Deliverance from Spirit of Death

We still hadn’t finished, and I made the next spirit name itself, and it said, “Death.” Immediately, I thought, could that be scriptural? And there came to my mind Revelation 6, the horse whose rider was called “Death.” I realized that death is not just a condition; it’s a personality.

Now, I don’t recommend talking to demons in a conversational way or consulting them, but it is scriptural to ask them questions and compel them to answer. As I say, I’m not saying that everything I did was a pattern of what should be done. But I said to this spirit of death, “When did you enter into this woman?” And it said, “About three and a half years ago when she nearly died on the operating table.”

Later, I checked with the woman. This was true. She’d had major surgery and almost died on the operating table. I’ve learned since then that if a person has a major illness or a major operation, the spirit of death very frequently enters at that time. A person who receives the spirit of death may well die without adequate physical grounds to cause death. I have confirmed this since then with medical doctors who’ve been in this realm of experience.

Well, we went against this spirit of death, and ultimately, it came out. As it came out, her face became like a death mask. There was not one shred of color anywhere in it. It was waxen, cold. When the spirit came out, she was stretched on her back on the floor. Anybody walking into the room would have said instantly there was a dead woman on the floor. I remember then how they said about the boy out of whom Jesus drove the epileptic spirit, they said, “He’s dead.” But Jesus said, “He is not dead,” and raised him up.

The woman lay exhausted for about 10 minutes and then began to praise the Lord and speak in tongues. She had been speaking in tongues before, and I had stopped her because God showed me that while she was speaking in tongues, the evil spirits couldn’t come out. They couldn’t pass that barrier. This isn’t orthodox Pentecostal doctrine, but it just happens to be true.

So that was it, five hours. We felt the battle was won. Now, if this would have happened today, I would know immediately that such a woman would need follow-up and further instruction to ask her how to protect herself because Satan would certainly not leave her alone. However, we didn’t know this. About halfway through the following week, she phoned my wife and me and said, “I think some of them are trying to come back. Would you come out and see me?”

So we went out to her home and began to talk with her. The youngest child, a girl of six, was there. A thin, unhappy, shy little child who never would look you in the eyes. No matter how you looked at her, she would not look you in the eye. She was graded at school, retarded. So after a little while, I said to this mother, “I know the devil doesn’t always tell the truth, but when he said that they’d got your daughter, I think he must have been telling the truth.” She said, “Would you pray for my daughter?” I said, “Certainly, we will.”

So she made an appointment, and exactly one week later, the following Saturday, they came with this little girl of six. Approximately the same people were present, the Presbyterian brother and his wife. I don’t think the Baptist minister was there the second time. For about three or three and a half hours, we went through the same procedure with the little girl of six that we’d gone through with the mother. The evil spirits took over, they took charge of her countenance, they took charge of her gestures, and they spoke with their voice out of the little girl’s lips. I turned to the mother and said, “Is that your daughter’s voice you’re listening to?” She said, “It isn’t even like my daughter’s voice.”

Several of the same spirits that had been in the mother were in the daughter. Hate was one. I don’t remember all of them, but I remember vividly the last one, again, was death. When this spirit of death came out, the little child, like the mother, was stretched out on the floor looking like a corpse. Now, I have not been able to follow up fully on that, but about two years later, that child was doing all right at school and was no longer graded retarded. There’s this positive evidence of a change that took place.

Well, this experience really, once and for all, opened my eyes. I saw the reality of evil spirits. I saw that they were exactly as they were portrayed in the New Testament, that they acted the same way, and that the New Testament way of dealing with them was the only really effective way. Now, I was preaching then to my congregation, who were good Pentecostals, real good Pentecostals. I began to look at my congregation in a new light. I saw things and forces at work in them that I’d never understood.

So I thought they need deliverance, too. I began to kind of preach in a roundabout way about deliverance. Well, I’ll tell you, there’s no good preaching in a roundabout way. Never give hints as a preacher because the wrong people always take them. You give a hint about being too noisy, and the one that’s noisy doesn’t listen, but the little shy, mousy woman that never would open her mouth is squelched forever. See? If you’ve got anything to say to an individual, say it to the individual, not to the group. That’s just by the way.

Well, when I began to talk about deliverance for Pentecostal people, they sat back with an indulgent sort of smile on their face and thought, “Our pastor’s got a bee in his bonnet, but he’s helped us, and he’ll get over it.” Who knows what would have happened? But one Sunday morning in the worship service, I had chosen as my text Isaiah 59:19:

“When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.”

Now, I was not aware of it, but a tape was being made of this message, and it’s preserved, and I have it today. So I can, everything I say can be verified from the tape. I didn’t hear the tape till about six months later, and I was interested to hear myself because I realized about, after about 15 minutes of preaching, the Holy Spirit began to take control of me in an unusual way, and I began to say things that I hadn’t planned to say. And furthermore, my voice changed.