528 The Spiritual Man
pity to see a person wasting the power of his mind, accomplishing
nothing from dawn to dusk. As the wasting of physical strength is
harmful, so the wasting of mental power is damaging too. Today a
large number of Christians expend a great deal of time without
producing much result. Their minds are assailed by evil spirits and so
they cannot concentrate.
Because of the onslaught of these dark forces God’s people
experience a peculiar kind of inattentiveness. The mind should be
focusing on a particular matter, yet abruptly it turns blank and
subsequently drifts elsewhere. They are unconscious of what they are
doing or what they are reading. They may hold to the opinion that
they must have been thinking about other affairs, but can such
thoughts be originated by their own will? The Christians who all of a
sudden cannot hear anything during meetings are numberless. Enemy
spirits try to prevent them from hearing what would be profitable, yet
not by stopping the operation of their minds but by forcing them to
think of other things.
Once the mind has been attacked by the devil believers find it
troublesome to listen to others. Oftentimes they miss several
sentences or words. To listen attentively they must wrinkle their
foreheads, trying to understand what others mean. They frequently
fail to comprehend the simplest words; they often misapprehend the
teachings given them. All this is due to the disturbances in their
minds. With many prejudices have they been stuffed already by evil
spirits, and everything has been interpreted already to them. For this
reason many a Christian is averse to hearing what others have to say.
Before people can finish he is interrupting impatiently, for the evil
spirits already have inspired him with countless thoughts and desire
him to listen to theirs and then spread them around to others. Such
individuals actually are listening both within and without: listening
within to the suggestions of the enemy and listening without to
people speaking with them. The voice within their minds speaks
louder than the one in their ears so that they can barely hear the