Devils! They're Everywhere: Spiritual Warfare in Everyday Life

 1.

There was a period of time when there was no "rain" in the sense of recurring nagging thoughts against God and the neighbour, a period of peace. Then the "rain" began again and I got irritable with people. This time the thoughts say terrible things about one's family and others. If one gets them to shut up about Person A, then does their bile well up about Person B. If then you move them on they flame up as depreciation of Person C. Devils! They're everywhere.

1 Peter 5:8 - King James Version

<8> Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

Galatians 5:15 - King James Version

<15> But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.

It is a time of much rain, a time of flood, the swelling of the Jordan. "Be not surprised at the fiery trial which is to try you."

Ezra 10:13 - King James Version

<13> But the people are many, and it is a time of much rain, and we are not able to stand without, neither is this a work of one day or two: for we are many that have transgressed in this thing.

There are rains and heats, trials by water and by fire, trials of the forehead and trials of the hand, trials of the understanding and the will.

Proverbs 27:15 - King James Version

<15> A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.

Psalm 66:12 - King James Version

<12> Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.

Devils that were once men indeed "ride over our heads". We go through fire and water, being refined towards worthiness to eat bread and drink wine; and those who survive these trials by fire and water enter a wealthy place, Heaven, where this process of refinement continues forever. 

Suppose an evil thought arises in one's mind. Suppose that this thought compares someone to vermin. At that point, you either feed the evil thought, which strengthens its recurrence and hold over you; or you oppose it with rebuke, mockery, excuses for the neighbour, and whatever else comes to hand from the Lord.

One thing you can do is refuse to engage with the thought, with a perceptible inner motion akin to a voice trailing off. Another thing you can do is rebuke the thought or mock the thought. You can do all sorts of the things from the Lord in full willingness.

Proverbs 26:4-5 - King James Version

<4> Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. <5> Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.

Another thing you can do is oppose these evil falsities about the neighbour with the commandments of God. Lest this seem obscure, we shall look at exactly what this signifies.

Luke 11:20 - King James Version

<20> But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you.

This "finger of God" elsewhere wrote the 10 commandments on two tablets of stone! And Jesus just happened to quote the commandments of God in the wilderness when opposing the devil's temptation with rebuke.

"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word which proceedeth from the Father's mouth". "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God". Multiple times in the wilderness alone Jesus with the finger of God cast out the devil(s).

If you want to understand how strengthening or weakening an evil thought or behaviour works in practice, go to Youtube and look up a bunch of ukelele or octopus videos or something. After doing this for some time, watch the Youtube recommended videos feed and see what has happened. For what happens in this external happens also in that internal of which we have been speaking.

'They are not vermin'. 'They are human beings just like myself, better at some things and worse at others. "God is no respecter of persons."

James 4:7 - King James Version

<7> Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

If you rebuke rather than feeding an evil thought which recurs within you most uncomfortably, the hold over it will eventually weaken in a perceptible manner which a person should not take one's word for on blind faith but with the instruction of God in their hearts.

There is excruciating turbulence and pressure upon the astronaut when exiting the atmosphere, but then there is calm and even levity. Just so does the storm intensify before it succeeds to a calm. Either you rebuke the evil thoughts and passions such that they wither; or you drown in the great flood or the Red Sea, or your house built on sand washes away.

...By the way, Psalms 66:12 isn't optional. 

Psalm 66:12 - King James Version

<12> Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.

Some people drown in that flood or Red Sea, that time of "much rain"; those are the ones that supply the hate and contempt and reviling 'tracks' in our minds. Why? Because we need sand in our shells if there is to be a pearl of great price. To sell all one has and buy that field wherein is buried a pearl of great price is to regenerate, to be circumcised, to be born again, to proceed up Jacob's Ladder according to God's rules of order; for He regenerates us in rungs of ladder of successive order, panel-beating our will and understanding towards and yet towards worthiness to eat that bread and drink that wine.

Neighbour, pay very close attention to those thoughts in your head! Ask yourself which makes more sense, that these are your thoughts? or that these are the thoughts of other people who did not make it into Heaven? For when you perceive that these thoughts are not your own, you will understand Jesus' sermon on evil thoughts and what it means to be defiled.

Mark 7:15 - King James Version

<15> There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.

Hateful, recurring thoughts against the neighbour and God cannot defile you unless you delight in them and consequently feed them.

