Being Recove red F ro m E vi l:

Exc e rp t s Fro m En joy ing Yo u r Jo u rne y Wi t h G od 1

BEING RECOVERED FROM EVIL

Excerpts From Enjoying Your Journey With God

by Daniel A Brown, PhD

T HE N ATUR E OF E VI L
Our culture has an incomplete and inadequate definition of evil. We tend think of it
primarily in extreme terms—like serial murderers, grotesque satanic rituals,
swindlers who prey on the elderly, etc. But evil exhibits itself in many other ways
without looking garish or immoral. For instance, cancer is evil. So is bitterness. Evil
can be obvious like a violent temper, or invisible like envy and self-pity.

The Bible portrays evil not so much as a frightening, horror movie type power filled
with suspense or terrifying images of dark-dealings and savage, blood-dripping
creatures who stalk human beings. That is how Hollywood misleads the world. The
true nature of evil has almost nothing to do with the beings and powers Hollywood
suggests wield it.

The forces of evil are not like characters in a dramatic sci-fi novel empowered by
energies that call for “special effects” and a movie camera. They are unremarkable in
themselves; almost as featureless as a virus or some bacterium. Evil itself is the
emptiness and wrongness brought by those creatures to a lonely and frail old man
in a dingy convalescent home, strapped to an oxygen mask as he waits out the
remaining weeks of his cancer-ridden life.

Evil is a thing of loss, destruction and death—abject and utter desolation. That is
because evil opposes everything of God’s desire for us. Evil attempts to counter the

Daniel A. Brown, PhD ctw.coastlands.org

Being Recove red F ro m E vi l:
Exc e rp t s Fro m En joy ing Yo u r Jo u rne y Wi t h G od 2

increase God longs to give you; it protests the Lord’s creative and restorative work in
the lives of His people. Evil is the lost future and lost relationship that always
accompanies death—nothing more, but nothing less.

D EATH R ED EFI NED

Death, as the Bible defines it, is life other than how God intended it to be. Death in
any form is the antithesis of God’s way of life—it is anti-life. Death degrades and
violates and shrinks down everything that God has declared “very good” (Genesis
1:31). As a read-out of evil, death’s only interest is to vandalize and blight what is
good.

Deathly things lead to loss—we lose our health, our business, our friends, our
minds, our hope, etc. Like an unpredictable tornado, evil and death have gathered
their funnel clouds in the air and touched down at many points in our lives, leaving
a swath of wreckage and confusion behind.

Just as our physical frame can come under attack from germs, toxins or injury, so
too, can the other, inner parts of our life. We have been made in God’s image (see
Psalm 139:1-18). We are His masterpieces—poems He has rhymed and metered with
precise beauty. Since all evil sets itself in opposition to the will of God, evil forces
will seek to defy and violate the Lord’s plan for and work in your life. It is here, at
the very core of your God-given personality, that the evil spirited mount their
fiercest assault.

D EMON IC A SSAU LT
The evil spirited act like sudden blasts of wind to knock us off our feet, and they can
afflict, pressure, propel and manipulate areas of the human soul to respond to their
impulses. Just like a rapid heartbeat can be triggered by wayward impulses from our
body—causing it to beat out of sync with its intended rhythm—so, too can our soul
be driven to move out of step with what God intended for it.

When any part of the human soul (i.e., thoughts, feelings, awarenesses, choices,
memories, perceptions) becomes entangled by, constrained by, or ravished by the
evil spirited, people can be said to be in bondage in the specific and particular part
of their soul they are not completely free to direct their own choices and follow the
course of life that they truly want to take.

Daniel A. Brown, PhD ctw.coastlands.org

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Spiritual bondage can vary in degree just like any affliction of the body, but the
more acute the oppression, the more able those forces are to impose their evil
soulish attributes on people’s souls. Their evil will begins to erode a person’s will;
their “false” memories flood a person’s recollection; their personality traits scratch
and scribble themselves, like graffiti over someone’s true-self. In extreme cases, a
person begins to see and hear things as a result of the demonic perceptions being
pushed into that person’s consciousness.

Remember, evil mostly manifests as depletion, brokenness, confusion, barrenness

and misery—not as grotesque and frightening horrors—like we see depicted by
Hollywood. Bound people do not rattle chairs or spew fire from their eyes; they live
with inner brokenness and skewed perceptions.

People who are constrained in their choices by evil spirits do not bite necks and
vanish in darkness; instead, they loathe themselves for not being able to stop
drinking or quit frequenting adult bookstores. When the evil spirited ravish human
beings, they do not empower those people with superhuman energies and magic—
rather, they drain away a person’s hope and strength and life. Instead of being
majestic, created in the image of their heavenly Father, people end up pathetic; in
the likeness of the spirits that assail them.

D EMON IC M ANI FESTATIONS

As false gods, the evil spirited offer human beings three basic things: protection,
provision and purpose. When our thoughts, emotions, choices, or willpower claim
to be able to give us those three commodities, we ought to “think twice.”

