IT WAS A WARM, QUIET SUNDAY MORNING on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. The date was December 7, 1941. Out of a clear blue sky, swarms of growling aircraft descended. Suddenly, all around Pearl Harbor, ships erupted into flames and billows of oily black smoke. Within those ships, men died without a moment's warning some even asleep in their bunks.
Aboard the cruiser New Orleans, a chaplain named Howell M. Forgy helped a group of crewmen break into a locked ammunition storeroom so the ship could mount a defense. Once Chaplain Forgy and the other men got inside, they discovered that the ammunition hoist was out of commission. So Chaplain Forgy and the other men formed a human chain, like a bucket brigade, passing the heavy artillery shells from man to man up to the gun deck.
The shells were heavy and the work was hard and discouraging, and it had to be carried on amid the smell of smoke and the sound of human screams and roaring planes and exploding bombs. Chaplain Forgy saw that some of the men's arms were weakening and their faces showed signs of hopelessness. So he pasted a broad smile on his face, slapped the back of the man next to him, and shouted, "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!"
This story was later retold, and the chaplain's words became the opening lines of a popular wartime song that lifted the spirits of an entire nation at war.
You and I face much the same situation today. We are under heavy attack a spiritual and moral attack and the devastation of this spiritual war is all around us in our society, our government, our universities, our entertainment media, our neighborhoods, our families, our churches, and our own lives. There are wounded people all around us, and we ourselves have been pierced by the fiery arrows of our enemy. To survive and to win, we must mount a strong defense and engage the enemy in battle. We must learn to "praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!"
And who is this enemy who is trying to destroy us?
Behind the confusion and fog of the battle is a crafty, powerful, and devastatingly real spiritual being whom our Lord Jesus has called "the ruler of this world," the devil. Despite the current surge of interest in the occult, New Age beliefs, and satanism, there is still a shocking ignorance on the part of Christians everywhere as to how to deal with the devil and his schemes.
It is time we who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ accept the fact that life is warfare, and that we are engaged in a life-and-death struggle. The forces we face are not flesh and-blood enemies, nor are they human agencies. But they are as real as any enemy who ever wielded a sword, a gun, or a flame-thrower. Our enemy is legion a deadly pantheon of spiritual hosts of wickedness. Though invisible, forces are utterly dedicated to our destruction.
These forces operate under the authority of the one who is the father of lies, the prince of darkness, the devil himself. Only by recognizing him as real, as the Scriptures clearly declare, can we begin to understand the reality around us. Only then can we truly live life as it really is. Only then can we comprehend the vital necessity of putting on the whole armor of God which, far from being merely a figure of speech, is in fact Christ Himself.
In our own strength we are utterly helpless to face such a powerful enemy as the devil. In fact, true victory in spiritual warfare demands that we acknowledge our helplessness and weakness. God has given us three specific steps that enable us to be conquerors:
First, we are to lay hold of the complete protection of Christ, what the Bible calls the full armor of God.
Second, once fully armed, we are to pray. Effective prayer is the result of actively putting on the armor of God.
Third and finally, in the face of Satan's attacks, we are to stand firm in our faith with the certain knowledge that the battle is the Lord's. Our faith in His victory a victory that is already accomplished on the cross is what overcomes the world.
The purpose of this book to help you where help is most needed: in the day-to-day conflict where our enemy continually attacks us in the form of open hostilities, subtle temptations, festering worries and resentments, gnawing fears, bitter disappointments, and that vague and nameless depression of spirit that so often attacks us and robs us of peace and sleep at 3:00 o'clock in the morning. Here is where the great spiritual issues are really won or lost and where the great resources of Christ are more needed than at any other time.
Ray C. Stedman
Author's Note: I gladly acknowledge my great debt to the fine series of studies by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Ephesians 6, published serially in The Westminster Record; and to the pastoral staff of Peninsula Bible Church for their unfailing encouragement.
Ephesians 6:10-13: "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand."
GOD IS NOT INTERESTED IN RELIGION, but He is tremendously interested in life. You cannot read the New Testament without realizing that the Lord Jesus did not hesitate to break the Sabbath regulations of His day when those regulations violated the real need of a broken human being for healing. God is not nearly so interested in stained-glass windows, organ music, congregational hymns, or pastoral prayers as He is in producing love-filled homes, generous hearts, and brave men and women who can live godly lives in the midst of a dark and evil world. His goal for our lives is that we be people of undefiled minds and undefiled hearts, living and projecting His truth and His character in a sin-ridden world.
I am deeply convinced that we can only understand life when we see it as the Bible sees it. That is why the Word of God was given to open our eyes to God's perspective on life and reality. The world we see all around us the world of entertainment and nightly news and instant information on the Internet, and political infighting and social upheaval that is a world of illusion. Though we usually call it "the real world," it is a facade that is destined to fade away. What God calls reality is something that exists beyond the flimsy walls of this world, and it is far more real and lasting than our so-called "real world." Our eyes and minds are constantly deceived by the distorted perspectives, twisted beliefs, false values, and temporary programs of this dying world.
But when we come to the Bible, we learn the truth. Here reality is laid before us, and we see the world as it really is. When we get down to the bare essentials of life and strip off all the confusing illusion, we find that life is exactly what the Bible records it to be.
We may not want to hear what the Bible has to say to us. We may think the Bible's diagnosis of our condition is too harsh, or its prescription for our healing is too difficult but if we reject its truth, we only succeed in deceiving ourselves. We would prefer to "cherry-pick" God's truth to highlight the verses we like and edit out the verses that expose our sins and failures. But it is not up to us to pass judgment on God's Word. Rather, we must submit ourselves to the judgment of God's Word, because it is inspired by God Himself. We do not have the authority to "correct" His words; rather, those words are the authority that correct our lives.
