The Power Behind Deliverance and Healing

I know of another case of a woman who's a dentist's wife. She came for deliverance in meetings that I was in, also in Chicago. And she's one of these people who would look at me and say, “Am I completely free?” And I always say, “It's not my business to tell you.”

“Am I completely free?” “Well,” I said, “you could be, but then on the other hand, I'm not sure that you are.” And she came to me the third time. Well, I said, “If you want to be frank, I'll stick my neck out. I don't believe you are free.” She said, “Why not?” I said, “All I can sense is that somewhere you crossed the line into forbidden territory. You got involved with a representative of Satan.”

She was rather indignant. So, the couple that brought her, who were friends of ours, she was going away complaining, “Brother Prince didn't help me.” So, they said, “Well, why don't you pray to God and ask God to show you if what he said might have been true?”

So next morning, alone in an apartment, she got down on her knees and said, “God, if that was true, and if there was a time when I crossed into forbidden territory, show it to me.” And immediately, she remembered that before she was converted, as a nominal church member in a Methodist church, the most spiritual—I would have to say, quote, “spiritual”—lady in the church came to her once and said, “Let me read your palm. Let me tell your fortune.”

And she submitted to this lady, and the lady said, “You're going to give birth to a baby, and it's going to be born dead.” And she believed it. And she gave birth to a baby, and it was born dead. And it had the umbilical cord wrapped twice around its throat, which choked it. The doctor who delivered the baby said, “I have never seen another case like this in all my experience.”

And praying there in that room, all this came back to her, and she realized that she'd crossed forbidden territory by going to that woman in the Methodist church and letting her tell her fortune. And that woman had decreed Satan's decree over her life, and she had submitted to the decree and permitted Satan to do it. She then renounced and rejected that spirit of divination, released herself from it, all by herself in the apartment. And she said, “I had a most violent physical reaction, all by myself, but I was delivered.”

All right, here's this girl with a spirit of divination, a fortune-telling demon, followed Paul and Silas and cried, saying,

“These men are the servants of the most high God, who show unto us the way of salvation.”

Notice two things. Number one, every word she said was true. Number two, she was the first person in Philippi to recognize the preachers of the gospel. And yet, she was saying it by the influence of an evil spirit.

So people say so naively, “Well, what she told me was true. It must be of God.” Friend, I want to tell you this: Satan mixes truth and lies. If he only told lies, no one would ever believe him. So he tells you enough of the truth to get you believing him, and then he injects his lies.

So for many days, Paul and Silas were tormented by this girl following them. Now, some people believe she was a believer, some say she wasn't. I don't think you can prove it either way. Then the Holy Spirit showed Paul what to do. He turned. He did not speak to the girl. He spoke to the spirit of divination in the girl, and in the name of Jesus Christ, he commanded that spirit to come out. And it says,

“he came out of her the same hour.”

And she lost the ability to tell fortunes. And her owners got mad because they couldn't make any more money out of her. They had Paul and Silas beaten and thrown in jail. And then Don Basham's message goes like this: sitting there in the jail, round about midnight, Silas said to Paul, “There you are, Paul. If you hadn't got into the deliverance ministry, everything would have been all right.” Mind you, there's a lot of truth in that. See, it's fantastic when you think of the reaction, because one slave girl lost the ability to tell fortunes, the whole city was turned into an uproar. Friend, there was more in that than was natural. Behind that slave girl was the whole kingdom of darkness. And Paul challenged it, and the whole kingdom of darkness reacted against it. It's very deep truth in that.

Acts 19, verses 11 and following.

“God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul.”

We talked about special miracles this morning. Thank God for even ordinary miracles, but praise the Lord for special miracles. And I really believe we saw one or two special miracles here this morning. That lady that had the power of God even going through her teeth, I would call that a special miracle myself.

“So that from Paul's body were taken unto the sick, handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.”

Notice, evil spirits and physical disease are very closely connected. And in many cases, healing could only be accomplished through deliverance from the spirits of disease that caused the condition.

Well, then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists—exorcists are people who go around claiming to be able to get rid of evil spirits. They are a well-known breed in many parts of the world. The Jews have practiced exorcism for more than 2,000 years. The Muslims practice exorcism. One of the ways the Muslims use to get evil spirits out of a person is to put hot irons on the area of the body affected by the evil spirit. And I've seen people, their body burned all over by the exorcist plying this hot iron to get rid of the demons. But I don't think in most cases it works. But that just shows you, all pagan nations know that evil spirits are real. The only thing they don't know is how to deal with them. And that comes through the gospel.

Well, anyhow, these exorcist Jews took upon themselves to call over those who had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying,

“We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.”

And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, chief of the priests, which did so. The evil spirit in the man answered and said,

“Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?”

Now, in the English, the word “know” is the same, but in Greek, it's different. He said, “Jesus I acknowledge, and Paul I know about, but who are you?”

And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. You must understand, a person who has an evil spirit often has totally supernatural strength, so that one man could beat up and drive out seven men.