Is It Possible To Have the Holy Spirit and a Demon at the Same Time?

I’m afraid what I’m going to say may shock some of you, but the most difficult people to deal with are people who have two kinds of spirit. One is the Holy Spirit, and the other is not.

Now, people will tell you, “But the Holy Spirit wouldn’t dwell in an unclean vessel.” That’s wrong. The Holy Spirit does dwell in unclean vessels. If He didn’t, we’d have no hope. Some people take the attitude, “The Holy Spirit will only come in when you’re completely pure.”

But the Holy Spirit comes in to make us pure. Without Him, we cannot be purified. So we need Him. It’s like if a professor at a university would say to his class, “Now, when you’ve passed your exams, I’ll teach you.”

And they’d say, “But Professor, we need you to teach us to pass our exams.” After all, David committed adultery and murder and prayed,

“Take not thy Holy Spirit from me.”

And God didn’t. So if anything defiles, adultery and murder do, but the Holy Spirit did not leave David. That was the grace and mercy of God. Aren’t you glad that the Holy Spirit doesn’t leave you every time you do something wrong?

You know, Jesus, in Mark 7, lists 13 things that defile a man, and one of them is pride, and one of them is foolishness. Dear Lord, how many Spirit-filled Christians would there be left if every time we got proud or foolish, the Holy Spirit left us?

So the Holy Spirit does dwell in vessels that are not totally pure. And sometimes He’s willing to share that vessel with another spirit from another source. I do not appeal to experience, but I’ve had to say that I’ve dealt with dozens of cases.

And the hardest thing for a poor pastor is to deal with people like that. The lady who gets interpretation, and sometimes it’s right on, and sometimes it’s right off. You’ve never been in those situations? You haven’t lived long. Haven’t moved in the circles that I’ve moved in.

I remember when I was pastoring in London years ago when this happened. I really was at my wit’s end. I didn’t know what to do. I remember a man who came to me. He said, “Get this demon out of me.” I said, “You don’t have a demon. I’ve heard you speak in tongues.”

I was wrong, and he was right. And I never really helped him because I couldn’t acknowledge his problem. He died later, prematurely, an unhappy man. And I have to say my theology kept me from helping him. Well, I’ve changed my theology.

I’ve changed it to fit in with reality. But I think you’ll agree, as you go through your spiritual experience, one of the most difficult people to deal with is the one who sometimes has the right spirit and sometimes another spirit.

And I’m going to say something which, in a way, is painful, but I’ve prayed much about this. I think God wants me to say it. Pentecostals, of whom I am one, have a kind of awe of William Branham. How many of you have heard of William Branham? That’s most of you.

Well, William Branham was a man of God with a most remarkable and dramatic gift from God. But I happen to have been friends with a Bible teacher, whose name I will not give, who worked very closely with William Branham for several years.

And he gave us once a personal sharing, and he said, “I had to come to the conclusion that there were two spirits in William Branham. One was the Spirit of God, and one was not.” And you see, the sad thing is, and I say this with real sadness, in spite of his marvelous gifts and the way God used him, his end was either pathetic or tragic, according to how you view it.

He was killed as a result of a motor accident in which his car was struck by a drunk driver. And he left behind a little group of fanatics who were worshipers of William Branham and who are some of the saddest people you’ll ever meet in a Christian association.

Why did that happen? Because if you mix two spirits and don’t eliminate the wrong one, ultimately, it will corrupt the work of the good one.