So let's stop this silly business of sitting in judgment upon the insights of the Lord Jesus Christ. In this world, we are continually confronted with the choice of whether to accept the flimsy, fallible" authority" of mere human beings or the certain, unfailing, clear Word of the Lord Jesus Christ. But as Christians, as people who bear the name of Christ, we must continually reduce every argument to this simple consideration: "Am I to accept this person's word or the Word of Christ? If this person's word agrees with what the Lord says, then fine, it is truth. But if this person's word does not agree with God's Word, then I must reject it, because there is no authority greater than that of God."
Life is struggle
In Ephesians 6, the apostle Paul sets forth his analysis of life, especially as it relates to the Christian life. And in Paul's analysis, life is struggle, life is conflict, life is warfare. Under the inspiration of God, Paul writes:
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. (Ephesians 6:10-13)
Nowhere in this passage do you get any sense that (as an old popular song used to put it) "life is just a bowl of cherries." No, stripped to its essentials, life is nothing more or less than a long struggle, a never-ending wrestling match. We don't like this idea, of course. We feel entitled to a life that is essentially care-free and easy, with just enough work to do to keep us busy and interested. We feel we have a right to expect the kind of life described in another old popular song:
We'll build a sweet little nest,
Somewhere in the West,
And let the rest of the world go by.
We tend to think of the trials, pressures, and problems of life as an annoying and unfair intrusion into our rightful, neat, and orderly existence. But Paul says that those afflictions and problems are not intrusions into our lives they are life itself! They are the stuff of which life is made conflict, struggle, and difficult choices.
Now, there's nothing wrong with dreaming dreams and making plans for the future. There is nothing wrong with enjoying life. In fact, our romantic and idealized dreams of "the good life" are a kind of racial memory, the vestigial remains of what was once God's intention for men and women. In God's good order and time, the golden age we all long for will become a reality but it will take place in the life to come, not in the life of the here and now.
The apostle Paul tells us that life is a struggle, a life and-death conflict between two opposing forces. If we try to ignore the conflict, if we do not firmly choose the right side and take up our armor and our weapons for the battle, we will inevitably find ourselves jarred and shaken by spiritual reality. We may even become casualties of a battle we thought we could wish away. Truth has a way of intruding on our pleasant little illusions.
We all know what it's like to have to shed our illusions and face the truth. The vacation ends, and we must leave Disneyland or Tahiti or Paris and return to the everyday world of making a living. Or a loved one dies, and we must face loneliness, grief, and the utterly real fact of human mortality. Or we lose our health. Or we lose our prosperity. Or we suffer some other personal loss. It happens all the time. We are continually shaken out of our dreams and daydreams, and we are forced to face the hard realities of life and eternity.
In Proceedings, the magazine of the Naval Institute, naval officer Frank Koch tells the story of an incident that happened to him at sea an incident that illustrates the principle Paul talks about:
Two battleships assigned to the training squadron had been at sea on maneuvers in heavy weather for several days. I was serving on the lead battleship and was on watch on the bridge as night fell. The visibility was poor with patchy fog, so the captain remained on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities. Shortly after dark, the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, "Light, bearing on the starboard bow." "Is it steady or moving astern?" the captain called out. Lookout replied, "Steady, captain," which meant we were on a dangerous collision course with that ship. The captain then called to the signalman, "Signal that ship: We are on a collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees." Back came a signal, "Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees." The captain said, "Send, I'm a captain, change course 20 degrees." "I'm a petty officer second class," came the reply. "You had better change course 20 degrees." By that time, the captain was furious. He spat out, "Send, I'm a battleship. Change course 20 degrees." Back came the flashing light, "I'm a lighthouse." We changed course.
God's truth is like that lighthouse and we are like that battleship. In our human arrogance, we chart our own course and demand that the world adjust itself to our wishes. But God's truth is unchanging, unbending, unyielding. It is not God's duty to alter His truth. It is our responsibility to chart our course according to the light of His Word, which is ultimate, objective reality. If we fail to do so, we risk running our lives aground.
"When the day of evil comes. . ."
The apostle Paul says that this struggle we face varies in intensity from one day to the next. We must learn to stand, he says, "when the day of evil comes." This implies that not all days are evil. Some days will be worse than others. There are seasons in our lives when pressures are more intense, and when problems, trials, and temptations seem to gang up on us all at once. These are what we recognize as evil days. The "day of evil" may not be a literal twenty-four-hour day, of course it could be a day, a week, or even years in length. But thank God, all of life is not a relentless, excruciating trial. There are certainly times in life when we get a rest from the battle, a reduction of the pressure, a relief from overpowering circumstances and agonizing decisions.
The reason we are not always under pressure is because of the grace of God. The fact is that all of life truly would be a day of evil and much worse if not for the grace and goodness of a loving God. He continually operates to restrain the powers that war against us and to allow times of refreshment, recreation, enjoyment, and blessing. It is tragic that we so often take these times of refreshment for granted, enjoying them without a single thought for the goodness of God which makes them possible. Instead of giving thanks to God for those times of refreshment, we feel entitled to God's blessing, and we are quick to complain that God is unfair when life doesn't go according to our expectations. This is the point Paul makes in his letter to the Romans:
Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance? (Romans 2:4).
So while every day is not an evil day, we have to agree with God's Word when it tells us that, in general, life is an unrelenting struggle. The struggle varies in intensity from time to time, but it extends from the cradle to the grave.
The nature of our struggle
Paul then goes on to analyze and define for us the nature of the struggle and this is a crucial point to understand. He tells us that our conflict is not against flesh and blood. That is, spiritual warfare is not about the struggle of man against man. It is not a political struggle, a social struggle, an economic struggle, or even a religious theological-doctrinal struggle. It is not a struggle between human beings. It is a struggle within human beings.
