Recognizing the Signs of Evil

If you don’t know how to recognize the presence of evil in your or someone else’s situation, or in an individual in your or someone else’s life, you will be unable to avoid the suffering that evil will, at some time, attempt to dump on you —often when you’re least expecting it.

As any military commander knows, the first step in winning a battle is to be able to clearly identify the enemy.

And the Lord understands this better than any military commander!

This is why He has left us with a description of the characteristic trademarks of evil (See John 10).

And it’s why He taught us (See Matthew 7:15 – 20) how to discern people who are intent on doing good from people who are intent on doing evil. You know, them, Jesus explained, by their fruits:                                                         

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit,

and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.

Matthew 7:18 NIV

And to press the point further so no one can claim they didn’t understand, Jesus continues:

Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Matthew 7:20 NIV

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

He knows that your very survival —physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional — against evil depends on your ability to make the correct diagnosis so that you can apply the correct medicine (See Part 6 The Healthy Way to Fight Evil coming soon) before it’s too late.

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Thirty-nine years ago, at the age of 35, I landed in the midst of what I would later come to understand was, in fact, an attack by evil. 

This was the first time in my life that I had found myself having to face an actual confrontation with the forces of evil.

It descended on me without any warning whatsoever.

As I’d quickly learn, evil always does.

It never sends you a telegram announcing its imminent arrival on your or your loved ones’ doorstep.

I was thirty-five years old at the time, a young, happily married woman with two wonderful young daughters and a very busy professional husband.

This experience would turn out to be an extremely painful and disorienting one for me as, at the time, I was totally ignorant about the supernatural force of evil. I was not educated on even the basics about it!

In answer to my desperate plea for His urgent help, the Lord led me to a holy woman who had dedicated her entire adult life to living very closely to God and helping others do the same.

To make a longish story short, this amazing woman, who was also a trained and highly experienced Christian spiritual guide, guided me through the full extent of my acutely traumatizing confrontation with evil. 

Thanks to her skillful guidance, the Lord saw to it that I was educated on evil at three different levels —all necessary and all at the same time. 

By this I mean that at the same time that I was actually experiencing evil in my own life, I was also being trained —both academically and experientially —in how a person can successfully discern the presence of Satan in her/his own life or in someone else’s life.

You ask, ‘Jan, how can anyone be trained ‘experientially’ in the matter of how to discern evil?’

Great question.

I would have asked exactly the same 39 years ago.

Here’s my answer.

Three months after I had experienced my first attack from the devil, I had been admitted to a year-long program called the Institute of Christian Formation. This was in fact a 12-month retreat in everyday life. Like all four participants, I was under the weekly supervision of a holy, humble, trained and long-experienced Christian spiritual guide.

By then, I’d learned from my former Christian guide how to pray with my heart, rather than with words or thoughts.

When you pray with your heart, the Lord himself becomes your personal Teacher. 

Sitting at the feet of Jesus every day for 365 days, I prayed three times a day for 20 minutes each time!

And in preparation for each one of these 3 prayer periods, I meditated on appropriate passages of the scriptures for about half-an-hour.

In this way of being close and very present with the Lord, and of opening my whole being fully and directly to Him, I learned about evil from the Lord Himself. 

I learned in great depth about the two opposing kingdoms that Jesus had talked about in Matthew 12:26 – 28: i. e. Satan’s kingdom of darkness and the Lord’s kingdom of light (see also Colossians 1:13; and 1 Peter 2:9).

Not surprisingly, whenever I have encountered serious and persistent evil in my life in the thirty-nine years since, it is not only to my experienced Christian guides that I turn for help but to the Lord Himself. 

You see, when the Lord becomes your personal Teacher, you never look back. 

I spent one hour each day, for 365 days, in His presence.

In the 39 years since, I have continued to spend regular time in the Lord’s presence. And from Him, I continue to learn even more about how evil actually takes place in our everyday lives and world.

As a result, I have always felt obliged to share with others what the Lord himself taught me about evil 39 years ago, and about the huge damage it can do, and the intense suffering it can cause, to ordinary everyday people just like you.

My own specific and intensive training in understanding evil gave me three distinct advantages on the 2 occasions in my life when I have had to confront fierce manifestations of this deadly force.

The first advantage was my ability to recognize and identify the presence of evil in my personal life situation.

The second was my understanding of the critical importance of seeking at all times the LORD’S perspective on any attack by evil.

The third advantage was that I knew how critical it is, at the outset of an attack by evil, to make a conscious decision to align yourself with the Lord’s purposes for your life, rather than allow yourself to drift along aimlessly with Satan’s dark, wily purposes.

The 3 Give-Away Signs that Evil is Present Either in an Individual or in a Situation in Your Life —

or in Both

The three give-away signs of the presence of evil in my own personal situation 26 years ago were all clearly recognizable from the outset.

These were

• • • deception/lie-telling
    • confusion
    • destruction

All three remained consistently present for the entire seven years of my trials.

I experienced the deception of marriage betrayal.

