Prayer and Warfare 285
by letting it drop into inaction, the saint is deceived into minding
Satan in his daily walk. The Holy Spirit, however, true to His Own
working principle, will always refrain from taking over man’s
conscience and using it for him. Satan alone will seize the occasion
to replace the guidance of the believer’s conscience and intuition
with supernatural voices and other devices.
As conscience grows more passive and the evil spirit supplies his
guidance, some Christians begin to lower their moral standard—
thinking they henceforth live according to a higher life principle, and
therefore treat immoral matters as not quite so immoral any more.
They also cease to make any progress in life or work. Instead of
exercising their intuitive power to detect the thought of the Holy
Spirit or of engaging their conscience to discern right and wrong,
they simply follow the supernatural voice which comes from outside
and reduce themselves to robots. These Christians mistake the
supernatural voice for the voice of God. They disregard their
reasoning, their conscience, and other people’s advice. They turn out
to be the most stubborn individuals in the world: they refuse to listen
to anyone. They picture themselves as obeying a higher law of life
than the rest of their spiritual confreres. How they fit perfectly the
description of the Apostle: “whose consciences are seared”! (1 Tim.
4.2) Their consciences are void of conviction!
Hence to sum up: in our spiritual warfare we must ever and anon
preserve our inner man in an active state—wholly yielded to the
Holy Spirit, yet not in passive submission; otherwise we shall be
deceived by the enemy. Even should the adversary not assault us, we
still shall retreat into a shut-in position if our spirit is not operative
and outstretched. For the enemy would have the chance anyway to
seal off all outlets for our spirit to work, to serve, and to war. It
would suffer as though suppressed. Our inner man must accordingly
be active and outgoing. It must resist Satan constantly or else it will
be attacked from all sides.