Welcome to Part 2 of The Healthy Way to Fight Evil.

Recap of Part 1

There is a healthy and an unhealthy way to fight evil.

When you fight evil in a healthy way, you not only survive its assault intact but you draw blessings out of it. 

On the other hand, when you fight evil in an ad hoc, ‘anything-goes’ way, you quickly become its victim.

And you will experience extreme suffering which can last for a long time.

If you use the guidelines in this article, you will be able to counter evil in a healthy way.

And there will come a time for you when, after the dust has settled, you’ll look back on your encounter with evil and see that you’ve actually been able to draw huge blessings and benefits out of it.

TOOL 1

The Essential Fist step: Knowing HOW to Identify the Presence of Evil

The Lord knows that you can’t counter what you aren’t able to recognize!

He knows that your very survival —not just spiritual but physical, mental, and emotional — against evil depends on your ability to make the correct diagnosis so that you can apply the correct medicine before it’s too late.

It is absolutely essential that you know how to identify the presence of evil in your life. 

TOOL 2

You Need to Understand the Enemy’s Purposes towards You

From God’s point of view, it is vitally important that you recognize and understand clearly the Enemy’s purposes towards you.

The Lord knows that Satan would prefer that you were kept ignorant of his purposes precisely in order to blind you to the dark and destructive plan he has in mind for you and to the trap into which he has planned for you to fall.

The Lord knows far better than you and I that Satan is the great deceiver and ‘father of lies’, as Jesus called him (John 8:44 NLT).

TOOL 3

Prayer of the Heart

In my two experiences of acute assaults by the forces of evil, the Lord taught me that the very best way to protect myself from being pulled in and injured by evil was to engage in the practice of entering into God’s Presence regularly for a few minutes each day. 

This is the tool that is most critical in determining your ultimate victory over evil.

It gives you the supernatural strength you need to keep choosing life!

It anchors you in God in a way few other forms of prayer do, enabling you to resist the various temptations the Evil One throws at you.

It also helps heal your negative emotions. 

TOOL 4

Forgive Those Who Harm You

But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Matthew 6:15 NIV

Please note:

The individuals who are committing evil against you are NOT your enemies.

Your enemy is Satan.

Satan USES people to do his dirty work.

It’s Satan that you need to fight.

If you fight the ones who inflict evil on you, you simply escalate the evil.

Worse than that, you might gradually get drawn into the web of evil yourself.

Unless you recognize and accept that you don’t fight the evildoers but Satan, you will become the victim of evil, rather than one who neutralizes and rises successfully above it.

You need to ask the Lord to help you forgive those who perpetrate evil on you and/or your loved ones.

This tool is so important that I deal with it separately in Part 7 of this series.

Tool 5

The Need to Hear God’s Voice Clearly

Your ability to hear God speaking to you —to YOU, not to someone else —makes all the difference in your life at ANY time, but particularly when you’re battling evil.

You need to know how you can hear God’s voice clearly. 

There are 2 reasons why this is critical to overcoming evil.

1. It’s absolutely critical that you learn God’s perspective on the evil situation facing you and on all the people Satan is using to wound you.

2. When you’re having to fight evil, there are so many other voices that will try to get your attention.

Not all will have your wellbeing at heart.

Many will simply add to your already great confusion.

Confusion is a common tactic of Satan. It is never of God.

When you know how to hear God speaking to you, something else very beautiful happens.

You gradually develop the spiritual confidence and trust needed to engage God in an ongoing conversation.

In this mutual, free-flowing, two-way conversation, you can put your anxieties and concerns honestly and sincerely to the Lord.

You can ask Him questions.

And gradually, but extremely surely, you will develop the confidence to EXPECT Him to answer you!

This is an indispensable gift to you from the Lord.

As you discover that you can actually converse with the Lord, you start to realize at a very deep level of your being that God is willing you onwards even in the very worst of times.

What seemed once to be completely out of your human reach suddenly begins to take on flesh.

You begin to see that your victory and resurrection from evil ‘s attack are actually attainable.

