rough masculine voice said, My name is… and would go no further. Well the Presbyterian lady got tired and I thought, Well, my turn now. So I stepped up in front and I said, What is your name? And the same answer, My name is… So I was beginning to learn that you can beat demons down by prayer and by Scripture. So I just went at it with prayer and Scripture and suddenly this demon let out a loud shout. It said, My name is Lies. And I said, You Lying spirit, come out, and it refused. I still commanded it and suddenly it came out.
When it came out, it came out with a loud roar, a sustained roar. No human voice could sustain a roar that long. It was like an express train going past. Then the woman who was being prayed for sagged to the floor in a sort of heap. Well, thank God, I’d had some previous experience, because I could easily have said, Our sister’s been delivered. Let’s praise the Lord. But I knew there was more there than that. But I thought with a Sunday morning worship service, that’s enough of this for the time being. So I said, If one of the deacons will help our sister to take her into my office, we’ll continue with the service. So a deacon came along and the Presbyterian brother came along and Lydia went with them. They disappeared into the office. So I thought, what do I say now? It wouldn’t have made any difference what I said. My whole congregation were in a state of shock. I could have told them anything.
So I tried to preach, and then Lydia put her head around the door and said, You’d better come in here quickly, and I knew she was not given to panic so I thought something must be going on. So I said to the congregation, I think we’ve finished the service. You can go home or you can stay and pray. Whatever you feel like. And then I turned to go into the office and a very godly woman whom I’d come to know came to me and said, Mr. Prince, was that our daughter? And I looked at her and I said, I think it must have been. She was the only person sitting there. But she had so changed that I really wasn’t sure whether it was their daughter. So she said, May I come with you? I said, By all means. Then the husband of this woman, that’s the father of the girl, came too. We went into the office and there was the deacon and the Presbyterian brother holding the woman by her arms, and she was struggling fiercely, and every time she got her hand free she was tearing her clothing off.
So I thought to myself, this is not the usual spectacle in the pastor’s office on a Sunday morning! But thank God I’d had a little previous experience. So the mother of the girl who was a very spiritual woman, said to me, Mr. Prince, we’ve been trying to make an appointment with you for several days to talk to our daughter, because something has been going wrong. And she was a nurse, this mother, so she had a very discreet language to describe things with. She said there’s something strange has come in the relationship between our daughter and her husband. Then it turned out, and there was a quite a lot of talking going on, that the girl who’d been the center of the thing had developed a strange relationship with her brother-in-law, that’s her husband’s brother, and I don’t think there was actually immorality, but there was something wrong. Then it transpired that she and he were exchanging letters with sort of, you know, it could mean something and it could mean nothing.
And then she had in her purse, in her handbag, a letter she’d written to this brother-in-law. So at that I point I said, Now, listen. This relationship is sinful and if you’re not willing to give me that letter and watch me tear it up, I’m not going to pray for you, because you’ve not repented. So it took about ten minutes to persuade her to give me the letter. So I took it from her, tore it up, put it in the wastepaper basket. Then I was perfectly prepared to let Lydia pray for the woman, because she was a woman, but I felt the Lord indicating to me, No, this is your responsibility. So I put my hand on the back of the young woman, and when I did that, she slumped to the floor in a sitting position.
Then I had this strange sensation it’s my job to cast demons out, and every demon that came out, it was like it registered in the palm of my hand like those things where you put an airline ticket in and there’s a little ding and a light shines. And every demon named itself. I didn’t command them to, it did. And there were some very obscene sexual names. Also one name was Flirtation and another was Petting. And I thought that’s useful information too. So we went on for maybe I would say at least half an hour, and then the last demon came out. And just like the other woman, this young woman was flat on her back on the floor totally exhausted. She had no strength whatever, and laid there for ten minutes. Then she put her arms up in the air and began to thank God for deliverance.
Well, some of the results of that were rather disappointing, because the young woman who’d been delivered never came back to the church. She was too embarrassed to face the people who had seen her. And this led me to think, what am I pastoring? Is it a middle-class social club that meets on Sunday mornings, or is it a place where people who really need help can come for help? So I made up my mind at that point that I was going to help the people that needed help if I could. And it was supernatural. It was right like this thing that somebody had thrown a big rock into the middle of a pond and there was a big splash. But after that the waves started to go out circular in all directions to the verge of the pond.
And I mean, I cannot explain what happened but people began to seek Lydia and me, mostly they came to our home. A few came to the church. I don’t even know how they got to know our address, and for weeks on end we hardly ever went to bed before about 2 A.M. People would come and tell us their stories and we would pray for them. And interestingly enough, Jesika, who was about five at that time, would sit in a corner on the couch with her head buried in her hands and I never felt there was any danger, and when it was all over she would say, Did you get them all out? So she grew up knowing about deliverance. By the time I came along my parents were traveling a lot because the ministry had expanded.
And so I look back and I think I don’t know if I really saw them all that much. But our relationship was good. I mean, I remember asking my parents for a dog, and we were living in Chicago back then, and I was going to school and I must have been in first grade, and I remember coming home and my parents saying, We have a surprise for you. So I went into the living room and there was two poodle puppies. And I think that was one of my fondest memories because it was such a surprise and such a loving gift. We prayed a lot as a family, at the dinner table and I think what I've gained from my parents is a prayer life and seeing that they’re consistent in their faith.
Since I was like the last of the girls, I grew up as an only child, and I think by the time I came along my parents mellowed out a whole lot. I think they were a lot stricter with my sisters, and so they probably think I was spoiled. Yeah, you know, my mother has been gone so long and I do have fond memories of her. And she was much older because when I was adopted by them she was in her late sixties, and I was six months old. But she was strict in the sense of clothes and I remember I was wanting my ears pierced, and she had definite ideas about that and she liked me to wear dresses, and not to be barefoot in the house. So I mean, she had some rules. But we were close.
My fondest memory would be that the week before she died she and I and another lady were in the living room and we just really would be singing and praying and dancing around the room, and that was the week before she died. So I have that as a strong memory of her. You know a lot of people see Derek as a speaker and an author, and by living with him, not that he's perfect, he has been a person that I could say I truly like. He has been one of my favorite people. Because I have a lot of respect for him. And what I would have to say, he has shown me love, even when I wasn't lovable. And it touches me deeply. I’ve seen his walk with the Lord, that is true, what you see on the pulpit, is true in real life.