18/05/2026
What is the spirit of death and how do you become demonised by one?
Ken Fish made these comments during a recent sermon in Egypt, “A spirit of death is one of the most powerful spirits. The objective of the spirit of death is to shorten our lifespan and bring us to a premature death. In Mark 5;1-20 we have the story of the Gadarene Demoniac. This man was bound by the spirit of death. We know from the accounts of this story, here and in Matt 8;28-34 and Luke 8;26-39, that this man was obsessed with death. He was living in a graveyard and yet could have lived in a cave instead. He was probably sleeping in one of the tombs or in a sarcophagus. So why would you live amongst tombs except that your mind was fixed upon death? You might not be seeking death, but you would be thinking about it a lot. We can see this in people today. They may not be living in a graveyard but they are thinking and worrying about death. Amongst youth culture they might be dressing in black and listening to songs about death. In the West we would call that a death metal cult.
Another characteristic of this man was that he had some unusual abilities. When they would chain him, the man would break the chains. While they didn’t have modern metallurgy, the people of that day knew that chains could hold people. When something happens that is ‘non-normal’, that is an indication that something supernatural may be there. But it wasn’t only that the man had supernatural strength. If we read the wider story about how Jesus was approaching this area in a boat, we see that they encountered a storm which Jesus rebuked with authority. What I infer is that this was not some random evil spirit, but rather it was a powerful, high level evil spirit. I would call it a ‘regional spirit’. It seems to have had authority over the entire ten cities known as the Decapolis.
This man was also crying out. He was tormented in both his mind and his emotions. So where someone’s thought processes are severely disrupted, that might be an indication that there is a spirit of death at work.
The text also said that he cut himself with stones. Today we would call him ‘a cutter’, someone who engages in self-harm.
The man had multiple demons, not just one. The ruling spirit inside him was called ‘Legion’. Many commentators have said that a Roman legion typically had between 6,000 and 10,000 soldiers. (This dispels the myth that, if people have demons, it’s only one or two). So the man had multiple demons and multiple problems with each of those demons.
The text also says that at times the man was naked. The parallel passage in Luke 8 says that, ‘for a long time he had worn no clothes.’ God designed the human body to be beautiful and Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed in the Garden of Eden. But after the Fall they put clothes on.
The man also seems to have been suicidal in his thoughts. Although the text doesn’t say that he had tried to kill himself, we know that, when the demons came out of him into the pigs, the pigs committed su***de. So people who have thoughts of su***de, that might be a symptom of having a spirit of death.
We read in Mark 5;5 that the man lived amongst the tombs and the mountains. There’s nothing wrong with being an introvert but when you can’t function in normal society, that too might be a symptom of having a spirit of death.
So how is it that we get demonised by a spirit of death? Firstly, it sometimes comes to us through our ancestors. Let’s say that there is a history of su***de or premature death in our family. Or perhaps there is a lethal disease that runs in our family, such as a rare form of cancer. In my family there was a rare form of cancer. It started with an old curse from a Native American chief in the state of Michigan. My great grandfather had planted a fruit orchard on the land which he owned. One day he was working on the trees and a Native American chief walked out of the woods. He said to my great grandfather, ‘This is sacred ground. We buried our dead here. You have defiled it by planting an orchard here.’ Then he cursed my great grandfather. My great grandfather then developed a strange and rare kind of stomach cancer and died in agony. His daughter developed extreme stomach problems, although not cancer. However every single one of her children, including my mother, developed the same kind of stomach cancer that my great grandfather had. Then every single child that was born to my mother and her siblings started to have stomach problems. When I was aged 30, I was in a meeting with a well known prophet. He announced that he was going to pray for stomach conditions. So I stood up for prayer because I had already started to have the symptoms of that cancer. I was healed. I know I was healed because one of the major research hospitals in the USA did a study on our family because there was a gene they were looking for. All of my cousins had that particular gene and would later either die of this cancer or would have their stomach removed. However my test showed that I did not have the gene. I think the Lord changed my genetics. So a strange and odd kind of disease running in your family can be caused by a spirit of death.
Secondly, some people literally make vows of death. When people join the Freemasons, they take a vow that, if they leave the Freemasons, death will come upon both themselves and upon any descendants they may ever have. Sometime people will have been choices for death rather than for life. This may include su***de attempts. Sometimes people wish they could die although they are not actively seeking death. This attitude is more passive than su***de. You might think, ‘My family would be better off without me. I wish I could die. They would get the life insurance.’
