The Way of Deliverance 539
overexhaustion. You listen to this and cease working and rest for a
period without exercising your mind at all. Nonetheless thousands of
thoughts continue to crowd your mind and pass to and fro through
your brain during sleep. This demonstrates that your illness is not
entirely due to natural cause: a supernatural one is mingled in with it
somewhere. If you do not take the time to deal with the supernatural
aspect, your removal of the natural element will serve no purpose.
It is of paramount importance that brethren today examine the
source of these excuses. The wicked powers are highly skilled in
misleading people into explaining their evil devices in terms of
natural phenomena. They goad them into imagining they themselves
are wrong. These individuals thus unconsciously cover up the
perpetrations of the evil spirits. Consequently whatever excuse
comes into his head the Christian must examine it carefully. Every
reason must be scrutinized and every symptom of the mind must be
traced. Otherwise, in his mistaking supernatural work to be natural
he will cede increased ground to the enemy. Every opinion he
entertains about himself needs to be proven, lest he yield new
territory to the evil spirits even before the old is recovered.
Because of his long capitulation a person may easily commit the
fatal error of defending the malevolent operations of the evil spirits.
This must be guarded against, for in so doing he assists them in
veiling the true cause of their attack. Although he is in distress,
nevertheless he is siding with the evil spirits in preserving their
ground.
The devil’s hosts at this juncture are inciting the believer’s flesh to
cooperate with them. Actually the flesh always works together with
the devil. For the sake of saving face or for some other reason, the
Christian refuses to believe his mind could possibly be occupied by
the devil and objects to hearing anything about him or his works.
Such distaste of examination for fear that he may lose his “spiritual
experience” is a great hindrance to deliverance. He may retort in any