I experienced the continuing confusion that arose from this.

And I experienced the destruction caused by the triple-whammy first of betrayal; second, the confusion this left in its wake; and third, following three years later, the annulment by the Roman Catholic Church of our holy, profoundly cherished, God-ordained marriage.

I came to learn the taste and smell of evil.

During the first two years of the Devil’s assault in particular, I always had the strong impression that our daughters and I were being repeatedly and mercilessly pounded by a wild, uncontrollable tidal wave.

The currents of this wave followed no predictable pattern but wreaked havoc wherever they landed.

It was the wildness of these currents, the ‘out-of-control’ factor, that startled my daughters and me the most.

There is nothing of the fruits of the Spirit in evil; only their exact opposite!

Evil Perpetrated by Religious Institutions

The annulment of our holy, God-ordained marriage by the Roman Catholic church was the most brutal manifestation of the evil I experienced.

I learned with acute pain that some of the fiercest, most destructive evil that human beings can endure is evil perpetrated by religious institutions and by the those who lead and/or represent them.

One notable example of this is the systematic sexual, physical, emotional, and psychological abuse of others by priests over many years in the Roman Catholic Church and the continuing cover-up of these crimes at the highest levels in this institution.

Another is the recent discovery of large numbers of graves of indigenous children who attended schools run by the Roman Catholic Church in Canada and the deliberate theft by the Church of these people’s cultural identity in the name of their so-called religious ‘conversion’.

Spiritual Abuse

It was during my seven-year ordeal of being hammered by the forces of evil that, for the first time in my life, I came face to face with one of the results of full-blown evil: spiritual abuse.

Physical, psychological, mental, emotional and verbal abuse are all well recognized. What seems far less recognized (or less reported on?) is the abuse that evil, and those who perpetrate it, dumps on the human spirit.

Authorities in the field of spirituality and psychology attest consistently to the fact that the human spirit exerts an indisputable influence on every aspect of the human make-up:

• • • the human mind
    • the human body
    • the human psyche
    • the human will
    • the human conscience
    • the human emotions

When, therefore, your human spirit is abused, you suffer wounds that are just as real as those inflicted by physical, psychological, and emotional abuse.

As with emotional, verbal and psychological abuse, spiritual abuse does not manifest in the way that physical abuse does —that is, with body bruises and broken limbs that are visible to the eye.

Its wounds, nevertheless, are just as real.

How I Was Able to Identify the Presence

Of ‘a catapult of evil’ in My Own Situation

Within two weeks of my husband’s announcement that he intended to leave our marriage I recognized the presence of a well-organized force of evil surrounding our little family on all sides.

The Lord began to confirm this to me very quickly, speaking to me through regular times of prayer spent in His presence, through scripture, and through my spiritual guides.

He showed me very clearly that this evil was now attempting to target our children and me specifically.

He also showed me that this evil was unusually fierce, bold, dangerous, determined and ruthless.

‘A Catapult of Evil’

At the very start of my troubles, during a silent, directed retreat to hear the Lord’s perspective on my situation, my spiritual guide confirmed that I was experiencing a severe assault from the Evil One.

In fact, my guide felt that the term ‘a catapult of evil’ was an accurate description of what I and our daughters were now experiencing. 

‘You Will Know Them by Their Fruits’ 

We are not entitled to judge a person.

Only God can judge a person.

But we are morally obliged to judge their actions.

Jesus gave you and me the means by which we can discern whether a person’s actions are good or evil. He said: 

You will know them by their fruits.                   

Matthew 7:16 NKJV

If we don’t make a considered, prayerful judgment of a person’s actions (i. e. whether they are good or evil), we risk getting drawn into their evil actions, and so make the evil escalate.

The scriptures insist that we should not allow this to happen:

…do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure. 

1 Timothy 5:22 NIV

(My emphasis)

…the Father… has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.

Colossians 1:12 NIV  

(My emphasis)

For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 

2 Corinthians 6:14 NIV (My emphasis)

You Need to Ask Yourself These Questions

When, therefore, you suspect the presence of the Evil One in your life or relationships, you need to ask yourself some serious questions:

• Does the person’s behavior manifest the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22 - 23) or of the dark spirit, the devil?

• Do her/his actions show reverence, respect and honor towards God and respect and honor to her/his fellow human beings?

• Does he/she bring harm to innocent people?

• Does the person take personal responsibility for his/her thoughts, words and actions or does he/she always slide the blame onto others?

• In a case where the person has a family or any other individuals for whose care and wellbeing, he/she has accepted responsibility, does he/she take into account the effect of his/her actions on their well-being?

These are questions that you need to ask not only of the individuals in your personal life but also of the leaders of your political, religious, social, educational, health and financial institutions.

We have all at some time witnessed the brutally high costs that both individuals and nations end up paying when they allow an inherently evil situation to go

• • • ignored
    • unquestioned
    • pretended away
    • excused
    • unchallenged

You need to ask these questions at the OUTSET of the problem; that is, BEFORE the situation gets out of control.    

…deliver us from the evil one