Let me ask you a question: What is the one thing that gives you the most difficulty in life? For most of us, the answer to that question, in one form or another, comes down to one thing: People. You may struggle intensely with a family member, your spouse or child or a parent. Or you may have personality conflicts and struggles in your office, or in your church, or in your neighborhood.
In the political realm, the Republicans are always vexed by the stratagems of the Democrats, and the Democrats are always irritated by the tactics of the Republicans and both parties are annoyed with the Libertarians, Reform Party, Greens, and independents!
And let us not forget the Internal Revenue Service. Certainly if there is one group of people who know how to make our lives miserable, it is those "public servants" down at the IRS!
But the apostle Paul says that our struggle is not against flesh and blood. Our true battle is not against our political opponents or the IRS or family or co-workers or neighbors or any other human agency. The battle is not against people, but against unseen spiritual powers. In fact, the entire human race is under a vicious assault by certain principalities and powers, world rulers of darkness, wicked spirits in high places.
"That is your problem," Paul says, in effect. "That is the nature of the enemy we face powerful invisible rulers of darkness, highly placed agents of spiritual wickedness!" And it is not just Christians who are opposed by these forces. Every man, every woman, every child, everywhere is a target of the enemy. The devil has each one of us in his crosshairs. The whole race is opposed by the principalities and powers, the world rulers of this present darkness. That is Paul's explanation of the struggle of life.
Yet, even though the devil has declared war on the entire human race, it is only Christians who are capable of believing and perceiving the true nature of this conflict. The world does not understand spiritual truth, so it either distorts the true nature of our battle to the point of ridiculousness or it rejects spiritual reality as a "myth," intellectually unacceptable and inadmissible to any intelligent mind. Occultism and superstition have distorted the great revelation of spiritual warfare the dark powers, rulers, authorities, and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms and have reduced them to a ridiculous pantheon of comic-book goblins, witches, spooks, and ghouls.
I am well aware of the disdain that many people in our society
today exhibit toward any serious discussion of the devil and evil
spiritual forces. They say, "Are you going to insult our
intelligence by talking about a personal devil? That is such a
medieval concept straight out of the superstition of the Dark
Ages! Are you seriously suggesting that the devil is at the root
of all the world's problems today?" I have even encountered
this attitude within the Christian church.
I once spent an evening in Berlin discussing these issues with
four or five intelligent churchmen men who knew the Bible intimately,
from cover to cover. Though we never once opened a Bible, we spent
the whole evening together discussing various passages. I never
referred to a single passage of Scripture that these men were
not aware of. In fact, they could quote these passages verbatim.
Yet each of these churchmen rejected the idea of a personal devil.
At the end of evening they admitted that, having rejected belief
in the existence of the devil, they had no answers to the most
puzzling issues of life, such as the obvious prevalence of evil
in our world. We had to leave it there.
We have to ask ourselves, if there is no devil, then how do we explain all the evil in the world? When we look at the many attempts down through history to destroy God's chosen nation, Israel, including the Holocaust just a short half-century ago, how can we say there is no devil? How can we say that a personal, intentional force for evil is not deliberately trying to destroy God's plan for the world? And when we look at the persecution of the Christian church around the globe, God chosen agency for demonstrating His character and His love in a dark world, how can we say there is no devil?
The devil is real, he is active, he is working day and night, trying to subvert and undo and defeat God's plan in human history. The devil is our enemy. And this is war.
The desperate disease
Once we see reality as God sees it, through the lens of His Word, the Bible, we see that we must accept as fact the proposition of Paul in Ephesians 6: Behind the problems of the world, behind the evil that manifests itself in mankind, there is a hierarchy of evil spirits the devil and his angels. The world says to the Christian, "Why talk about myths from the Bible about devils and angels? You want to know what's real? Turn on CNN or pick up the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post that's reality. That's relevant. That's meaningful."
No, that's ephemeral, that's passing away, that's the illusion of reality. Real reality, the real warfare that's going on in this world, is so invisible to the people of this world that it's never talked about on CNN, and it never makes the headlines yet it is actually these principalities and powers that drive the events behind the headlines! The wars, the genocides, the persecutions, the famines, the hatred, the racial unrest all of these things are the outward symptoms of the spiritual cancer that is consuming this world from the inside out.
And what good is it to keep giving aspirins to a feverish patient when the fever is merely a symptom of a deadly cancer? It is not enough to treat the symptoms we must attack the disease itself. That is what Paul so vividly and accurately sets before us in Ephesians 6.
This crippling disease has reached such a deadly, critical stage that even worldlings, non-Christians, are recognizing the inadequacy of their diagnosis. Listen to Carl lung, the great Swiss psychologist and medical doctor:
We stand perplexed and stupefied before the phenomena of Marxism and Bolshevism because we know nothing about man or, at any rate, have only a lopsided and distorted picture of him. If we had self-knowledge, that would not be the case. We stand face-to-face with the terrible question of evil and do not even know what is before us, let alone know what to pit against it. And even if we did know, we still cannot understand how it can happen here.
What a tremendously candid admission of human ignorance in the face of life as it really is! And listen to this bewildered cry from U Thant, when he was Secretary General of the United Nations. Speaking out on behalf of the dream of world peace before a conference of international delegates, he asked a question that is humanly unanswerable but which God has already answered in His Word:
What element is lacking so that with all our skill and all our knowledge we still find ourselves in the dark valley of discord and enmity? What is it that inhibits us from going forward together to enjoy the fruits of human endeavor and to reap the harvest of human experience? Why is it that, for all our professed ideals, our hopes, and our skills, peace on earth is still a distant objective seen only dimly through the storms and turmoils of our present difficulties?
As the world's great leaders grapple with the dilemma of modern life, all they can say is, "What is wrong? What is the unknown element behind this? We cannot understand or explain this! Something is missing from our understanding of human nature and human behavior. What is it?"
