18/03/2025
In 1994 I had a strange, unexpected experience. I was with a group of Christian intercessors, waiting on the Lord. Suddenly, without any act of my will, my hands went up into the air and my body went through a series of convulsive jerks. For a moment I felt embarrassed, wondering what the other people would think. Then I asked myself, Which is more important-what people think or what God wants to do?
I decided to yield without reservation to what God was doing. (Actually, most of the others were too preoccupied with God to notice what was happening to me.) The convulsive jerks lasted for a few minutes; then I relaxed and my body went limp. I knew I had received deliverance from a spirit, and the word stiffness came to my mind. Then God showed me when and how that spirit had gained access.
When I was born in India in 1915, the local medical facilities were relatively primitive. When I was eighteen months old, the doctor detected that my legs were unequal in length. He put one leg in a splint for several months and instructed my mother to keep me on my back. As a result I developed a stiffness in some parts of my body and an inability to make certain normal physical movements.
In the intervening nearly eighty years, I had experienced a whole series of blessings from God: salvation, the baptism in the Holy Spirit, miraculous healing, the exercise of various spiritual gifts. Yet that spirit of stiffness did not leave me until the moment God sovereignly intervened to expose it and drive it out. Now, since my deliverance, I have begun to experience new freedom of movement.
Like Lydia, my second wife, Ruth, has been an active participant with me in helping set many people free from demons. But her life, too, has not been free from demonic conflict. We have learned that God, in His sovereignty, uncovers demonic activity at timesof His own choosing.
One morning about ten years ago, we had been sitting up in bed reading our Bibles, as we regularly do, when Ruth began to speak of some of the influences to which she had been exposed as a practicing Jew. She related how powerfully her thinking had been affected by the humanistic element in Jewish culture. Suddenly she said, "I wonder if humanism could be a spirit."
When Ruth renounced that spirit and commanded it to leave her, she began to shake violently. In fact, if I had not held onto her, it would have thrown her out of bed. As soon as the spirit was cast out, Ruth regained control of her body and began to praise and worship God.
What surprised us both was that something that seemed so abstract and intellectual could produce such a powerful physical reaction. As I meditated on this, I realized that humanism has its roots in Greek philosophy. It is one of the major satanic forces at work in the world today, I believe, and will ultimately open the way for the rise of the Antichrist.
From this and other experiences in the demonic realm, I have come to see that we are in a war. The more battles we win, the more we learn to recognize Satan's tactics, and thus come closer to the full victory Jesus won for us on the cross.
I can sum up the lessons I have learned in the words of Paul in Philippians 3:12: "Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me."
Christians have sometimes had the attitude that “If I leave demons alone, they will leave me alone.” Regrettably, that is not true. Demons will not leave you. The fact that you are a Christian does not in itself protect you. On the contrary, demons view Christians as their primary target for attack.
Your best protection, therefore, is to discover what Scripture reveals about the nature and activity of demons. Then you will be able to avail yourself of the protection God has provided for you through faith in Christ.
- Derek Prince ( They shall Expel Demons)
Credit; JESUS SAVES TV
