546 The Spiritual Man
whom he has merely heard about (does he have sufficient warrant for
so withstanding or does he detest them purely out of a natural
mind?). During such a period of investigation every idea and
imagination needs to be scrutinized so that those which arise from
the old creation may be detected and discarded. To those who live
out their days foolishly such a regimen no doubt appears to be
unbearable. Being managed by the powers of darkness, their mind is
loose and wild. But we must face the fact that a war is on. And unless
we fight, how can we retake the fortresses of the enemy which are in
the mind? The enemy is very real; how then can we be less vigilant?
Lies DeniedAs the saved one places himself beneath God’s light he will
discover that often in the past he has accepted lies from the evil
spirits which triggered his falling into that condition in which he now
finds himself. Sometimes he adopted a wrong attitude or action due
to misunderstanding God’s truth by believing in the enemy’s lie. For
instance, by misunderstanding the relationship between God and man
he inadvertently may believe that God dispenses His thought directly
to him. So he passively waits and tarries and then accepts those
registrations he assumes are from God. The evil spirits are thereby
successful in their counterfeit and are able to supply him frequently
with innumerable identical thoughts. Or, on another occasion, by
appropriating what the enemy has suggested concerning his health or
other matters directly involving him, he finds the conditions of his
body and related affairs turn out to be exactly as he was told. The
evil spirits, for example, may hint to the person’s mind that certain
things will happen to him. If he does not resist or if he
unquestioningly receives the suggestion, he will find before long that
whatever the evil spirits have appointed invariably does come to him.
By exercising himself the child of God will uncover many
vexations, weaknesses, sicknesses, and other similar phenomena in