Suffering directly caused by evil spirits may be discriminated from the true fellowship of Christ's sufferings, by a complete absence of result, either in fruit, victory, or ripening in Spiritual growth. If carefully observed, it will be seen to be entirely purposeless. On the other hand, God does nothing without a definite object. He does not delight in causing suffering for the sake of suffering, but the devil does. Suffering caused by evil spirits is acute and fiendish in its character, and there is no inward witness of the Spirit which tells the suffering believer that it is from the hand of God. To a discriminating eye it can be as clearly diagnosed when from an evil spirit, as any physical pain can be discriminated from a mental one, by a skillful physician.
The suffering caused by evil spirits can be
1) spiritual, by causing acute suffering in the spirit, injecting "feelings" to the spirit, repugnant or poignant;
2) soulish, by acute darkness, confusion, chaos, horror in the mind; anguished, knife-like pain in the heart, or other innermost vital parts of the being; or
3) physical, in any part of the body.
The ground given for the evil spirits to produce counterfeit suffering in such an acute degree as this, may be traced back to the time when the believer, in his absolute surrender to God for the "way of the Cross," deliberately willed to accept suffering from Him. Then afterwards, in fulfilment of this surrender, he gave ground to the enemy, by accepting some specific suffering as from God, which really came from the spirits of evil , thus opening the door to them, by
1) the reception of their lie,
2) the admittance of their actual power manifested in the suffering - continuing still further to give more ground by believing their interpretation of the suffering - and
3) as "the will of God"; until the whole life became one prolonged "yielding to suffering," which seemed unreasonable, unaccountable in its origin, and purposeless in its results. God's character is thus often maligned to His children, and the deceiving spirits do their utmost to arouse rebellion against Him for what they themselves are doing.
[4.20] Passivity Caused by Wrong Acceptance of Suffering
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[4.22] Passivity Through Wrong Ideas of Humility4: Passivity the Chief Basis of Possession - Table of Contents Table of Contents π Topical Index
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