Lesson 7. The “Discerning of Spirits” School will help you succeed in recognizing demonic forces. Author: John Edwards.
Auditory Discernment
The Holy Spirit can use any of our natural senses to give us revelation. We have considered examples of how our eyes can sometimes see what is normally invisible. The same can happen with our hearing when our ears are opened to receive revelation.
Hearing the Wind
Visiting evangelist Henry Shave preached one Friday evening at our church in Croydon. During worship and prayer at the beginning of the service, I heard a loud noise. At first, I thought it was an airplane. Soon I realized that the sound was actually inside the building: it seemed to move down the left side of the hall, from the front rows to the back. As I discovered later, only one other person among everyone present that evening heard the blowing of the “wind” in the church.
Later that evening, at home, I shared my experience with Henry, and he then told me how, earlier that day, before traveling to Croydon, God had spoken to him from the Book of Ezekiel, where the prophet was told: “Prophesy to the breath4, son of man” (Ezek. 37:9). Then, sensing the prompting of the Holy Spirit, he prayed for God’s wind, the Holy Spirit, to be manifested in the services in Croydon, and for the “wind to blow.”
That evening there truly was a special anointing of the Holy Spirit for healing and the baptism of people in the Holy Spirit. I had the privilege of hearing, in such a remarkable way, what God intended to do that evening.
The Wind Blows Again
The next day, Henry and I visited the apartment of a married couple from our congregation who had been under spiritual pressure for some time. The people living in the apartment above them were spiritualists. Sue and Don felt that their home was under the influence of their neighbors’ occult activity. When we began praying in their apartment, I again heard a sound like the blowing of wind. This time it was much stronger and seemed to come from the rooms above. It reminded me of a rushing whirlwind cleansing the apartment. As we engaged in spiritual warfare against all demonic activity or presence upstairs, the Holy Spirit began the work of cleansing, driving out the enemy and filling the home with the peace of God. I had the privilege of hearing this wind in action once again.
Spiritual Eavesdropping
One day, another member of our ministry team and I were asked to pray for a young woman at the end of a service. She was the kind of person who frequently asked for prayer and counseling. Before we began, I distinctly heard two voices speaking to each other. Their conversation was approximately as follows: “They will never be able to cast us out… we will keep them here for several hours.” In this case, after carefully considering what we believed was God’s leading in the situation, we felt it would be wiser not to pray for the young woman. The Holy Spirit clearly showed us that the demons intended simply to waste our time. The young woman continued attending our church and gradually, through teaching and support, became less of an attention seeker. When the time came, she received prayer for deliverance.
Sometimes we will encounter people for whom it would be wiser not to pray for deliverance immediately. We can always trust the Holy Spirit to give us His leading in such cases.
A Broken Spell
A woman who had been involved in witchcraft for many years began attending our services. She had entered the world of occult practices as a young dancer after someone she called her “master” injected her with drugs and abused her. That man subsequently tried, quite successfully, to control her life for many years.
She tried to break free from his control, and this was one of the reasons she sought out our church. But at certain times of the year, especially during a full moon, she began to behave as though she were under hypnosis.
One Saturday at noon, I visited her home with Paul, my adopted son. We found her in a trance-like state, and she was quite agitated by our presence. We were invited to sit in the living room while she finished some tasks in another room. To my surprise, I heard a voice that seemed to come from the speakers of a record player. The voice said, “It’s bad—now our power is broken.” When I checked the record player, it was definitely turned off. Our presence in her apartment that day as people who love and serve Jesus was enough to break the spell controlling that dear woman.
Truly: “…The One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). The Holy Spirit allowed me to hear the enemy’s terror. That woman still attends our church, has made great progress in the Lord, and is no longer under control.
A Roaring Lion
During the early period of my deliverance ministry, my entire family came under a strong spiritual attack. Satan sought to intimidate us and discredit our testimony, making us ineffective in spiritual warfare and turning us away from realizing the promises God had given concerning exercising authority over demonic power. The fact that at that time we encountered many people from backgrounds deeply involved in occultism was not a coincidence, but part of the enemy’s plan of attack.
Since it was obvious to everyone that we were under some kind of pressure, the elders of our church suggested that we take a vacation and rest as a family. Since January is not the warmest month for a holiday in England, we decided to accept our friend’s invitation and visit his home in Majorca. It took several days to arrange the plane tickets, so until the day of our flight, we stayed with Chris and Elaine, our friends from church.
