The word 'devil' is the translation
of a Greek word diabolos which is found in the English
words diabolic, diabolical; in Spanish diabolo and so on. It means literally
the slanderer or the accuser and it's a title of Satan himself,
it's a title of one person. It is not normally used in the plural. What we are dealing
with is not Satan directly, what we are dealing with is
correctly called demons or evil spirits. The word demon comes
from a Greek word diamonion which has a very long history
in the Greek language and it means some
kind of a spirit being whom the ancients regarded
as half divine and half human and who was normally worshiped
or propitiated in certain ways. In fact, the majority of pagan
religions all through human history have centered around
the recognition of demons and attempts to propitiate them or
enlist their help or prevent their wrath. More or less, that's
how you can sum it up. The other phrase that's used
interchangeably in the New Testament is the phrase 'evil spirit'
or 'unclean spirit.' When I say interchangeably, in the synoptic gospels where one
writer will use the word 'demon' telling the same story
about the same incident another synoptic writer
will use the word 'evil spirit' or 'unclean spirit.'
These are interchangeable. We are not talking
about Satan himself, the prince of the
kingdom of darkness. We are not even talking about angels;
we are talking about spirit beings. As I understand it,
they are not angels. This is not essential
for your deliverance to know this but I observe
certain distinctions. Angels have their habitat
in the heavenlies. Evil spirits are earthbound. Angels apparently
have wings and fly. Evil spirits apparently
do not have wings and walk. Jesus said the unclean spirits walketh
through dry places seeking rest. Angels have bodies of their own and would not feel at home
nor have any reason to desire to be
inside a human body. Demons or evil spirits
are spirits without bodies that intensely crave
to be inside bodies. Primarily they would choose
to be inside a human body but rather than be
without a body to inhabit we find in the gospels that they would
prefer to go into the bodies of pigs. Without a body they cannot
express their nature. For instance, a demon
of blasphemy must have a tongue to blaspheme through. A demon of
doubt must have a mind to doubt through. A demon of lust must have a body
and physical members to lust through. A demon of alcohol must have
the appropriate physical organs to crave and to consume
alcohol through. They are tied up to the need
of a body to express themselves. Where demons came from is
a matter about which I have opinions after many years
but it isn't important. Jesus dealt with demons
by the thousands but he never stopped to
explain in his public teaching where they came from.
The important thing for you is not to know
where they come from, it's to know how to get rid of them. That the Bible tells you clearly. In regard to these
there are certain phrases used in the New Testament
and I'll enumerate them briefly. The three main phrases used
for a person who is in some way under the influence or power or
control of a demon or an evil spirit, these are the following
phrases. First of all, to have an unclean spirit or a demon. Secondly, to be in
an unclean spirit or a demon where I think modern
English wouldpeak about being under the influence of. Thirdly, there is a Greek
verb 'to be demonized.' The Greek verb, if you are familiar
with Greek, is daimonzomai and it means 'I am
demonized.' It's directly formed from the noun for demon. Demon in Greek, diamonion,
to be demonized, daimonzomai. See, it's just a verb
formed out of a noun. In the King James Version the verb that I have
spoken about, daimonzomai is normally translated
to be possessed with devils. This translation is a disaster. It has misled more people than
it will ever be possible to calculate because there is nothing
in the original Greek and I challenge
any Greek scholar to say to the contraryóthere
is nothing in the original Greek to justify the use
of the word possessed. This is what has misled
millions of people. You see, the word possessed
in the English language suggests total ownership. If I possess my Bible
then it is entirely mine and every page
in the Bible belongs to me. There's no shared ownership, no one has a claim
over 15 pages in my Bible; I possess it, it is my Bible. People say can a Christian
be demon possessed? The answer is obviously no. A Christian essentially is one who
belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. If he belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ the devil cannot own him,
that is absolutely clear. But, it doesn't mean that a Christian
cannot have areas in his life which are still under
the control of evil spirits. He may belong
by the choice of his will and the surrender of his will in salvation or the new birth
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Though he has given himself generally to the Lord
Jesus it may well be that there are areas within him where the Holy Spirit
and the nature of Christ are not in
effective control. You say, 'Brother Prince,
how do you know that?' I've been a Christian over 30 years and I know it from my
own personal experience. I was baptized in the Holy Spirit
about 30 years ago, having found the Lord
about two weeks previously in an Army barrack room.
