The Way of Deliverance 551
Let us realize that, while it is most easy to cede any ground, it
requires an enormous effort to recover it. Yet we should pay
particular attention to this observation: that just as each nation has
laws and their legal judgments must be absolutely obeyed, so in
God’s universe there are spiritual laws whose legal judgments are so
authoritative that even the devils cannot disobey. If we learn these
spiritual laws and act on them the evil spirits will be forced to return
what they have taken.
The most basic and consequential law of the spirit realm is that
nothing pertaining to man can be accomplished without the consent
of his will. It is through ignorance that a child of God accepted the
deceit of the evil spirits and permitted them to work in his life. Now
he must recover the relinquished territory; and to do so he must
exercise his will to overturn his earlier consent by insisting that he is
his own master and will not tolerate the enemy manipulating any
segment of his being. In such a warfare as this the evil spirits cannot
violate spiritual law; and hence they must retreat. At the beginning
the believer’s mind was usurped by the wicked powers through its
passivity; this in turn ushered in the passivity of the will. Now the
believer should declare by God’s law that his mind belongs to him,
that he is going to use it and will not permit any outside force to
instigate, employ or control his mind. If he relentlessly retreats from
passivity and exercises his mind, the latter gradually shall be
liberated till it attains to its original state. (Later we shall have more
to say on recovering the ground and its battle.)
In this conflict the child of God must exercise his mind. He must
take the initiative in each action and not depend on anyone else. If
possible he must make his own decision, not waiting passively for
other people or for more conducive environment. He must not glance
back at the past nor worry concerning the future but learn to live just
for this moment. Prayerfully and watchfully must he proceed step by
step. He must exercise his mind and think: think what he should do,
speak, or become. He must throw away every crutch, not allowing