Our son Nathaniel, who was 22 months old, slept in a portable crib beside our bed. I had been lying awake since early morning when suddenly I heard a noise. It sounded like the footsteps of a large animal making its way toward the place where Nathaniel was sleeping. As soon as I heard it, I immediately understood by revelation that it was a demonic attack on our son—an evil spirit, sneaking up like a lion, was trying to destroy him.
I immediately woke Doris. She picked up the baby. While she was holding him, I tried to place my hand on his head and pray for him. Nathaniel began to cry and scream, pushing my hand away at the same time. We stood our ground in prayer, rebuking the enemy in the name of Jesus. Then Nathaniel began to cough, and some greenish mucus came up from his stomach. Eventually, he became weak, as though he had lost consciousness, and my wife thought he was dying. However, at that moment I was completely confident that everything would be all right with him. I believe that the absolute conviction that he would be well was given to me through the gift of faith. The Holy Spirit let me know that a demon was attacking my son, supernaturally opening my ears, and gave me confidence in his safety.
Nathaniel did not recover immediately. During the flight to Majorca and for several days afterward, he looked very ill and lost a significant amount of weight. But throughout that entire time, my confidence that he would be completely restored never left me, despite two other strange incidents that occurred on the island.
A Spot of Light and a Carved Lion’s Head
My family, exhausted from the journey and somewhat shaken spiritually, eventually reached our destination in Majorca. That evening, we managed to put all the children to bed, with baby Nathaniel sleeping in the next room. Since I was awake early the next morning, I heard Nathaniel get out of his bed and toddle into the hallway. I quickly got up and went to bring him into our bedroom. When I found him, he was walking along the tiled landing toward the marble staircase leading to the ground floor. He was watching something very intently and following it. Then I noticed a spot of light moving in front of him. I knew it was an attempt by the enemy to kill or harm the child. The light was leading him to the top of the stairs, from where he would undoubtedly have fallen. I reached my hand toward the spot of light, and it immediately disappeared. At that very moment, Nathaniel passed out, falling instantly into a deep sleep, and I had to carry him to our bed. Through spiritual discernment, I was once again on guard during an attack on our boy and was able to stop it.
Nathaniel slept all morning, or perhaps he was in a coma. Doris carried him in her arms throughout breakfast and during a short walk to the shore and back to the house. Upon entering the house, Doris, intending to put the child to bed, carried him upstairs. At the top of the stairs stood a large carved wooden post supporting the banister. The post was decorated with a carved lion’s head, and as his mother carried the unconscious child past the carving, he opened his eyes, smiled at it, and then instantly fell asleep again.
That noon we booked a room at the nearest hotel, and in our room I began intense spiritual warfare, opposing in the name of Jesus what was attacking us and confessing our trust in His precious shed blood. I am not sure how long I continued this battle—perhaps an hour—but after some time I suddenly received an understanding in my spirit that something had been destroyed. The battle was won that same evening in the hotel room, and we were able to rest in Mallorca for another three weeks. Nathaniel regained his strength and appetite. Today he actively serves God, teaching and preaching, especially among young people.
Discernment through the Senses and Touch
Job said, “A spirit passed before my face; the hair on my body stood up” (Job 4:15). Through the Holy Spirit, our sense of touch and our feelings can become receptive for the purpose of perceiving spiritual reality. Perhaps before the Fall, Adam’s senses were incredibly receptive—he was constantly and accurately aware of everything happening in the spiritual world around him. Turning away from God and the curse that followed his disobedience changed humanity forever. The revelation of the spiritual world given to us by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us is probably a partial restoration of what Adam lost. When Jesus returns and we are changed into His likeness, “when this corruptible has put on incorruption…” (1 Cor. 15:54), these abilities will then be fully restored.
When a special anointing of the Holy Spirit is present at a meeting, it is sometimes possible to practically “feel” the tangible activity of the Spirit of God. Many Christians have had this experience, which is another example of the gift of discerning of spirits in operation.
The presence of the Holy Spirit often brings a sense of well-being and peace. Similarly, a demonic presence often brings uneasiness and anxiety.
Under the Stairs
I was asked to visit Eve’s home—she was a woman who had recently come to know Jesus as her personal Lord and Savior. She wanted me to pray in her home so that the peace of God would begin to reign there (Luke 10:5). In particular, she wanted me to pray in her son’s bedroom. At that time, her son had no interest in the Gospel.
I prayed with her in the rooms on the first floor. But when we began going upstairs to pray on the second floor, I felt a strange chill. I told Eve about it, and we prayed right on the stairs before going into the other rooms of the house.
