God created a mind for man; it was not meant to fall into disuse. From the beginning God wanted man to hear the word and understand it (Matt. 13:23). From the beginning God wanted man to use his mind to receive His word. This word would then reach from the mind to his love, his will, and his spirit. Therefore, an active mind is a barrier to the work of evil spirits. Consequently, the biggest goal of evil spirits is to make a believer's mind sink into a state of emptiness. To be empty means to have nothing inside and to be a vacuum. Evil spirits will do this either by deceptions or force; they will cause the believer's mind to become emptiness. Evil spirits know that when the believer's mind is empty, he will not be able to think and will lose his reason and sense and will indiscriminately accept the "teachings" of evil spirits. He will not care what the nature or the outcome of these teachings are.
Believers should exercise their own minds. However, the exercise of the mind is not expedient for evil spirits. As a result, evil spirits try their best to cause the believers' minds to become empty. When the believers' minds are functioning normally, the believers will discern all senseless, extraordinary revelations and all kinds of injected thoughts; they will know the source of these thoughts. Emptiness of the mind gives ground to evil spirits. All revelations and thoughts received while the mind is empty are from evil spirits. If a believer does not use his mind for a moment, he will see evil spirits zealously coming to his aid!
Generally speaking, there is not much difference between emptiness of the mind and passivity of the mind. But strictly speaking, being empty in the mind is not using the mind, while being passive in the mind is waiting for external forces to come and use the mind. Passivity is one step further than emptiness. To be passive is to not move on our own and allow external forces to come and move us. To be passive in the mind is to stop thinking on our own and allow outside forces to think in our own mind. To be passive is to become a machine.
Passivity in the mind offers the best working ground for evil spirits. There is no other ground that evil spirits like more. If a believer does not use his own mind and expects outside forces to come upon him, supernatural evil spirits will have an opportunity to take possession of his will and body. Just as a foolish mind can easily be cheated because of its ignorance, a passive mind can easily be attacked because of its lack of consciousness. It cannot respond if it acts as though it has no brain. If a believer allows his mind to stop thinking, reasoning, and deciding, and if he does not compare his own experience and walk with that revealed in the Bible, he is inviting Satan's deceptions to come into his mind.
In trying to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, many believers consider that henceforth they do not need to weigh, consider, or decide whether any seemingly God-given thoughts are according to the light of the Bible. They think that the meaning of being led by the Holy Spirit is like being dead, and that they should only listen to the thoughts and impulses that come from the mind. In particular, they believe that the thoughts that come after praying are from God. As a result, while they pray and after they pray, they allow their minds to sink into passivity. They stop their own thoughts and every other activity of the mind, in hope of receiving "God's thoughts." They believe that this kind of thought is from God, and they become hardened, obstinate, and unreasonable persons doing many hardened, obstinate, and unreasonable things. Little do they realize that (1) praying does not cause thoughts to become God's thoughts; (2) waiting for godly thoughts, before and after they pray, only invites evil spirits to counterfeit God; and (3) God's guidance is in the intuition and not in the mind. Many believers do not understand that God does not want man to be passive, but to co-labor with Him in an active way. They expend considerable effort to train themselves to become men with passive minds—to become persons who do not know how to think by themselves—and they expect to receive God's thoughts this way. Little do they realize that when they do not use their minds, God does not use their minds either, and He does not give them His thoughts, because His principle is that man would use his own will to control his own faculties and co-labor with Him. When men do not use their mind, evil spirits take the opportunity to come in and control. God does not want men to become machines in order to receive His revelation. Only evil spirits want men to behave this way. Hence all passivity affords convenience for evil spirits. Evil spirits utilize the ignorance and passivity of the believers to work in their minds.