ANTICIPATING EVIL - Pt.4

Part Four — A Teaching by Pastor Chris Oyakhilome

God talks to His people. This is not a theological nicety or a poetic figure of speech — it is a living, operational reality for every child of God. Some stumble at this idea, imagining that the Creator of the universe is too occupied with running the cosmos to attend to individual lives.

But God is a master communicator, and He considers every one of His children important enough to speak to, to warn, to guide, and to enlighten. The question is not whether He speaks. The question is whether we are listening, and whether we have developed the spiritual capacity to recognise His voice.

The theme scripture appears twice in the book of Proverbs — in chapter 22 verse 3, and again, word for word, in chapter 27 verse 12. By the law of the Spirit, when God repeats Himself in exactly the same language, it is a signal of vital importance. He is saying: pay close attention.

This is not optional:

Proverbs 22:3 / 27:12  “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.”

The prudent man sees what is coming. The simple man does not. And the difference is not cleverness or education — it is spiritual development. The spirit of man is designed by God to be the instrument through which divine light and divine guidance flow into the life of a believer. This is what makes the development of the human spirit so critically important.

THE SPIRIT OF MAN — THE CANDLE OF THE LORD

One of the most arresting statements in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament is found in Proverbs chapter 20:

Proverbs 20:27  “The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly.”

The “belly” here is an expression for the innermost being — the hidden man of the heart, the core of your nature. And the Spirit of God tells us that the human spirit is the candle of the Lord. The light of God is lit in your spirit. This is where the purpose of God for your life resides. This is where His guidance originates. And in Psalm 18, the Psalmist confirms the personal dimension of this truth:

Psalm 18:28  “For thou wilt light my candle: the LORD my God will enlighten my darkness.”

God lights the candle in your spirit. He sets His light there. And from that light, His guidance flows — not from external signs or spectacular revelations first, but from within the spirit of the believer. This is how God primarily guides His children in the New Testament dispensation: through the inward witness of the Holy Spirit bearing testimony with the human spirit.

MAN IS A SPIRIT

To understand how God speaks and guides, it is essential to understand what man is. The Word of God is clear on this:

1 Thessalonians 5:23  “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Notice the order: spirit, soul, body. God places the spirit first, because the spirit is the primary reality of your being. You are a spirit. You have a soul. You live in a body. Your body contacts the physical world through the five senses. Your soul — the realm of the mind, emotions, and reasoning — contacts the intellectual and emotional world. But your spirit contacts God. Your spirit recognises spiritual things. Your spirit receives divine light.

A great many Christians live primarily from their souls — from their reasoning, their emotions, their analysis. When faced with a problem, they think and think and think, turning the matter over endlessly in the mind. But the highest potential of human nature does not reside in the soul; it resides in the spirit. The most successful and creative people in history were not primarily those who thought the hardest, but those who learned to operate from the deepest place — from the spirit, where divine inspiration flows. The spirit gives a sense, a knowing, that transcends intellectual analysis and arrives at accuracy without laborious reasoning.

This is why praying in the Spirit is so important. The apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 14:

1 Corinthians 14:14–15  “For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also.”

When you pray in tongues, your spirit is activated and engaged in prayer directly with God, bypassing the limitations of your natural understanding. This is not the lesser form of prayer — notice that Paul lists it first: “I will pray with the spirit.” Praying in the spirit builds and develops your inner man, makes your spirit more sensitive, and heightens your ability to receive the witness of the Holy Ghost.

THE HOLY SPIRIT BEARS WITNESS WITH YOUR SPIRIT

How do you know you are a child of God? Not by a feeling in your body. Not by an emotion in your soul. The apostle Paul is precise:

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

The Spirit bears witness with your spirit — not with your mind, not with your senses, but with your spirit. That inner knowing, that settled certainty that you are God’s child — it does not come from reason or emotion; it comes from the testimony of the Holy Spirit to your spirit. And if that same Spirit can bear witness to the most fundamental truth of your existence — that you are born again and belong to God — how much more can He bear witness to other things: to danger ahead, to the right path to take, to the decision that is in line with His will? If you trusted the Spirit’s witness for salvation, learn to trust His witness for the rest of your life as well.

JESUS ANTICIPATED EVIL — AND RESPONDED

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself modelled what it means to anticipate evil spiritually. On the night before His arrest, He was deeply moved in His spirit. He knew what was approaching. And He did something specific: He prayed. He said to His disciples: “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.” He anticipated the weight of what was to come, and His response was not denial or panic but prayer.

But before that, He had already turned His attention to one of His disciples:

Luke 22:31–34  “And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. And he said unto him, Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death. And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me.”

Jesus saw what Peter could not see. He perceived, by the Spirit, that Satan had made a targeted request to sift Simon Peter as wheat — to shake him violently, to attempt to destroy his faith. And Jesus did not simply watch it happen. He interceded. He prayed specifically, targetedly, for Peter’s faith to survive the coming test. That is what it means to anticipate evil: not merely to see it coming, but to respond with the appropriate spiritual action.

Peter, for his part, was confident. He was ready, he said, to go to prison and even to die. And he meant it. He had even raised a sword to defend Jesus at the moment of arrest, cutting off the ear of the high priest’s servant. Yet within hours, he was denying his Lord three times before a servant girl. How do you go from sword-wielding courage to fearful denial in a matter of hours? This is what Jesus saw coming. This is what Peter, with all his genuine love and good intentions, could not see in himself.

But Jesus had prayed. And when the cup crowed and Peter caught his Lord’s eyes across the courtyard, something broke open in him. He went out and wept bitterly. And the Lord, in resurrection, sent a specific message: go and tell my brothers — and Peter. He was already restored in the heart of Christ before Peter had even begun to seek restoration. The intercessory prayer of Jesus had held him, even through the fall.

THE RIGHT WAY TO BE LED

Given all of this, how should a believer in the New Testament era seek divine guidance when the path is unclear? Not by a fleece, as Gideon did. Not by casting lots, as the disciples did before Pentecost. These were methods appropriate to their dispensation — a time before the Holy Spirit took up permanent residence within believers. To employ such methods today is to live beneath your privilege. Gideon was not a prophet. He did not have the Holy Spirit within him. He was a natural man trying, by the best means available to him, to find out the will of God.

You are in a different position entirely.

The New Testament pattern is plain. When the Holy Spirit did not give Paul and his companions the release to go in a certain direction, they simply could not go:

Acts 16:6–7  “Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, after they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not.”

Twice in quick succession the Holy Spirit withheld His release — not with a thunderclap or a vision, but through the interior witness of the spirit. Paul and his team knew in their spirits that this was not the direction. They waited. And then came the vision of the man of Macedonia calling them to come over and help, and everything became clear. They gathered that God was calling them to Macedonia, and they went.

This is the New Testament pattern: the Holy Spirit within, bearing witness, giving or withholding the release, guiding from the inside out. Not circumstances, not feelings, not the accumulation of many prophets speaking over your life — but the Spirit of God within your own spirit, educated by the Word of God, sensitive to divine impressions, and aligned with the purposes of heaven.

The development of your spirit is not optional if you desire to walk in the wisdom and safety that God has provided. Study the Word. Meditate on it. Pray in the Spirit. Train your inner man to receive and recognise the witness of the Holy Ghost. And when that witness speaks — whether to warn you, to redirect you, to urge you to pray, or to give you a settled peace about a decision — listen. A prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself. Let that man be you.