I had a marvelous conversion, a total transformation. But many, many years later there were still
areas in my life where the Lord Jesus
was not in effective control. How many of you would say
that's pretty normal? Thank you. I just want you to see I'm not
talking to people from another world and I'm not talking
about abnormal people. Let me put it to you this way. I'm not jesting and I'm
not making fun of you at all. I want you to be
serious, I'm serious. Let me ask you
each one this question. How many of you would
say by raising your hand, 'Brother Prince, I believe
I have the Holy Spirit'? Praise the Lord. Alright.
Now I'm not making fun of you. If you put your hand up
I will not laugh at you. How many of you would
say by the same token, 'Brother Prince, I'm totally
controlled by the Holy Spirit'? Praise God.
Thank you. Well, there was one person
that raised his hand. I praise God for that,
I don't question it. Every Christian should
be in that condition. But we all know that most
Christians aren't as yet. Lots of people think
the Holy Spirit will only start a work in you and bless you when
you're perfect. Isn't that silly? When you're perfect
you won't need it. The idea that you've got to be
perfect before the Holy Spirit will move in and do
things for you is like sending young people
to a university and the professors come to them and say, 'Now
when you young people graduate, we'll start to teach you.'
When do you need teaching? Before you graduate. When we get to heaven
we'll have graduated. Then I don't know that
we'll need all that teaching. We need the Holy Spirit
to help us now in our weaknesses. You know what Romans 8:26 says, 'The Spirit helpeth
our infirmities.' The places where we're weak, the
places where we're having problems is just where we
need the Holy Spirit. Likewise, evil spirits, though
they cannot own a Christian, can move in or be in residence and occupy certain areas
of their personality. To illustrate it from
personal experience, I was a full gospel preacher
for a good many years but I had various
internal problems. I'll mention only one, it's a
common one, it was depression. I was subject to fits of depression. They would come down over me
and overshadow me and press me in like a great, dark,
moist cloud settling down over
me, shutting me in. I would have a feeling of
helplessness and hopelessness. It would be others can
but you can't. I would be aware that I would
carry this pressure around with me where I went. And
particularly, in my own home. It was very, very embarrassing
to me to think that I was subjecting my wife and children to
the pressure that I was under. I tried every means I knew
of to get rid of this depression. I fasted, I prayed, I can't
think of anything I didn't do. The embarrassing thing was
the more I fasted the worse it got. In fact, one of our daughters
said to me one day, 'Daddy, I wish you'd stop fasting
because you're worse when you fast.' Well, that's embarrassing
for a preacher. It was quite true
because what fasting did was bring the thing
out into the open. It didn't get it out
but it forced it into the open. Another thing I noticed was when I really wanted
to serve Christ to the utmost, that was when
the pressure was worst. But when I was content
to kind of go along with the stream and not make too much efforts
against the kingdom of Satan the pressure let up. I could not find the solution to this until one day reading
in Isaiah 61:3 I read this phrase.
'The garment of praise in place of the spirit of heaviness.'
When I read that phrase 'the spirit of heaviness'
I suddenly saw that's your problem. It's not a mental attitude,
it's not a psychological attitude; it's a person,
a spirit that knows you. Immediately I saw
a whole host of truth. I saw that the same spirit
had troubled my father most of the time that I knew him. It was a kind of family ghost that followed us down from
generation to generation. I could trace its activity. I realized that it understood me,
it knew my thoughts and it definitely planned
its strategy against me. It had one supreme aim, to prevent me serving
Christ effectively. I will tell you this
with regard to demons. Their headquarters
are in Satan's kingdom and they have two main
orders in relation to you. Number one, to keep you from Christ. If they fail in that
their second order is to stop you serving
Christ effectively. If they can't stop you
from being a Christian then they'll stop you from
being an effective Christian. You will find out that
this makes sense and explains a whole lot of things
in your experience. For instance, why can you stay
awake till midnight watching the TV but fall asleep before 10
o'clock if you read your Bible? Because the demon of slumber which
is referred to both in Old Testament and in New doesn't mind you
watching the late night show with Johnny Carson but does mind
you getting to know the word of God. Or, you take the case we
