Areas of Residence (continued)

There are the two churchgoing demons, criticism and gossip. I was in a church meeting once and a lady came up with a demon, I said your problem is criticism. I said, “You spirit of criticism, come out of her!” and about four people around started to get delivered at the same time! Exaggeration, the evang-e-l-a-s-t-i-c demon, blasphemy. I was a slave of blasphemy when the Lord saved me. Absolutely incapable of speaking without blaspheming. Unclean speech and so on. Negative talking.

Number four, the thing that nobody talks about in church, sex. Because it is not discussed in church, people with problems in the area of sex go to a psychiatrist. And he says, “Madam, you have a guilt problem and your problem centers in your religion. Give up your religion and you won’t feel guilty.” No, they don’t all say that. But I would say if you sat in church for ten years and still feel guilty, your problem is your religion. Really. I would change to another religion, if that’s all it can do is leave you feeling guilty.

Now we have to say certain things about sex. First of all, sex is not evil. It’s good. We have to clear way that misunderstanding. God created man and woman sexual beings. And after He checked on everything He created, He said it was all very good, including sex. One of the big problems in church is we just are not honest about sex, we’re ashamed about it, we’re prudish and we encourage problems by that attitude. I would say every form of compulsive sex aberration is demonic. Without exception. Masturbation, adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, effeminacy and all sorts of horrid perversions that we won’t talk about. I would say every one of those is demonic. Now you don’t have to feel ashamed, but you do need to resolve your problem.

Number five, lusts. Now we could have included sex under that heading but it’s such a distinctive area I kept it separate. Perverted desires and appetites. I believe all appetites initially were healthy. But by sin and demonic power they’ve been perverted to become unhealthy and destructive. 1 John 2:16 speaks about the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes. There is demonic power that controls eyes. Some men have to look at women in a special way, they’re absolutely incapable of not doing that. That’s a demon that’s focused in their eyes. As I’ve said already, gluttony is a very clear example of a perverted appetite. I had a woman once who traveled seventy miles in a snowstorm to Chicago to be delivered. She was the daughter of a Pentecostal pastor. Like many people in that situation, she’d rebelled against her parents and their religion, married an unsaved man and ended up miserable. She had three children. She came and got delivered from the demon of gluttony and she said to me afterwards, “Mr. Prince, no one can tell me this isn’t real. It’s just as real as having a baby, and rather like it, and I’ve had three.” And then she told me she was so compulsive in her gluttony that she would take food off her children’s plate and eat it even though she knew they needed it more than she did.

You see, let’s talk about addictions for a moment. Addictions grow on frustrations. They’re branches on a trunk. And if you merely deal with the addiction, you haven’t solved the problem. Take alcohol and gluttony. One woman is Episcopalian, her husband runs around with other women, doesn’t care for her, doesn’t give her enough money and so on. All right. She gets frustrated, she’s got to get some relief, she walks across the living room to the cocktail cabinet, becomes an alcoholic. The other woman is Church of God, okay? Her husband does exactly the same. But for that woman to get to the cocktail cabinet would be a lengthy journey. So where does she go? To the kitchen and opens the refrigerator. But she becomes a foodaholic. But the difference is minimal, really. And in either case, to help them you’ve got to deal with the basic frustration which is their attitude toward their husband. All right. We have to go on with the list.

Number six, the whole realm of the occult. I’m just going to write occult. But that is a vast realm. And every part of it is demonic. Even the respectable parts. And I would not involve you to be involved in Yoga exercises, let me say that. I was in Yoga, I was a practicing Yogi. And I would tell you, there is nothing in that I would touch with a ten foot pole. You don’t have to depend on Yoga for physical health, the Lord will give you physical health. I’m just saying, the occult is a deep, dark pit. It’s one of those caves where all the steps, foot marks lead inwards and none ever lead outwards.

All right, number seven. All false religions. Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Buddhism, Hinduism, and in some respects, Judaism. Okay. There isn’t a false religion that doesn’t have a demon about it. Satan is an expert in the field of religion. It’s the main area in which he operates.

Number eight, all heresies. And by heresies I mean departures from the Christian faith. Let’s turn to 1 Timothy 4 for a moment.

“Now the Spirit expressly says, [the Spirit, capital S, the Holy Spirit.] Now the Spirit expressly states that in latter times [that’s the times in which we’re now living], some will depart from the faith [What faith? The Christian faith. Why?] giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.” (NKJ)

This is happening on a wide scale today. And then it goes on to say, he gives some examples of their errors.

“Speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving... [etc.]” (NKJ)

Particularly on the west coast of the United States you’ll find hundreds of thousands of people to whom that applies. They’re becoming super-spiritual, they decide not to marry, or if they’re married, they don’t cohabit with their spouse, and they are going to be super-spiritual by what they eat. Now I believe in eating wisely, but I don’t make a religion out of it. Understand? The moment it becomes a religious issue, you’re on the verge of the demonic. And you’ll notice that people who get into food fads can’t talk about anything else. That’s another mark of the demonic. No matter where you start, you always end up with food. Don’t eat this and don’t eat that. There’s lots of things I don’t eat, but I do not make a religion out of it. Understand?

All right. Number nine, the area of our physical bodies. And we’ve dealt with many examples in the gospels. Certain things I think are normally demonic, I would never say always. The first one I put on the list is epilepsy. And I have seen many, many people delivered. Ruth and I were in Lexington, Kentucky, about two years ago now, and I had a blessing. A woman came to me, she was probably about forty, with her daughter about eighteen. And she said, “Mr. Prince, ten years ago you prayed for me and I was delivered from the spirit of epilepsy. Here’s my daughter, she has the problem, pray for her.” I was happy for that testimony. We prayed for the daughter, I have no doubt that she was delivered. I have seen scores of people delivered from epilepsy when it is treated as an evil spirit. If a person comes to me in a meeting I’ll say, “Now, I believe that’s an evil spirit. I’m prepared to command it to go out, do you want me to? Are you prepared, because there may be a fight. There may be a struggle. If you don’t want to, I won’t do it.” Some people say yes, some say no.

All right. That is as far as we can go. We’ve dealt with the primary activities of demons that list, I think, nine verbs. And here’s the primary areas in which I have observed them operating. You see, a person may be completely clear in the area of sex, but may be in a false religion. Or a person may have no spirits in the mind, but may be bogged down in the emotions. Or a person, let’s say, may be in a heresy, but be perfectly healthy. You understand? So there’s a whole choice of areas.