The answer: There is a spiritual war going on behind the scenes of history, and that spiritual war in the unseen world is driving events in our own visible world. There is no peace in the material world because there is a war now raging in the spiritual world.
There is nothing more meaningful, more relevant, more real that we could be involved in than the cause of God in this vast spiritual war. The biblical teaching of spiritual warfare shines a spotlight of truth on the basic problem of human existence and human history.
From Genesis to Revelation
While modern sociology, psychology, and political science stand baffled and frustrated in the face of the world's evil and darkness, the apostle Paul gives us the insight and illumination of God's Word: The world, he says, is in the grip of what he calls "rulers. . . authorities. . . powers."
These rulers and powers of this dark world are headed by the devil, whom Scripture says is a fallen angel of malevolent power and cunning intelligence. It is the devil against whom Christians are called to wrestle daily. Now, that is not just the claim of one isolated passage of the Bible. That is the teaching of the Bible from beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation, and especially in both Genesis and Revelation.
The Lord Jesus Himself put His finger on the whole problem when He said to certain men of His day, "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:44). In that stark and startling analysis, the Lord stripped the devil of his disguises and revealed his true character a liar and a murderer. What the devil does is related to what he is, just as what we do is precisely the result of what we are. Because he is a liar and a murderer, the devil's work is to deceive and to destroy. There you have the explanation for all the misery, hatred, murder, war, and other evils that have taken place in human history.
The devil has the ear of humankind. Scripture calls him "the god of this world." The world listens to him and to everything he says, but the devil does not tell the world the truth. The devil is a master of psychology, and he understands that people would much rather believe a pleasant, attractive lie than the unvarnished truth. That is why so many people rush to their destruction, ignoring all the evidence around them. They drool with desire after the attractive lies of the devil while rejecting the clear, life-giving truth of God.
Too late, people who chase the devil's lies discover that at
the end of the lie is destruction and death either a living death
of shame, regret, self-hate, frustration, meaninglessness, and
emptiness, or a literal physical death and a literal spiritual
death in eternity. Whom the devil cannot deceive, he tries to
destroy, and whom he cannot destroy, he attempts to deceive. That
is the working of the devil.
The call to arms
"Well," you say, "this is all very depressing. I would rather not think about it." I don't like to think about it either, but I have discovered that you cannot wish the truth away. There is only one realistic approach to this struggle, and that is to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. That is the way of escape, and there is no other.
God has issued to each of us a bugle call to intelligent combat. It is a call to us to be men and women of God, to fight the good fight, to stand fast in the faith, to be strong in the Lord in the midst of the battle, in the midst of this dark and evil world.
Those who ignore this call and the battle that rages around them are doomed to be casualties. We cannot remain neutral. We must choose sides. We must align ourselves with the forces of God, the forces of good. We must answer the bugle call, we must put on our armor and stand our ground or the battle will roll over us and in our defenseless, bewildered state, the forces of evil will trample us into the dust of the battlefield.
So we must learn to recognize how the dark systems of the devil work. But more than that, we must learn the processes of overcoming the systems of the devil not by flesh and blood, not by joining committees, not by political action, not by taking up clubs or assault weapons and attacking a human enemy. No, Paul says the weapons of our warfare are not flesh and blood weapons, not physical weapons, not political weapons. Rather, our weapons are mighty, through God, unto the pulling down of strongholds and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). That is the path to victory!
Do you think that is not challenging? That is the greatest challenge any ear could ever hear! Do you think that is not demanding? It demands more courage and sacrifice than any other cause in the history of the world! Do you think that is not exciting? It is the most exciting call that has ever gone out to men and women anywhere! "Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power!"
Prayer
Gracious Father, thank You for a truth that startles me, prods me, and disturbs me. Thank You, Lord, for Your word of reality that speaks to me in the midst of my complacency and illusion. How easily I would drift on in futile ignorance, never raising a finger against the deterioration of life and the destruction of body and soul, were it not for this word of challenge that calls me back and makes me see life as it really is. Lord, teach me to bow in humility before Your Word and to say to the Holy Spirit, "O great Teacher of God, open these Scriptures and make them real to me today." In Christ's name, amen.
ROBERT THE BRUCE was king of Scotland from 1306 to 1329. Early in his reign, King Edward I of England invaded his nation, defeated his army, and forced him into hiding. While on the run, Robert the Bruce took refuge in a cave.
Completely disheartened, the Scottish king lay by a fire in the cave, ready to resign himself to complete defeat and the loss of his kingdom. But then, in the flickering firelight, he noticed a spider on the cave wall, spinning a web. The spider repeatedly attempted to secure the web, then failed, attempted again, then failed. Finally, the spider was able to anchor the web, making it strong and secure.
In the persistence of the spider, the Scottish king saw a metaphor of his own struggle against the English invader. He decided he would not allow himself to be defeated by past failures he had to continue the fight for Scottish freedom. Robert the Bruce left his cave, led his troops across the field of battle, and defeated the English invaders at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. He continued to persevere for the next fourteen years until he finally won Scottish independence in 1328.
No battle was ever won without courage, perseverance, and strength. And that is the challenge before us, clearly sounded in Ephesians 6. Paul calls us to be strong in the Lord. He calls us to understand the nature of our enemy, those wicked spirits in high places who lie behind the insoluble problem of human evil. And he calls us to put on our armor and join the battle.
The apostle Paul indicates that the only ones who can successfully battle against the devil's forces are Christians. He writes, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood . . ." The pronoun "our" in that statement refers not to "us," the human race in general, but to "us" Christians, followers of Jesus Christ. While the entire world is oppressed by the powers of evil, only Christians struggle against those powers. This is the consistent teaching throughout the Bible. The Bible indicates that all human beings are victims of these invisible forces, but only believers can be victors over them.