had of the neighbors with the pestilential little girl of about 3
and we used to watch. Friday night when they
went out grocery shopping she'd dress up and walk out
all smiling and sweet. Sunday morning when they
wanted to go to the full gospel Sunday School and church
she'd lie on the floor and kick her legs
in the air and scream. The spirit in that little girl
didn't mind the grocery store but hated the full gospel church. If you will work out a lot
of things that happen in your life I sometimes tell people
in meetings like this if you find an absolutely abnormal
resentment for Brother Prince rising in you right now,
be on your guard. There are many good reasons
why you could resent me but if I've done nothing to you
and it suddenly rises up in you, remember it's the devil trying to
stop you from coming to me for help. Behind these things,
if they are demonic, there's always an intelligence
that plots and plans and works out
how to frustrate you, defeat you, keep you miserable,
make you sick and, if possible, kill you. That's their objective. Don't forget
what Jesus said about the devil. 'The thief cometh not but
for to steal, to kill, to destroy.' That's why he's there. If you
tolerate him, that's what he's doing. Don't forget. If you tolerate Satan
in any area of your life whatever, he's there to steal, to take away
the things that are rightfully yours; your peace of mind, your innocence, your health, your right relationships
with your family and neighbors, your prosperity, your success. All these good things
that are yours in Christ the devil will seek
to steal from you. Secondly, he's there
to kill you physically. Many Christians every
year die murdered. Murdered by cancer and tumors
and all sorts of things. They don't live out their natural,
normal appointed life span; they're murdered by the devil. Then the third thing
he does to the unsaved not to the believer-is to torment
them eternally after death. That's his program. Jesus warned us, he said be very clear why the
devil comes, what his aims are. They're stated for you:
steal, kill, destroy. If you make friends with him
you know the kind of person you've made friends with. Now, the next question is what are the typical marks
of demon activity in a person? We all know that we have a nature
at least, I trust we all know that is prone to sin.
We're born rebels. I hope you know that.
Ephesians 2:2, 'We are all by nature
the children of wrath because we are the
children of disobedience.' Adam never begat any children
until he was a rebel. Every child that ever was begotten
of Adam and Adam's descendants was a rebel by birth. This is not my purpose
to teach this this afternoon, it's another message. We are
born with a rebellious nature. You ladies never had
to teach any of your children to be naughty, did you? No. But you had a problem teaching
them to be good, in most cases. So, we have a rebellious nature. We tend to desire
to do the wrong thing. The remedy for the rebellious
nature is not deliverance. The remedy for the rebellious
nature is the cross. Our old man, that old
rebellious Adamic nature, is crucified with Christ. If you're just dealing
with the Adamic nature, don't come to Brother Prince and
ask him to cast the old Adam out because it isn't scriptural.
It can't be done. The only remedy
for the old Adam is the cross. 'They that are Christ's
have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts.' This is the basic solution
beyond all solutions, it's the cross. But, in addition to
the old Adamic nature multitudes of people
have the compounded problem of what I call the vultures
that fasten on the carcass. The carcass: the old man; the vultures: the evil spirits
that fasten their claws and their beaks into that rotting
old carcass and feed upon it. If that's your situation, in addition to the cross
you may need the ministry of deliverance. The remedy for evil spirits
is not to crucify them; you cannot crucify
an evil spirit. It is to cast them out. On the other hand, you
cannot cast out the old man, you have to crucify him. See, the remedies
correspond to the needs. You cannot mix up the remedy
for the opposite need. Multitudes of people have been
struggling manfully to crucify demons. It just doesn't work. The Bible
says 'reckon the old man dead.' That's scriptural but it
doesn't say reckon demons dead because they aren't dead
and they'll never die. Now, naturally the question
arises, 'Brother Prince, if I have this recurrent, persistent, disturbing, frustrating
problem, how do I know whether it's just
the old man or whether it's an evil spirit
exploiting the old man? Well, on the blackboard I have written
up there in the middle 'Activities of Demons.' I have learned by experience
that these are the main ways in which demons operate
and manifest their presence, the things they habitually do. We'll glance at them.