Several weeks later, speaking with me at the end of the Sunday service, she was quite excited about what she had found in a cupboard under the stairs at home. Her daughter, who had already left her parents’ home, had stored her belongings in that cupboard. Among them, Eve found occult books and a pack of tarot cards used for fortune-telling. These items were immediately thrown into the trash. Keeping such books and objects in a home is an indirect invitation to demons. The strange chill I felt then was a warning from the Holy Spirit that something was wrong there.
The Polish Water Diviner Loses His Power
Of course, there is a satanic counterfeit of the gift of discerning of spirits. An evil spirit, a spirit of divination, can impart knowledge about the spiritual world. Fortune-tellers and those who use divination to obtain information about people’s lives often ask those who consult them for an object or piece of jewelry and, holding it in their hands, claim to receive revelation. Sometimes they say they sense the presence of “spiritual beings,” referring to the level of warmth or cold felt in certain places. However, all the revelations they receive have a demonic source, and no Christian should seek help from such people or trust what they say.
Deuteronomy 18:10–12 says: “There must not be found among you… a diviner, one who practices divination, a soothsayer, a sorcerer, one who casts spells, one who consults ghosts or spirits, a medium, or one who inquires of the dead. For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord.”
The following case illustrates how the counterfeit operates.
At the end of an evangelistic service in southern Poland, a forty-year-old man approached me. During the meeting, he had raised his hand to indicate his desire to receive Christ. He held out his hands with his palms facing one another and asked me to place my hand between them. Through an interpreter, I asked him why he wanted me to do this. He simply replied, “Please do it.” I held out my hand, and he said, “That’s power!” When I asked why he said that, he replied that this was his “gift from God.” He also told me that, through supernatural divination, he found sources of water for farms. I told him that his “gift” was not from God but from occult powers, but he insisted that there was nothing wrong with it and that it was a gift from God.
I asked him whether he would want this gift if he knew for certain that it was not from God. He did not object. Then I laid my hand on him and commanded the spirit of divination to leave him in the name of Jesus. Suddenly, he lost his breath; then, looking at his hands, he exclaimed, “Oh, it’s gone!”
As soon as the evil spirit left him, the vibrations in his hands, which he had relied on for water divination, stopped as well—just as the slave girl in Philippi lost her ability to predict the future when Paul prayed for her deliverance. Water divination is an occult practice, and the corresponding supernatural sensations experienced when locating water sources have a demonic root.
The Wind Blows Again
Muriel Shelbourne visited our church to conduct seminars at our Bible school. During her visit, she testified at a meeting of our home group leaders about the move of the Holy Spirit and the wave of renewal they were experiencing in their home church in Lincoln. After telling of the works of God, Muriel asked to pray for those present. That evening, God moved very powerfully, and all sixty leaders present were richly blessed. When the Holy Spirit began to move, some fell to the floor under the anointing, others began to cry, and some laughed and rejoiced in the Lord. Several people later testified that when Muriel reached out her hands to pray for them, they felt wind blowing in their faces. Through their sense of touch, they discerned the move of the Holy Spirit among them.
Books for Burning
An elderly church member gave her Reformed pastor in the Swiss town of Neuchâtel a collection of books. They were all about spiritualism, paranormal phenomena, and healing through autosuggestion. I preached in his church about the dangers of involvement with the occult. During fellowship after the meeting, he showed us a box of books and suggested that we take them out and destroy them.
We returned to the farm of the friend with whom we were staying, with the books in the car trunk. We remembered them only at noon the next day and brought the box into the farmhouse kitchen. The four of us who were there began to get headaches as we looked through the books. We moved the box into the boiler room and burned them. Our headaches stopped immediately. If we remain open to the leading of God and are willing to wait for Him, I am sure that our sensitivity to spiritual influence will become sharper, and we will be able to discern and perceive more of the spiritual world around us.
Childhood Trauma
A lady from South Africa once asked me to speak with her husband, hoping that I could pray for him and help him. Her husband was subject to many fears and could not make friends with anyone. She was sure that he needed deliverance. One evening they came to my house, although he did so only to please his wife, not entirely convinced that he needed any deliverance. Nevertheless, he agreed that we should pray together and ask for God’s help. As we prayed, I felt pain in my left eye and understood it as the leading of the Holy Spirit. I asked John whether he had ever injured his eye. Surprised, he said that when he was still a boy, he had nearly lost his eye when another boy struck him in the face with a stick. I asked, “Was it your left eye?” He immediately set aside all his reservations and wanted us to pray for him. He was delivered from the spirit of fear, as well as from the spirit that had entered during the trauma when he injured his eye. Discernment prepared this fearful brother to receive the help he so desperately needed.