No threat from within
Jesus Himself makes this point absolutely clear. There is a story in Luke of our Lord's reaction to the challenge that was presented to Him as He was casting out demons. His ministry of delivering people from demons was continually questioned by those who chose to approach the Scriptures intellectually. They did not like this business of casting out demons, and they tried to explain it in various ways. Some said His ability to cast out demons came from a relationship with Beelzebub, the prince of demons--another name for Satan. They said it was by Satan's power that he was casting out demons.
The name Beelzebub means "lord of the garbage." The Jews regarded hell as a cosmic garbage dump, and in a real sense they were right, for that is exactly what hell is a dumping ground for wasted lives. And because a garbage pile always attracts flies, they called Beelzebub "The Lord of the Flies." These people were accusing Jesus of casting out demons by the authority of Beelzebub, the Lord of the Flies.
But Jesus said, in effect, "No, you're quite wrong. In fact, what you are saying is not even logical. If that were true, then obviously Satan's kingdom would be divided against itself, and Satan would actually be pitted against the demons under his authority. That makes no sense at all!" Jesus states very simply that Satan never fights against himself. He is too clever, too cunning, and far too astute to divide his forces in that way. Satan knows that if he divided his own kingdom, his kingdom would fall.
Jesus is suggesting, therefore, that anyone who was under the control of Satan has no hope of deliverance apart from an outside, intervening force. Here's how He puts it: "When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe" (Luke 11:21). Who is the "strong man"? It is Satan. What is the "house"? The world. Who are the "goods"? The human race. In Luke 11:21-23, which presents this figure of the strong man, three great principles emerge:
(1) Humanity, alone against Satan, is powerless and hopeless. That is the unchanging position of Scripture. John says, "We [Christians] know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one" (1 John 5:19).
The Bible tells us that the world has fallen under the control of Satan. What does the Bible mean by "the world"? Not the world of trees and mountains and lakes and seas that is God's world. No, the Bible speaks of the world of organized human society, which has fallen under the control of Satan. We, as worldlings, are trapped within this domain of the evil one, and there is no possibility of escape apart from an intervention from without. For, as Jesus says, "When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe." There can be no threat from within to Satan's control.
It is here that our Lord puts His finger on the reason for the continual failure of the usual methods men and women employ to correct evils and wrongs. Human methods of reform fail because they do not come to grips with the essential problem. All our efforts to correct the evils we see in life are simply rearrangements of the difficulties. We succeed only in stirring them around a bit until they take a different form. Our methods can never solve the essential problem of evil because they cannot come to grips with the power of Satan. We cannot threaten Satan from within his dominion; only a stronger, outside agency can threaten the stranglehold of the evil one on our world and our lives.
As C. S. Lewis so aptly put it, "No clever arrangement of bad eggs will make a good omelet." And when the full cycle of problems is run through, it begins again, and we say, "History repeats itself."
What are the usual methods of human reform? You can list them easily. Almost invariably they are legislation, education, and an improved environment. Every problem we face is usually approached by using one of these reforms, if not all three combined. Legislation is law the attempt to control the behavior of the outward man. Law alone can do nothing to alter the inward man. It does not change the basic nature of man but merely restricts him under certain conditions.
Education is one of the worst so-called remedies for a deranged personality or a twisted mind. Scripture tells us that we are all are born into this world with twisted minds. (Some are more twisted than others, which is why most of us consider ourselves "normal," while thinking the other fellow is the one who is "twisted"!) To educate a twisted mind is but to make it more clever in its wickedness. The educated criminal is a far more clever, far more subtle, and far more dangerous than the ignorant criminal. The educated mind may have a thin veneer of erudition or sophistication hiding his corrupt personality from view, but the corruption is there nonetheless. Education does not change the core of a man or woman it only makes him or her more clever, and potentially more destructive.
An improved environment does not change a person either. When you take a man out of the slums, for example, and put him into a nicer environment, you do absolutely nothing to the man himself. In a little while he'll make that new environment the slum as well. So taking a man out of the slums does not necessarily take the slums out of the man. This is not to say that these reforms have no value. We should have laws for the sake of an orderly society. We should have education for the sake of a literate and effective society. And we should improve the living conditions of all men and women, for the sake of a just, compassionate, and decent society. But let's not make the mistake of thinking that these reforms will lead us to Utopia, to a shining new society of love and brotherhood. None of these reforms can produce a Utopia, because none of them has the power to transform human nature and the inner human being. None of them can counteract the invisible spiritual forces that are at war against us.
That is why so many of our best and brightest thinkers have arrived at a point of despair after a lifetime of trying to change humanity through legislative, educational, and social reform. They invariably end up in a pit of pessimism and despair. Listen to these words of Bertrand Russell, the high priest of the cult of social reformers and free thinkers:
The life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, toward a goal that you can hope to reach and where none can tarry long. One by one as they march our comrades vanish from our side, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent death. Brief and powerless is man's life. On him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls, pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter roles on its relentless way. For man, condemned today to lose his dearest, tomorrow himself to pass through the gates of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day.
Those eloquent but bleak words catalog the sheer despair into which humanity falls apart from God. There is a growing sense of despair everywhere you turn today. That despair is the unconscious realization of man's helplessness under Satan.
Now look at our Lord's words in Luke 11:22: "But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up the spoils." Who is this "someone stronger"? It is Jesus. He is speaking of Himself. He says that when a strong man, fully armed, guards his palace, his goods are at peace and nothing can be done about it, least of all by the goods themselves. But when One who is stronger comes, He breaks the power of Satan.
Here's the next principle the Lord reveals in this passage:
(2) Only the "good news" of the gospel of Jesus Christ can break the grip of the "bad news" of the devil. We sing of this truth in that great hymn of the faith, "0 For a Thousand Tongues" :
He breaks the power of canceled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean,
His blood availed for me.