Number one, they entice. This is temptation. The Bible says every
man is tempted when he is drawn away
of his own lust and enticed. There's something within
each one of us called lust, perverted desire; but there's
an agent that plays upon the lust. It's like the mouse, there's something
in the mouse that likes cheese. But to get the mouse into
the trap there's got to be someone that places the cheese just where
it will cause the mouse to be caught. The enticer,
the agent, is the demon. He plays upon lust, perverted
desires within you and me. One of the basic activities
of demons is enticement. Personally, I don't believe that Satan
comes down from the heavenlies every time you and
I need to be tempted. I believe he's got
a very well trained multitudinous army doing the job for him against us all the time. He says, 'There's a young
man just going into the ministry. He could be a danger. Demons get on his tail. Get him interested
in some smart divorcee who's got about three
children and a rotten past and get him side-tracked because
otherwise he's going to do damage.' See, that's the piece of cheese
that's baiting the mousetrap. Those evil spirits are playing upon something called
sexual lust inside a young man. That's just an example. The next activity is to enslave. Let's look at this particularly
in reference to sex. First of all, in regard to sex I want to say sex is not evil
contrary to the opinion of most Christians-it's good. God created man sexual and
after he created everything he saw that everything he had
created was very good, including sex. The church has got a totally wrong,
negative attitude toward sex. However, sex is also very powerful in most persons and, therefore,
the devil is smart enough to know that if he can get
control in the sex area he's got a very important
measure of control in that person. The next thing I want to say about
sex is it is no sin to be tempted. Jesus was tempted in all points
like as we are, yet without sin. So you can be tempted
without sinning. Further, if you are
tempted and sin sexually with a wrong act, that does not necessarily mean you
need deliverance from a sex demon. All you need to do is repent, confess to Jesus, receive
forgiveness and cleansing and there you are back
again, you're all right. But, if this thing becomes enslaving, if no matter how many
times you repent and confess and get forgiven and cleansed
you're back again doing it, then it's a demon. I believe every form of sex
perversion is demonic in its origin. The third thing
demons do is torment. They are the tormentors. In Matthew 18 there's
a parable told about a servant who was
forgiven six million dollars and refused to forgive
a fellow servant ten dollars. I'm putting it in modern values. When the master heard
about this unforgiving servant he said, 'Thou wicked servant.' He was very wrath and he
commanded him to be delivered to the tormentors . 'till he should pay
the uttermost farthing The last verse of that parable says 'So likewise shall my heavenly
Father do also unto you if ye do not from your
hearts forgive every man their brother his trespass.'
What's 'so likewise'? To deliver you to the tormentors. Who are the tormentors?
The demons. God awakened me to this fact because
I've had multitudes of Christians, uncounted multitudes,
coming to me in torment. I said to myself, 'God, how could
that be? They're your children. How do they get in
the hands of the tormentors?' God said, 'I put them there because they refused
to forgive another believer.' So likewise shall my heavenly
Father do also unto you. There are various areas of torment.
There's spiritual torment. The demon of fear
is probably the chief tormentor. The apostle John says,
'Fear hath torment.' There's a natural fear
which is perfectly normal. There's the fear of the Lord
which is reverence and respect and awe for God which
is clean and endureth forever. But there's another kind
of fear which is demonic, it's abnormal, it's unnatural,
it's excessive and it's tormenting. There's a tormentor. There's another tormentor
and it's condemnation, condemned all the time. The Bible says there is no condemnation
for them who are Christ Jesus. Another tormentor is doubt. Then there's physical torment. Cancer, arthritis and so on. Number four, the fourth main
activity is to drive or compel. The Gadarene demoniac
was driven out of habitation of man into the area
of the tombs. Anything that is compulsive
suggests the activity of a demon. Compulsive eating, compulsive
talking, compulsive sleeping. There are many areas.
All these things are normal. It's normal to talk, normal
to eat and normal to sleep. But when it becomes
driving, compulsive, nagging, you can suspect a demon. Number five, defiling.
Demons are unclean. All evil spirits are unclean. Many people have their mind and
their conscience defiled by demons. Their minds are filled with
thoughts and suggestions that they resent and hate but they
come crowding in almost endlessly. They're defiled in their
minds by evil suggestions. Then number six, harass. They just get at you, they
disturb you, they trouble you. Just the moment you're
going to do something for God they begin to get on you. My family learned years ago
when I was about to preach, stop talking to him because he's got everything
he needs to keep calm before that message.
As a matter of fact, since I've had deliverance
from three particular spirits which came in different phases: depression, anger
and embarrassment, I can be perfectly
relaxed before I preach. But that's an achievement.