Nausea
On several occasions, I became aware of demonic activity through an overwhelming sensation of nausea.
A married couple who had recently returned to England from Zimbabwe asked me to pray in their home because they felt a certain oppression there. Sitting with them in the hallway, we talked for a while and then began seeking God’s help, asking Him to reveal the reason for the heaviness they were experiencing. When we began to pray, an unclean nausea came over me. As I looked around the room, my attention was drawn to a carved African figurine on a shelf. I sensed that it was the cause of their problem. I have learned to regard such impressions as possible leading from the Holy Spirit.
The husband took the figurine and threw it into the trash by the side gate. The feeling of nausea disappeared immediately. We prayed together in that room, and later they confirmed that the feeling of oppression in their home had disappeared.
We should know that certain objects can attract demons, so we must be careful not to bring them into our homes. Keeping them in our homes means giving the enemy access to our lives.
Personally, I would not want objects or pictures in my home depicting pagan gods, any idols, witches or evil spirits, items used in occult practices, or figurines connected with occultism, such as snakes, owls, spiders, and so on.
God commanded Israel not to bring into their homes any items belonging to the corrupt nations that had been driven out of the Promised Land (Deut. 7:25–26).
Many Christians probably do not realize this danger and often decorate their homes with objects associated with false religion and idolatry.
Sometimes we may receive revelation from God concerning objects that are a trap, but we must also use our own common sense and discretion in determining what is unwise to keep in our homes. There are also certain books that Christians would do well not to keep on their shelves. When the church in Ephesus experienced revival, they burned the books used for “sorcery; and they counted their value, and it came to fifty thousand drachmas” (Acts 19:19).
That Feeling Again
Several years ago, when I stopped in a city in northeastern France, I was again overcome by a feeling of nausea, reminding me of the incident with the African figurine. It accompanied me all the way until I left the city. I believe that a ruling spirit had strong control over the city, and the Holy Spirit was trying to draw my attention to this fact.
On another occasion, I was traveling to a conference for ministers in England, organized to discuss some difficult issues in the Church that were causing concern at the time. On the way there and during the opening session, I remember feeling exactly the same nausea. The conference proved very difficult, with bitter exchanges and little progress in resolving the issues under discussion. I believe this was caused by demonic interference in the proceedings, provoking unpleasant, harsh interactions and remarks. Looking back, I think that if I had paid more attention then to the warning sign I had been given—that something was spiritually wrong there—the spirit responsible for the division that day would have been bound in the name of Jesus. The conference would have proceeded more peacefully and successfully.
Transforming a Camp Meeting
I experienced a similar form of discernment when a positive response on my part brought about an incredible change in the course of events at the Family Bible Camp held in Peterborough, in the east of central England.
I went to the evening celebration service in a large tent set up at the local Showground. As I sat among several hundred people, I felt the familiar nausea. My friend Rob Ferguson and I were at the back of the tent near the sound and lighting mixer. I told him that I felt as though the meeting was under some kind of spiritual attack. Rob said he agreed that we should pray to bind whatever was causing this opposition.
Quietly in our places, we began declaring the name of Jesus against the forces of darkness, without disrupting the service in any way. Up to that point, the meeting had been rather heavy and lifeless, with no sense of the anointing of God.
The brother leading worship was usually full of life, but this time he was clearly struggling. As Rob and I prayed, I turned and, pointing toward the stage, said, “You, spirit binding my brother, I bind you in the name of Jesus.” As soon as I said these words, the worship leader began to sing prophetically, and the entire atmosphere in the tent was transformed. Healings took place that evening, and the meeting experienced a powerful anointing of the Holy Spirit.
It is clear that gatherings of God’s people are targets of satanic opposition, and we need the gift of discerning of spirits, which will enable us to effectively resist and neutralize its strategy.
Sometimes Christians receive impressions from the Holy Spirit and exercise discernment, yet still fail to realize that it truly is the leading of the Lord. I could easily have ignored all the incidents described above if I had mistaken the warning sensations of nausea for a simple stomach upset. However, it would be wrong to assume that every bout of nausea or other physical ailment must always have some spiritual significance. We must remain open to the leading and teaching of the Holy Spirit, growing in awareness of and sensitivity to His promptings and directions.