We have been born into a world under the control of the satanic mind. Yet, in the mystery of the cross of Jesus and in the power of His resurrection, applied by faith, we discover that the force which ruins us is now broken and its power is canceled.
That is why this Christian gospel is so exclusive. That is why Christians are perfectly justified by the Word of God when they say there is no other answer to the problems of man; that there is no other power that can touch the basic problem of human life. Many people say that there are many roads to God, that it doesn't matter what you believe or who you believe in, as long as you are "sincere." But Jesus is very clear on this point: There's only one "stronger one" who has come into the world and is capable of breaking the power of this dark spirit, setting us free from the evil one's dominion and domination. No one can come to God the Father, and to freedom from the dominion of the evil one, except through Jesus alone (John 14:6). He is the "stronger one." There is no other.
Actress Grace Lee Whitney can testify to the fact that the "stronger one," Jesus Christ, has come into her life to set her free from the evil power that rules this world. In the 1950s and 1960s, she appeared in numerous motion pictures and television shows, working with the biggest stars in Hollywood Marilyn Monroe, Groucho Marx, Jack Lemmon, Robert Stack, and many more.
Then, in 1966, she was tapped to playa featured part on TV's Star Trek. During the first season, however, after appearing in only thirteen episodes, her character, Yeoman Janice Rand, was written out of the show. The sense of failure and rejection she felt after losing the role sent her into a tailspin of alcoholism, drug abuse, and immorality. She got to the point where she was drinking on skid row street corners right out of the bottle. Hospitalized, she was told by her doctors that the gin she had been drinking was eating a hole in her esophagus, and had nearly destroyed her liver. If she didn't stop drinking, they said, she would be dead within a couple weeks. Grace Lee Whitney was scared but she didn't know how to stop drinking. The alcohol controlled her.
A friend took her to a recovery group, where she was introduced to God. The group said the Lord's Prayer together, and at that very moment this prayer that had always sounded like gibberish to her suddenly made perfect sense. It was the first time she ever really knew that God cared for her and she immediate stopped drinking and using drugs. In the weeks that followed, God led her on a journey to Israel. On a walking tour outside of Jerusalem, she came to a gate with a sign that read "Garden of Gethsemane." In her autobiography, The Longest Trek, Grace Lee Whitney recalls what happened next,
I put my hands on the iron bars of the gate and looked through, into the Garden of Gethsemane. Suddenly, I felt weak, as if I was about to faint. I had to hold onto the bars to remain standing. Then I saw Jesus. He was beyond the iron bars, praying in the garden. . . . I thought, But I'm Jewish! As if He could read my mind, He turned and looked at me. "So am I," He said.
After that experience, Grace Lee Whitney gave her heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ. The "stronger man" came into her life with amazing power, setting her free from her addictions, her enslavement to immorality, her guilt and shame. Today, she goes to Star Trek conventions and women's prisons and television talk shows, telling everyone who will listen about the Lord and what He has done in her life.
And Grace Lee Whitney is just one among thousands who can testify to the power of Jesus Christ, the "stronger man." Only He has the power to invade the devil's domain and liberate people the devil's "possessions" so that they can become the cherished, prized possessions of God! Those who have such testimonies include not only alcoholics and drug addicts and people who have lived in outrageous immorality, but also people whose habits are less spectacular but no less sinful, including "church people" with evil habits and attitudes of anger, lust, self-righteousness, and pride.
The strongest chains are not those that can be placed around the body, but those that are wrapped around the mind and heart. The writers of Scripture make this clear. Paul tells us, "The god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers" (2 Corinthians 4:4). And that great document on human liberty, Paul's letter to the Romans, opens with the same basic thought that human beings in their darkened state, under the dominion of the evil one, have engaged in all manner of evil practices, leaving God no choice but to give them what they demand: "He gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done" (Romans 1:28). Paul suggests that the great hatred we see exhibited against God and His gospel does not come from the uneducated but from the educated: "Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools" (Romans 1:22), and so they "exchanged the truth of God for a lie" (Romans 1:25).
Into this realm of spiritual darkness and self-willed resistance to the will and goodness of God, Jesus Christ has come to set us free. John says that Jesus came into the world "to destroy the devil's work" (1 John 3:8). There is no adequate explanation of His coming apart from that. Paul says that Jesus has "rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves" (Colossians 1:13).
Paul himself was chosen as an apostle to the Gentiles, and in a dramatic conversion experience on the road to Damascus, he said to the Lord whom he saw in His glory, "Who are you, Lord?" And after identifying himself, Jesus replied, "Stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. . . . I am sending you to [your own people] to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God" (Acts 26:15-18).
This is the principal purpose of the gospel. If we try to channel it first into the smaller areas of life, such as applying it to social concerns, we only reveal how far we have mistaken its purpose. The gospel will ultimately find its way into the social condition of humanity, because the gospel of Jesus Christ is pervasive. Once it gets a hold of us, it doesn't let go until we are transformed through and through.
But the gospel must first make its impact on this basic problem of human life. Humanity is in the grip of an evil power, and we are helpless to free ourselves from bondage to that power by our own strength. The only one who can deliver us from it is Jesus Christ. He has already done so in the mystery of His cross and through the power and glory of His resurrection.
When a person trusts in Christ and commits himself to Christ, he discovers that the gospel becomes real and practical in his own experience. This is what we call "conversion." But conversion is only the beginning of the battle. Very soon, a new Christian becomes aware of the evil forces at work to destroy him. If he goes no farther in his new life than to believe his sins are forgiven, he will remain in bondage to those sins, living a life of conflict and frustration. But the battle is fought on the ground that we have been delivered from the dominion of darkness that we have been brought out of the power of Satan and into the kingdom of God.