The evil spirited that vex human beings are rarely fantastical or grotesque. Their
primary ploy is not to frighten people, but to prey upon them, unnoticed like
parasites. Thus, more than anything else, evil spirits affect and distort individuals’
personalities—causing people to act or think in uncharacteristic ways. When
people begin acting in a way that isn’t like them, it may be a clue that spiritual
forces are at work, in addition to whatever else may be going on in their life.

Demonic footholds in the soul mostly show up in subtle ways, and evil spirits feel
like personality characteristics, emotions, dispositions, attitudes, or prevailing
atmospheres. That is why they so often go undetected—they mask themselves
behind “stray thoughts” that “sound” like our own mind; or, emotions that “seem to
come out of nowhere.” They are subtle but strong suggestions; persistent points
appearing low-grade but definite feelings; unexplainable moods; stubborn states of
mind; single, dominant personality traits.

Daniel A. Brown, PhD ctw.coastlands.org

Being Recove red F ro m E vi l:
Exc e rp t s Fro m En joy ing Yo u r Jo u rne y Wi t h G od 4

Demonic beings can also manifest themselves in the guise of compulsions or

obsessions—driving and harassing people with uncontrollable thoughts or intense,
irresistible feelings and sensitivities. Hormones, stress, and “fleshiness” can be very
compelling in their own right; but ritualistic fixations, addictions, and life-limiting
coercions (phobias) are often indicators that a person is battling more than just
flesh and blood.

Likewise, when our minds are bombarded with negative, hopeless conclusions—
propelling us toward despair with hateful, belittling remarks about ourselves or
frantic, hopeless feelings about our future—it could be the litany of a demon we are
hearing, and not just normal insecurity.

Additionally, demonic presences that hover at the edges of people’s soul can trouble
and oppress people with unexplainable confusion or emptiness—engulfing them
with mental and emotional blankness, or entangling them with a profusion of
racing thoughts and emotions. These are not just the anxious thoughts related to an
upcoming responsibility, or to the future, but a preoccupation and/or deadness of
mind that virtually incapacitates someone from being able to live his or her life. The
unstoppable stream of their consciousness floods all else and inundates every
corner of their life with its preoccupation. They are “driven to distraction;”
absolutely overwhelmed by thoughts or feelings that become their only reality.

M INISTRY OF D ELI VERAN CE

The most significant manifestations of God’s goodness and power are His love and
grace that enable us to be forgiven for our sins. What should make us rejoice most is
not that demons are subject to us in Jesus’ name—which they are—but that His
name has saved us from eternal death away from God (Luke 10:17-20).

In commissioning His disciples, Jesus gave authority and instruction for ministering
deliverance from evil spirits (Matthew 10:8; Mark 3:14-15). Obviously then, demons
are meant to be reckoned with in a believer’s life, and it cannot be that Jesus gave us
jurisdiction over something He would prefer that we avoided.

We have the prerogative and the responsibility to alleviate people from the cruel
and debilitating loads that have been forced upon them by their enemies. As surely
as God raised up deliverers, judges (Judges 2:16-18) in ancient Israel to free His
people from the hands of their enemies, so He has raised us up with the same
assignment. Whether their taskmasters are sinful or satanic, physical or spiritual,
past or present, Jesus wants people free—and He kindly entrusts us with the hands-
on work to bring about that freedom.

Daniel A. Brown, PhD ctw.coastlands.org

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Exc e rp t s Fro m En joy ing Yo u r Jo u rne y Wi t h G od 5

To bury our heads in the sand, hoping evil will pass us, and others by, or, to try
insulating ourselves with a theology that keeps THE EVIL SPIRITED at bay—outside of
our nation or our person—misses the main point. Jesus is our Deliverer. He is our
salvation from every manner of evil.

Even though most deliverance from evil will be processes—worked out over a period
of time, rather than instantaneous events—there will be times when God’s
miraculous intervention in our mental/emotional/spiritual condition brings
complete freedom, in moments. Instead of a season of deliverance, we experience a
sudden rescue much like the deliverance that came to us when we first opened our
hearts to receive Jesus as our Savior.

Such instantaneous deliverances, like sudden healings from bodily afflictions, are
miracles. They happen as a result of the power of God, but the triggering event can
be a word spoken to the bound person (Matthew 8:16); scripture (Psalm 107:20);
revelation of truth (John 8:32); a simple command (Mark 5:8); love (1 John 4:18);
prayer and fasting (Matthew 17:21); or, simply as a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit
who opens blind eyes (Psalms 146:8).

C ONCLUSIO N
Although deliverance can either extricate us from circumstances caused by evil
spirits or free us from the grasp of those spirits themselves, the liberty we
experience in deliverance brings us to a very new place. It is like having the wind, or
current turn around and go the opposite direction—advancing and aiding us—
rather than opposing us. That, in turn, increases our desire to celebrate and praise
God.

The Lord is “a God of deliverances,” and to Him “belong escapes from death” (Psalm
68:20). One of the testimonies every believer can have during the course of his or
her journey with Him is:

“He delivers and rescues and performs signs and wonders in heaven and on
earth, who has also delivered Daniel from the power of the lions." Daniel
6:27

Daniel A. Brown, PhD ctw.coastlands.org