4.22 Passivity Through Wrong Ideas of Humility

from

Chapter 4: Passivity the Chief Basis of Possession

from War On the Saints
by Jesse Penn-Lewis

Scriptures Referenced in This Section:
          (Follow the Scripture links if you want to study the Scriptures for yourself.)
2 Cor. 10:12-18

3. Passivity caused by wrong ideas of humility and self-abasement. The believer consents in accepting "death," to let it be carried out in a "nothingness" and a "self-effacement" which gives him no place for proper and true self-estimation whatsoever. (compare 2 Cor. 10:12-18; top ) If the believer accepts the self-depreciation, suggested to him and created by evil spirits, it brings an atmosphere of hopelessness and weakness about him, and he conveys to others a spirit of darkness and heaviness, sadness and grief. His spirit is easily crushed, wounded and depressed. He may attribute the cause to "sin," without being aware of any specific sin in his life; or may even look upon his "suffering" experience as "vicarious" suffering for the Church; whereas an abnormal sense of suffering is one of the chief symptoms of possession.

In the counterfeit of the true elimination of "pride," and all the forms of sin arising from it, the counterfeit caused by possession may be recognized by

1) the believer obtruding his self-depreciation at moments most inopportune, with painful perplexity to those who hear it;

2) a shrinking back from service for God, with inability to recognize the interests of the kingdom of Christ;

3) a laborious effort to keep "I" out of sight, both in conversation and action, and yet which forces the "I" more into view in an objectionable form;

4) a deprecatory, apologizing manner, which gives opportunity to the "world-rulers of the darkness of this world," to instigate their subjects to crush, and put aside this "not I" person, in moments of strategic importance to the kingdom of God;

5) an atmosphere around such an one of weakness, darkness, sadness, grief, lack of hope, easily wounded touchiness - all of which may be the result of the believer "will"-ing, in some moment of "surrender to death," to accept an effacement of the true personality, which God requires as a vessel for the manifestation of the Spirit of Christ, in a life of fullest co-operation with the Spirit of God.

The believer, by his wrong belief, and submission to evil spirits, suppressed into passivity a personality which could not, and was not meant to "die"; and by this passivity opened the door to the powers of darkness to gain ground for possession.


[4.21] Marks of Suffering Caused by Evil Spirits
π
[4.23] Passivity Caused by Wrong Thought About Weakness
4: Passivity the Chief Basis of Possession - Table of Contents
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