Thirdly, sometimes people pick up a spirit of death from a near-death experience such as a car accident that nearly cost them their life, but didn’t. That experience opens them up to a spirit of death.
Fourthly, sometimes people pick up a spirit of death by being around the dead. It is well known anthropologically across different cultures that there is a common belief in places such as China, Japan, India, North Africa, and Southern Africa and it was also present among the Incas, the Aztecs, the Myans and the Native Americans that, if people get around a dead body within three days of the person dying, they might pick up such a spirit.
Fifthly, any sin a person commits which, under the Old Covenant would have carried the death penalty, may under the New Covenant open them to becoming demonised by a spirit of death. In Prov 7;23 it refers to someone involved in adultery and then an arrow pierces his liver and he dies. Somewhat poetically this suggests that a spirit of death comes upon those who commit the sin of adultery.
Broadly described, a spirit of death can use despair, deep sorrow, and emotional pain to gain entry into our lives. This is the kind of pain experienced by David when he learnt of his son Absalom’s death. In 2 Sam. 18;33 in the midst of his mourning, David says, ‘If only I had died instead of you.’ So any time someone partners with, collaborates with, or longs for death, they are probably falling under the domain of the spirit of death. I remember praying for a woman in Australia who had lost her baby. She was inconsolable with grief. She wanted to leave her husband and three children for the baby who had died. We had to get her out from the domain of death and drive that spirit out. Death is always our enemy, the last enemy to be destroyed (1Cor 15;26).
What are some other common symptoms of this spirit? We see in Mark 5 that the man in the graveyard cut himself. In Leviticus 19;28 the Bible forbids cutting yourself. It specifically refers to cutting yourself for the dead. The scriptures in the same verse also forbid us to tattoo ourselves. The reason that cutting, body piercing and tattooing are problematic is that all of them involve the shedding of blood. Furthermore, the Bible forbids the eating of blood and yet this is a feature of national cuisine in many countries. I have had to cast out demons in many countries connected to that cultural practice. Every single human society has a few things in it that are out of compliance with God’s ways. So sometimes we have to think through again things which have become culturally acceptable but which, in God’s mind, are off-limits.
When we think about these issues, people sometimes wonder about the relevance of Leviticus to Christians today. However the Old Testament law can be broken down into three parts. The first is the ceremonial law which deals with the sacrificial system. The book of Hebrews makes it clear that there is no longer any need for the blood of bulls and goats (Heb 10;4). We are not required to follow those laws. The second part of the Old Testament law is the civil law which deals with how you run a society. For example, there are laws for the Israelite society about murder or if someone found their neighbour’s ox. However, those laws were written for a society that existed about 3,500 years ago. We are not required to follow those laws. The third category of Old Testament law is the moral law, which are an ethical code of how we should live. So it forbids idolatry, adultery, witchcraft and other matters. If you study it carefully, you find that everything that is in the ethical code is also found in the New Testament. In Acts 15, at the Jerusalem Council, the apostles decide that gentiles don’t need to follow the sacrificial law or the civil law, but they do need to follow the moral law. The spirit of death looks for a foothold in our lives and it is the love of God which tells us to stay away from certain activities which expose us to the spirit of death.
Once you have diagnosed that someone may have a spirit of death, try and work out how death was bequeathed to the person. I have given you a long list of reasons and to why someone may have picked up such a spirit. When you identify it, have the person confess that. Then you can forgive it using the authority granted to the church in John 20;23. If the person has made agreements with death, then lead them in a renunciation of those agreements. After that, break the power of those agreements. Then command the spirit of death to leave the person. The glory of Jesus’ resurrection is that Jesus defeated death, not only so that we would not grieve like the world grieves when our loved ones die, but so that we can be freed from the effects of death in our lives now and live healthier lives.”
This is an edited version of Ken Fish’s sermon given at New Life Ministry in Cairo on 8 May 2026. The complete talk can be listened to at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd5H_YhxxOY Further teaching from Ken Fish is freely available on the Orbis Ministries phone app which can be obtained from the App Store for iPhone users and the Play Store for android users. Ken also hosts a weekly podcast entitled “God Is Not A Theory” available from all usual providers including YouTube and Spotify.