Returning to the passage in Luke, we have seen (1) that human beings alone are helpless against the power of Satan, and (2) that liberation from the power of Satan is available only through the gospel, through belief in Jesus Christ, who destroyed Satan's power. Now we come to the Lord's third principle, revealed in Luke 11:23: "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters" (Luke 11:23). Here, then, is the next principle Jesus reveals to us:
(3) There is no neutrality in spiritual warfare. You either stand with Christ or against Him. He is saying here that it is not possible to take a neutral stance. Mere profession is not sufficient; total commitment is required. There are always those who say, "I understand something of the gospel, and I agree that there's much of value in the Christian faith. I am a friend of Christianity. I believe that Christianity exerts a positive influence on society but I do not care to go so far as to personally 'receive Christ.' I don't want to be thought 'extreme' or a 'religious fanatic.' I choose to remain neutral"
Jesus says this stance is impossible. There is no neutrality. "He who is not with me is against me." A person who does not receive total deliverance is still under the bondage and control of the dark powers of Satan. There are no exceptions.
That is why Christ is the crisis of history. He spoke of Himself that way as the divider of humanity. As He looks at human beings, there are only two groups. There are those who are wholly with Him because they are of Him they have received Him, they know Him, they love Him, and they partake in His life. And there are those who are against Him. "He who is not with me is against me."
On the other hand, some are tempted to say, "Well, if this is the case, then I want to be a Christian, but I don't know about all this inward control. I'm willing to go along with the outward forms of Christianity I'm willing to join the church but inwardly, I still believe in directing my own life and running my own affairs." Jesus says you cannot do that. "He who does not gather with me, scatters."
Let me tell you a tragic story. Lord Kenneth Clark (1903-1983) was a world-renowned art historian and host of the BBC-PBS television series Civilization. He lived his life as an agnostic. As far as we can know, he died without faith in Jesus Christ. In his autobiography, he told about the experience of visiting a magnificent European cathedral, where he had what he described as a profound and breathtaking religious experience. "My whole being," he recalled, "was irradiated by a kind of heavenly joy far more intense than anything I had known before."
Yet, immediately after this experience, Clark pulled back from faith in Christ. He realized that if he were to become a Christian, his entire life would have to change. He liked the life he had as an agnostic, and did not want to submit his life to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Besides, he said, his family and friends were all as irreligious as he was, and they would think he had lost his mind. He didn't want to subject himself to their ridicule, so he rejected God and turned his back on his one brief glimmering of Christian joy. "I was too deeply embedded in the world to change course," he reflected.
What a tragic epitaph for a human soul! And how many people around us could say those same words: "I refuse to change I am too deeply embedded in the world." Here was a man with a great reputation in the world yet he chose to waste his mortal life and his eternal soul pursuing things that could never last and never satisfy. What if, instead of choosing to be accepted by his godless family members and friends, he had chosen to have an influence upon them for Christ? What if instead of choosing to squander and scatter God's gift of life, he had chosen instead to gather his family and friends into the kingdom of God?
There is one thing that reveals whether you're with Jesus or against Him: the influence of your life. Jesus Christ has come into the world to gather together the adopted children of God. His is a gathering influence, breaking down divisions, binding hearts together, reuniting families, making people live together in harmony, breaking down the barriers of race, healing wounds, bringing nations together, drawing men, women, and children to Himself.
Victor or victim?
The great question of your life and mine is: "What is the essential character of your life? Is it self-centeredness or self-givingness? Are you with Christ or against him? Are you gathering with him in a healing, wholesome ministry or are you a divisive force in your family, your church, or your neighborhood? Do you split people up or bring people together?
You say you're a Christian. All right. Are your children drawn closer to faith in Christ because of your example? Or are they turned away by the example you set? Do your children and your spouse see Christ living in you or do they see only you, your demands, your ill-temper, your pettiness, and your selfishness? These are crucial questions that each of us must answer.
Our Lord cuts right to the core of life: Our lives are laid absolutely bare before Him and we are ultimately judged on the basis of our relationship to Him. The evidence of that relationship is the influence we exercise in our families, our church, our neighborhood, our workplace, and wherever we are involved in the lives of other people.
The question you and I must ask ourselves is, "Am I a victor, or a victim?" In our own strength, we are helpless to escape the dominion of the evil one. We are not free. We are not able to carry out our own decisions, except in a limited area, and this illusion of freedom makes us imagine that we are free, unrestrained individuals. The Bible tells us that apart from Christ we are under the unbroken influence of an evil force that influences our thoughts and reactions. The only way of escape is through the One who has come to destroy the works of the devil.
If you have not known that deliverance, you can do it now. Perhaps as you have been reading, you have had to say, "If all this is true, then I am still an unbeliever. I am still under the power of Satan." In that case, the message of the gospel to you is this: In one moment of time you can pass from death into life. In one moment of commitment, trusting only Christ and His work, not in your own efforts to be "good enough," you can say, "Lord, here am 1. Save me." The moment you pray that prayer, you pass from death into life. That is what conversion is. In those words you will open the door that allows the Lord Jesus to accomplish His saving work in your life.
Prayer
Father, may those who have been seeking answers pass now from the power of Satan into the kingdom of God. May they be delivered and set free. For me, Lord, who has already experienced this and who knows the reality of this delivering power in my life, I pray that I may never forget that I have been set free. I ask that you continually remind me that Jesus did for me what I could never do for myself. May I have a heart filled with love for Him who loved me and gave Himself for me. In the name of Jesus, who set me free, amen.
Ephesians 6:11: As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,
in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air,
the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.Ephesians 2:1-2: Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.
ONE OF THE MOST STUNNING VICTORIES in the annals of warfare occurred in 1991, with the defeat of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein and the liberation of Kuwait during the Gulf War. Military historians tell us that one of the most important reasons that war was won so decisively (Allied losses: 149 versus Iraqi losses of 100,000 or more) and quickly (only 100 hours) was that the allied forces had a clear, in-depth understanding of Saddam Hussein's military strategy and were able to thwart the Iraqi dictator at every turn.
