ANTICIPATING EVIL - Pt.3

Part Three — A Teaching by Pastor Chris Oyakhilome

The Christian life is not a life of passive existence, drifting along and hoping for the best. God has equipped His children with something far more powerful than luck or instinct — He has given us the capacity to perceive what is coming before it arrives, to recognise danger before it strikes, and to respond with the wisdom of heaven. This is the subject of anticipating evil: not living in fear, but living in spiritual awareness, alert to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and trained to follow the inward witness that God has placed within every believer.

The theme scripture for this teaching is found in the book of Proverbs, and it is a verse so significant that the Holy Spirit caused it to be written twice in the same book — a divine signal that this truth is of vital importance:

Proverbs 22:3  “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.”

There it is, in unmistakable clarity. The prudent man — the wise man, the man who has trained his spirit — sees the evil coming and takes cover. But the simple, the untrained, the inattentive, keep going straight into what is ahead and suffer the consequences. This is not merely a general observation about life; it is a divine description of two kinds of people. And the difference between them is not intelligence or social status — it is spiritual sensitivity. The wise man perceives. The simple man does not.

Many believers get into trouble not because they are wicked or careless, but simply because they have never been taught about these things. They do not know that God speaks to His children about what lies ahead. They do not know that the Holy Spirit provides a spiritual perception that goes beyond what the natural mind can detect. And so, unaware of this provision, they walk straight into situations that could have been avoided.

WHAT SPIRITUAL PERCEPTION LOOKS LIKE

Three accounts bring this truth vividly to life. In the first, a woman was going about her business in the city when a sudden and overwhelming burden came upon her spirit. The urge to pray was so strong that she sat down right where she was and began to intercede, loud and urgent, until the heaviness lifted. People gathered around her, alarmed. But she prayed until it was done. When she returned home, she found that robbers had broken in, rifled through every room, and packed all the valuables together — but had left without taking a single thing. Her prayer in the spirit had turned the situation around. She had heard the inward call and responded, and her household was saved.

In the second account, a family was in a restaurant when the husband was suddenly gripped with a knowing that they had to leave — immediately, without finishing their meal. He could not explain it. He simply knew. They left. When they arrived home, they found their house on fire. They arrived just in time to save their belongings. Had he ignored that inward nudge, they might have lost everything. A third young man was about to board a bus for a long journey when something within him said, do not go. He argued, hesitated, but eventually stepped off. The bus departed without him and caught fire. Everyone on board perished. He was alive because he listened to his spirit.

These are not coincidences. They are the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the spirits of God’s children — the inward witness, the intuition of the spirit, the knowing that goes deeper than reason. This is what the apostle Paul called spiritual perception.

PAUL AND SPIRITUAL PERCEPTION

The apostle Paul gives us one of Scripture’s most striking demonstrations of this principle in Acts chapter 27. Paul was a prisoner being transported by ship to Rome to appear before Caesar. At a certain point in the voyage, with winter approaching and conditions becoming dangerous, Paul spoke up:

Acts 27:9–10  “Now when much time was spent, and when sailing was now dangerous, because the fast was now already past, Paul admonished them, and said unto them, Sirs, I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt and much damage, not only of the lading and ship, but also of our lives.”

Mark that word: perceive. Paul was not a sailor. He was not reading weather instruments or consulting navigational charts. He was reading his spirit. He had a knowing, an inward conviction, that this journey would end in disaster. He urged them to stay put. But the majority overruled him, deferring instead to the captain and to the more comfortable harbour just ahead. As they set out, conditions actually seemed to improve — the wind was favourable, the seas relatively calm. Some no doubt pointed at Paul as an alarmist. But then, suddenly, a furious storm descended. For two weeks they were tossed without sight of sun or stars, throwing cargo and tackle overboard, despair setting in. They lost everything — exactly as Paul had said. Only an angelic visitation and the grace of God preserved their lives.

Paul’s perception had been accurate from the start. The problem was not his word but the willingness of others to receive it. And yet Paul himself, on another occasion, shows us something equally important: the awareness of danger does not always mean the avoidance of it. Sometimes you press through it with conviction:

Acts 20:22–24  “And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.”

The Holy Spirit was witnessing in every city — not only to Paul but to believers in various places along the route — that danger awaited him in Jerusalem. And in Acts chapter 21, we encounter Philip the evangelist, whose four daughters had the gift of prophecy, and a prophet named Agabus who came down from Judaea. Agabus took Paul’s belt, bound his own hands and feet with it, and declared: thus saith the Holy Ghost, so shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles. Those around Paul wept and begged him not to go. His response was the declaration of a man of absolute conviction: “What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”

This is crucial. There is a difference between a prophetic word that redirects and a prophetic word that reveals. The Holy Spirit was not telling Paul to abandon his mission; He was preparing him for what was ahead. Paul had the perception, the awareness, and also the conviction to proceed. He was not ignorant of the danger — he walked into it eyes wide open, with an unshakeable resolve grounded in the will of God. That is the character of a true man of God.