Those who delight in evil, recurring thoughts and behaviours are the pierced slain by the sword uncircumcised unregenerate reprobate silver.

...They go to Hell.

2. 

"Those who are not led by the Lord not only act in partnership with evil spirits, but even arouse the evil spirits to action, because they believe their desires and thoughts are their very own; while those who are led by the Lord are aroused by the evil spirits, and the Lord acts to keep them from consenting" (SE1591). 

When we consent to a bunch of gorilla videos on YT, this changes the future composition of our YT feed into ever more recommendations of gorilla videos. It is just so with vile thoughts and behaviours, which have both an intrusive and a compulsive quality. The hope is that information such as this can have a healthy effect on people who cannot but perceive compulsive structures in their actions, thoughts, and motivations.

If one had not noticed flames in one's own thoughts and actions, and the manner in which these rise or die down consequent to mocking, reproving, ignoring them, etc then one would not draw people's attention to this doctrine. But one has noticed them, and can affirm that the power to raise or dampen mental and behavioural flames is in your grasp; just like a pallet is in the grasp of the worker in an exoskeleton whose feather-light motion directs the heavy lifting. Not that we direct the Lord but that we assent to His direction, to be sure. But otherwise the comparison holds and accords with doctrine:

"It is He who works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure".

For many people it is easiest to see mental and even behavioural flames in the more interior experience of outer fury and fight or flight corticoids. Once you see these in you, you can see also their rise and fall. You can correlate these with your feedings of thoughts and actions, a process facilitated by religious scripture. For scripture is it cannot be stressed enough the most sophisticated book in history, the one that sorts you while you read and practice it.

Even to read the Word, to become aware of a commandment, has a powerful sorting effect, as we read in Romans 7:7; but the inner reaches are hidden by the angel with the flaming sword from the people who are not ready. When people are ready, they pass the guardian with the flaming sword and discern the Lord coming in clouds of the literal sense of the Word in great power and glory, which we might as well look at from a different angle:

Ephesians 3:16 - King James Version

<16> That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;

This glory is real, it is an interior inexpressible but wonderful reality. Tasting eternity is also real, and it can be directly perceived as surely as someone can perceive a migraine or a brief snatch of beeping from the local radio station or a flame of anger or a thrust of rebelliousness. You can see quite clearly in Ephesians that the power and glory of which Paul writes occur in more of an interior way. We see just such an interior way of holiness in 2 Peter 1:19:

2 Peter 1:19 - King James Version

<19> We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:

1 Peter 1:8 - King James Version

<8> Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:

Nothing quite activates the Word like God actually dawning in the believer's heart and in their reading of the Word. Hence is this state in the believer's life known as the dawn, which occurs with the Church in the course of the prophetic or charity life cycle and also in the life of an individual in whom the orchid of belief blooms. Obviously people should not take one's word for any of this but should test it against the behaviour of their thoughts and their sense and their compassion, and inquire in the Word and with God like the Bereans whether these things be so. 

One already quoted that passage from Ephesians concerning being strengthened as to the interior man by the very might and glory with which Christ arrives in the clouds. That third chapter of Ephesians is special to me -- like the one in Galatians about allegory in the Word -- because it speaks directly to the reality of prophecy. Someone may, for instance, see directly what the length and breadth and height of the New Jerusalem actually are:

Ephesians 3:17-19 - King James Version

<17> That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, <18> May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; <19> And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

Is being longer than becoming? Is love longer than wisdom? Is omnipotence longer than omniscience? Just so do the temples of God in Ezekiel and Revelation ("the length and breadth and height of it are equal") have these supposed architectural measurements, being instead interwoven considerations of will and understanding in language of flowers, God's language.

People must see the flood of evil thoughts and passions, the rises and falls of Hellish anger and related delights directly for themselves, obeying the sensible Pauline commandment to "take captive every thought for Christ" that is also Jesus' "Watch and pray" with the mind's eye of their understanding. People must see compulsivity in their own actions, thoughts, and ends to credit spiritual warfare and the liberty of Christ as opposed to infernal bondage with reality.

One therefore hopes that people will pay marvelling attention to the more obviously ugly thoughts they have and truly consider: might these be from other minds? Are these actually from me, or am I going 'Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!' like a frat boy at a boxing match? And do also look diligently into your mind whilst angry or contemptuous or any such thing: for this is your opportunity to catch up on the flames of Hell. Happy hunting.