It’s as though you were running a complex business and always had at your fingertips a competent, experienced and entirely trustworthy consultant to advise you and lean on and help you succeed!

In fact, Jesus called the Holy Spirit exactly this: an Advocate and Guide.

Believe me, when you are facing evil, the knowledge that you always have the Lord himself on your side is a priceless gift! 

TOOL 6

The Help of an Experienced Christian Spiritual Guide

When you are trying to navigate a wise path through uncharted and potentially dangerous spiritual territory, and especially when you are waging war with the Evil One, you also need the help of an experienced Christian spiritual guide. 

You need a holy, humble and skilled Christian guide to help you sidestep Satan’s clever, subtle ploys.

You need someone who

• has walked the Christian faith journey for an extensive period
• acknowledges the reality of spiritual warfare
• is trained to help you
• is a careful listener
• has the vital qualities of holiness, personal integrity, discernment, skill, and judgment that you can count on
• can help you understand God’s sometimes baffling ways with His people

This saves you much unnecessary suffering.

During the first years of my encounter with human evil, I sought and received the regular guidance of holy, humble, trained and experienced Christian spiritual guides whose judgment and integrity and training I knew I could count on. I ascribe a large part of my personal healing and victory over evil to these guides.

TOOL 7

Understanding Important Facts about Evil

The Lord has not left you and me to fend for ourselves when have to fight evil.

But in order to fight evil in a healthy way, you need to know several critical facts: namely …

• Christ has already defeated even the worst possible evil at the Cross two thousand years ago 

• The outcome of your battle with evil has, therefore, been already decided in your favour! 

• Christ’s power to defeat even the worst possible evil resides within you 

• You can therefore neutralize and defeat evil before it has a chance to harm or even completely destroy you or your loved ones

• The Lord does not want you to fear evil (remembering this is absolutely critical to defeating evil)

• The Lord has already given you all the authority you will ever need to resist and defeat evil (Luke 10:19)

• God has already given you all the tools you will ever need to protect yourself from Satan’s assault and to resist and defeat Satan (Luke 10:19).

• The Apostle Paul lists 5 specific spiritual weapons for fighting evil (Ephesians 6:10-18):

1. truth
2. righteousness
3. peace
4. the scriptures
5. continuing prayer in the Spirit

• No matter what the situation, God is infinitely more powerful than Satan: for ‘…greater is he (God) that is within you, than he that is in the world (i. e. Satan, the source of all evil)’. 1 John 4:4 KJV

• Evil does not originate in persons. Rather, it originates in Satan (Ephesians 6:12, 2 Corinthians 10:4). But Satan uses persons as his vehicle of choice for achieving his own ends!

• You should always make a critical distinction between a person’s actions and the person herself/himself.
  The person is AWLAYS to be respected and accepted as good
  because she is made in God’s image.
  But her actions can be evil.

• You must never attempt to fight evil in your own human strength and wisdom alone. Evil is a supernatural entity (Ephesians 6:12) and can be fought and defeated only with supernatural (i. e. God’s) strength —NOT human strength

• You must understand evil’s purposes towards you 

• You must understand the tactics evil employs. Satan attempts —with extremely well-practiced skill and subtlety —to:

1. sow the seeds of fear in you
2. control you
3. manipulate you
4. deceive you
5. bully you
6. confuse you
7. engender strife
8. keep strife well-stoked
9. discourage you
10. initiate violence (verbal, physical and psychological) amongst people 

It is for very good reason that Jesus called Satan a

• murderer (John 8:44)
• liar (John 8:44)
• thief (John 10:10)
• destroyer (John 10:10)

TOOL 8

Dealing with the Perpetrators of Evil

This tool is so vital that I’ve written a separate article (Part 7) on it.

TOOL 9

‘’Dig Deeper Than the Wickedness’

In my second attack by evil, one of my spiritual guides gave me some very wise counsel on the matter.

My guide suggested that I ‘dig deeper than the wickedness’.