DISTINGUISHING SPIRIT FROM SOUL

One of the most important questions this subject raises is this: how do you know whether something is coming from your spirit or merely from your own thoughts and desires? This distinction matters enormously, because what arises from our own desires can easily masquerade as spiritual direction.

The apostle Paul gives the foundational principle in Galatians:

Galatians 5:16–17  “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”

The Amplified Bible renders verse 17 with even sharper clarity: “For the desires of the flesh are opposed to the Holy Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are opposed to the flesh.” This means that when you already have a strong desire for a particular outcome, that desire will colour everything you think you are hearing. If you desperately want a certain job, a certain relationship, a certain direction, your wanting will produce feelings and impressions that feel very much like guidance but are simply the echo of your own desire. Your desire has coloured the signal.

This is why it is so vital to distinguish between asking God for something and knowing the perfect will of God. These are not the same thing. God is not obligated to withhold from you what you insist on having. The Word of God even shows that it is possible to receive something from God that was not His best will for you. Balaam, for instance, desired to go with the emissaries of Balak. God said no, twice. On the third request, God permitted him to go — and the consequences were severe. Just because something seems to be working out is not proof that it is from God.

The mature believer graduates from simply asking God for things to seeking the perfect will of God for his life. He moves from “give me what I want” to “tell me what you want for me.” He learns that the boundaries of the spirit life are set by the Word of God, and that the inward witness must always be tested against the written Word.

ON PROPHECY AND DISCERNMENT

Another dimension of this subject is the question of prophecy. The Scriptures are clear:

1 Thessalonians 5:19–21  “Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesyings. Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.”

Prophecy is to be encouraged, not dismissed. But it is equally to be tested, not swallowed uncritically. There is genuine prophecy, and the devil counterfeits it precisely because the genuine version is so powerful and so prized. You only fake something that has a genuine version. The counterfeiting of prophecy is evidence of its value.

The testing of prophecy begins with the character of the one prophesying. A person whose life does not bear the fruit of the Spirit, whose conduct is inconsistent with the Word of God, whose counsel consistently points away from Scripture — such a person’s prophetic utterances must be weighed with great care. There are those who have built ministries on the gift of prophetic utterance, and sincere believers have lost businesses, savings, and futures by following such words without testing them. Let the word be brought to the pastor, to the leadership, to the Word of God itself. Let the other judges. This is not an insult to the person who prophesied; it is obedience to the command of Scripture.

The gift of prophecy, as used in the New Testament context of the local church, does not primarily foretell the future. But the Holy Spirit Himself does show things to come to the children of God. As Jesus promised, the Spirit will show you things to come. This is a personal, intimate communication from the Holy Spirit to the spirit of the believer — not mediated through a chain of prophets and ministers, but direct and inward.

THE SPIRIT AS YOUR GUIDE

God’s design is that each of His children be led by the Holy Spirit within them. Not by accumulating multiple prophets, not by casting lots or seeking signs, not by reading circumstances as if they were divine verdicts — but by the inward witness of the Holy Spirit bearing testimony with your spirit. This is the Romans 8:16 reality:

Romans 8:16  “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.”

The Holy Spirit bears witness with your spirit. Not with your mind, not with your feelings, not with your physical senses — with your spirit. And your spirit must be developed, educated, and trained to receive and recognise that witness accurately.

This is why the Word of God is so indispensable. The more you study the Word, the more you meditate on it, the more your spirit is educated and trained to distinguish the voice of the Holy Spirit from the voice of your own desires. A spirit that is full of the Word of God is a spirit that can hear clearly and guide accurately. Praying in the Holy Spirit — praying in tongues — builds up your spirit and makes it more sensitive to divine impressions. The man or woman who prays much in the spirit becomes increasingly attuned to the spiritual environment around them. They begin to perceive things that others miss.

The Christian who learns to work with his spirit, to follow its leading, to test what he hears against the Word of God, and to act with conviction on what the Spirit reveals — that Christian will walk in a dimension of life that others will marvel at. He will avoid pitfalls that destroy others. He will be in the right place at the right time. He will be a prudent man who sees the evil and hides himself. And the simple? They will pass on and be punished — not because God willed it, but because they never learned to listen.