It didn't come in one day and it isn't true
of all preachers, believe me. The normal preacher
is a bundle of nerves before he gets into the pulpit. He's harassed. Now, we want to deal with
what I call the city within. I have said that though
a Christian belongs to the Lord there may be areas within him
where the Lord is not in control. The Bible compares
the inner nature of man to a city. Proverbs 16:32: He that is slow to anger
is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit better than he that
taketh the city. Ruling your own spirit
is better than taking a city in war. And the other one,
Proverbs 25:28: He that hath no rule over
his own spirit is like a city that is broken down
and without walls. No defense, he can't
keep anything out. Any demon that the devil
sends against him can come in and settle in that city
because it has no protection. Many drug addicts are like that. Persistent dope addiction
makes a person inwardly like a city broken down and without walls. Everything will come in
one after another. You'll find most
persistent drug addicts not merely need deliverance
from the drugs like heroin, they need deliverance from deception,
hatred, resentment, rebellion, sex perversion and
all sorts of other things because they've lost
the ability to keep anything out of that inner city within them. There are other people
besides drug addicts that have become like a city that
is broken down and without walls. My purpose in speaking is to bring out this
illustration of the city that's within each one of us. The city I always use to illustrate
this is one which I lived, Chicago. The mayor of Chicago
is Richard J. Daley and many people feel
he's doing a good job as mayor. But, though Richard J. Daley
is duly elected mayor, everybody who knows Chicago
knows there are quite a lot of areas in Chicago where
Richard J. Daley is not in control. There are some areas in
Chicago where even the police have to go two at a time in daylight. There are other areas
of Chicago and they include certain areas of the
political life of the city which are run by the Mafia although Daley is
the duly elected mayor. This is like a Christian. You've elected Jesus
Christ, he's mayor, he's in the mayor's chamber
but you've still got the Mafia running around somewhere inside. As a matter of fact,
the Mafia actually is a very vivid picture
of demon activity because demons regularly
operate in gangs, they do not operate singly. So much so that I've learned that
if I meet one member of a gang, to look for the others
almost instantly. For instance, let's take a few. You have the case
of depression, fear, loneliness,
self-pity, despair. Do you know the next one?
Suicide, that's right. When you find that group you
it's only a question of time if suicide hasn't come in. Each one opens
the way for the next. Or, you can take anger, violence. And the next one, murder. Bear this in mind. Demons do not come in necessarily
because you've committed the thing; they come in to make
you commit the thing. For instance, the demon of
suicide obviously doesn't come in because you've committed suicide but
it comes in to make you commit suicide. The demon of murder
does not come in to (...) because you've committed murder;
it comes in to make you commit murder. Lots of people have
said to me in horror when I've called the demon
of murder out of them, 'Brother Prince, I've never
committed murder.' I say, 'No, but that demon came in with the
intention of making you commit murder somewhere further along the line. As long as you had him in you
were always in a dangerous position. Because, in a sudden
moment of anger, who knows what you
would have done?' How many people you read about
in the newspaper commit murder and when they're charged with it
they say, 'I don't know what made me do it.'
No, they don't but the devil does. He had that demon
waiting for maybe 15 years 'till he got that man to
a place where he was drunk and somebody insulted him
or ran off with his wife and then the demon of murder
went into top gear and said, 'Now
is my opportunity.' Other people have
the demon of adultery who have not committed
adultery but it's there pushing them into it. Let's take briefly
the main areas in the city. I could illustrate
this from Chicago. You have The Loop
with the businesses. A little further west
you have The Banks. You go a little south
from the center of Chicago and you have the depots,
the warehouses. Go further south you have a residential
area which is basically Negro. Go back to The Loop
and go west and you have an area which is primarily Polish. Go back to The Loop and go north and you
have an area which is primarily Jewish and then
another area which is primarily Swedish. You go back to the suburbs
with their different characteristic levels of social success
and prestige and so on. Every area of the city
has its own distinctive characteristic occupations
and inhabitants. This is like the city within you. It's divided up into areas, each with its own
characteristic inhabitants. I'm going briefly through this list
and I'm not going to dwell on any. I would say the first main area is
emotions, attitudes and relationships. And for every
negative attitude, emotion and relationship there
exists the corresponding demon. Resentment, hatred,
rebellion, fear, depression, loneliness,
self-pity, envy, jealousy, pride
and a whole host of others. There's a demon for each one. The fact that you feel envy
every now and then doesn't mean you have
the demon of envy as I've said. But when it becomes compulsive, when it is persistent, when it is beginning to occupy
a sort of major part of your life, then it's a demon. The commonest,
I would say, is fear. I say about 1 in 5 persons
need deliverance from the spirit of fear alone. As I said already, they go in gangs. Find one and you
can pick out the others. They go in succession. For
instance, the problem of multitudes of young people
in America today is this: resentment [always against
their parents], hatred, rebellion. When rebellion enters, first of all,
it's directed towards their parents, then the church, then school,
then the government, then God.