By spending time regularly in God’s Presence and love, I was able to dig deeper than the wickedness.

I was able to find the Lord Himself hiding underneath it.

The most effective and guaranteed way of ‘digging deeper than the wickedness’ is to spend a few minutes every day in the Lord’s presence. 

TOOL 10

THE HOLY SPIRIT

Becoming and remaining grounded in God, especially in times of unusual emotional upheaval and/or an assault by the Evil One, doesn’t happen on its own.

It requires a deliberate decision to co-operate with the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit, you see, is Jesus’ representative here on earth (John 14:26).

The Holy Spirit ‘…lives with you and will be in you…’ (John 14:17 NIV).

Jesus has appointed His Holy Spirit to be your Guide, Consoler, Advocate and Teacher on His behalf (John 14:26, John 16:13).

In addition, a critical part of His job is to remind you of everything that Jesus taught (John 14:26).

In my second experience of evil, I knew that if I was to survive evil’s assault on our family, I needed the very special help of the Holy Spirit.

I often relied on the Spirit to pray in and for me when I didn’t know exactly what or how to pray (Romans 8:26).

The most effective way to develop a close and meaningful relationship with the Holy Spirit is by learning how to enter regularly into God’s Presence and, once there, to experience His love and rest.

That love is the direct gift of the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5)

I also relied on the Holy Spirit for His strength and wisdom.

Sometimes I prayed hourly, sometimes every minute or two.

And at the roughest moments, I remembered, and stood on, Christ’s promise to send the Holy Spirit to help me:

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!   

Luke 11:13, New King James Version

TOOL 11

Ask the Lord to Guide All Your Decisions

Seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit in each of your big life choices ensures that your moral compass, your conscience, is governed by Love and Life and Truth and Peace and Joy —rather than prompted by the false, empty attractions of Satan.

Always be sure to include God’s Holy Spirit in your every-day decisions.  

Wait on the Lord’s guidance in all your decisions.

Don’t run ahead in your own strength.

Never act on impulse.

Instead, pray through the big and the small decisions!

As you’ll read in my book, when dealing with the evil set into motion by my husband’s abandonment of our family, the Lord kept alerting me to the many ongoing dangers that the Enemy kept putting on my path.

I knew that if I and our 2 daughters were to survive, I had to pray through all my decisions.

Had I not, I would never have been able to neutralize and defeat Satan’s plans for our family.

I would never have reached victory and resurrection!

TOOL 12

Scripture

During my second assault by persistent evil, the Lord used scripture to encourage me, to warn me, and to bring me His healing peace and joy.

I recall waking one night in the early morning hours and feeling that my very soul itself was being assaulted.

But the Holy Spirit immediately reminded me of Psalm 91, in which the Lord promises to take away the terrors of the night.

I claimed that promise.

Peace and trust and joy returned to my soul.

The Lord also used scripture to alert me to the very real dangers that certain ‘newcomers’ to our family’s situation —each of whom had their own evil agendas —constantly posed to the wellbeing of myself and our children.

In fact, I stood in constant awe of the consistent way in which the Lord, rapidly and without fanfare, directed me to specific scriptures in order to fully expose the devil and bring him out of his murky hiding places, so alerting me to his continual traps.

Psalm 35 was one example.

The relevance of this psalm’s words to my current situation took me sharply aback.

They were an eerily accurate description of all that I myself was now experiencing!

I found myself reading and re-reading this psalm, allowing its words to settle deep into my heart, the place where God and I together had to fight the battle with our common Enemy.     

TOOL 13

Never Try to Deal with Evil in Your Own Strength

Please understand this: 

You must never try to deal with the devil in your own strength.

YOU ALWAYS NEED THE LORD’S LOVE, STRENGTH, AND GUIDANCE, to resist and overcome Satan.There are no exceptions.

The one guaranteed way to ensure you have the Lord’s strength is to enter regularly into His presence and experience His love and His rest. 

Tool 14

Ask the Lord to Teach You How to Surrender to Him