When the military commanders of the allied coalition learned that Saddam planned simply to replay the same strategy he used in the 1980-88 war with Iran, they knew exactly how to defeat him. The Allied generals, led by General Norman Schwarzkopf, devised a strategy of encirclement. Even though Saddam's army outnumbered the coalition forces two to one and were well dug into their desert fortifications, the allied coalition used a combination of superior placement, superior firepower and technology, speed, and misdirection to defeat Iraq.
While U.S. Marines conspicuously practiced for a seaborne invasion along the Kuwaiti coast, drawing Saddam's attention in the wrong direction, the main coalition force was massed for an invasion across the desert. Knowing the exact location of Saddam's tanks and artillery, the coalition pounded those locations with everything from bombers to helicopters. Knowing that Saddam's forces were dug in behind sand berms and other entrenchments, allied troops practiced bulldozing and storming similar desert barricades until they could do it in their sleep.
Once the war began, Iraqi troops began surrendering so eagerly that the Allies didn't know where to put them all. In one case, a pair of Iraqi armored vehicles encountered a lone U.S. soldier whose vehicle was stuck in the sand. The soldier expected to be shot or captured but instead, the Iraqis surrendered to him and helped him get his vehicle unstuck!
The story of the 100-hour war in the Persian Gulf is an apt metaphor to describe our spiritual warfare against Satan. Though the devil would have us believe he is invincible, his cause has already been doomed by the cross of Christ. If we understand his strategy, the victory will be ours. In the end, we will have the honor of standing with our Commander-in-Chief, the Lord Jesus, and hear him declare that this raging tyrant, the devil, was no match for the forces of heaven.
In spiritual warfare as in human warfare, the key to victory is to know your enemy and know his strategies.
Armed with cruel hate
As we have seen in the preceding chapter, the Bible clearly shows that all human beings, without exception, are helpless victims of satanic control, apart from Jesus Christ. Under the domination of invisible satanic forces, human beings are oppressed and unhappy and incapable of escape by any wisdom or power of their own. But the good news is that we can be set free by the outside intervention of Jesus Himself, who came "to destroy the works of the devil" He has broken the power and bondage of Satan over human lives. When we receive Him into our lives, we are liberated to live as children of God.
It is important to understand what this liberation truly means. It does not mean that we have been set free to live lives of selfishness and self-indulgence. That is a common misconception, but it is nowhere taught in the Bible.
No, we haven't been liberated to live for ourselves. We have been liberated to live for our Commander, Jesus Christ. We have been set free so that we can join the battle! That is the call which comes to all Christians. And understand: When God calls us to join the battle, He is not using a mere metaphor. This war is real, the enemy is determined to destroy us, and his weapons are deadly. Like soldiers in any war, we stand a chance suffering wounds at the hands of our enemy. To better defend ourselves against this implacable foe, we need to understand the way he operates.
The first step for any soldier in training is to learn about the strategy and weapons the enemy will use against him. The devil is a cunning and wily strategist, and that is why Martin Luther wrote these stirring words:
For still our ancient foe
Doth seek to work us woe--
His craft and power are great,
And, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.
The record of Scripture confirms this truth. Read the Old Testament and you'll see that every saint, every prophet, every patriarch, everyone of the great and glorious kings of Israel, was defeated at one time or another by the devil. The wisest and greatest of men are absolutely helpless in attempting to out-wit the devil by themselves. Yet, as we have already seen, the Bible makes it clear that we can walk in victory. God does not want us to fail; that is why He has made victory possible in our lives.
James says, "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:7). Think of that! This clever, cunning strategist who has held the world in defeat for centuries, whom no man is able to out-maneuver, will flee from you when you learn not to be ignorant of his schemes and strategies.
Now, the question we must ask ourselves is, "What is the strategy of the devil? How does he plan to defeat us? How does he keep the world in such bondage? And what are the particular ways he uses to neutralize my effectiveness for God?" The only one in all history who has ever consistently defeated the devil, not only in His life but also in His death, is the Lord Jesus Christ. He put His finger squarely upon the strategy and tactics of Satan when He said that the devil "was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:44). The strategy of the devil is to murder. The tactic by which he accomplishes this is to lie.
How does the devil plan to oppose the work of God in the world? By murdering, by destroying. One of the names given to the devil in the book of the Revelation is Apollyon, which means "Destroyer." What is it to destroy? It is to create chaos, to lay waste, to ruin, to make desolate. There you have the explanation for the whole tragic story of human history: A Destroyer is at work among human beings.
Our God is a God of beauty, harmony, order, perfection, love, light, and grace. There is enough evidence left in the world of nature, including our own being, and in the world of ideas, to see this marvelous symmetry, beauty, and perfection of God. The Lord is a God of harmony and order. The world was created as orderly and perfect and even human beings were once orderly and perfect.
But then a Destroyer came on the scene. It is his delight to smash, mangle, twist, mutilate, disfigure, darken, and blast in every way he can. It does not make any difference whether it is bodies or souls, flesh or ideas, matter or spirit the aim of the devil is exactly the same in every case. That is why the devil can never offer anything positive to human life. He can create nothing. He has never made anything, and he never will make anything. All he can do is destroy what God has made. His power is totally negative and destructive in every way.
What are the tactics the devil employs? He destroys by deceiving, by lying, by distorting, by counterfeiting, by masquerading, by clouding human minds with illusion and fantasy. This is what Paul calls "the devil's schemes," or as some translations put it, "the wiles of the devil" Read through the Bible and see how many times the work of the devil is referred to in that manner the snares and the traps of the devil, the lies and illusions, the stratagems and the wiles. That is why we must look closely at the tactics the devil uses against us so that we can be strong and well-defended when he comes to us to defeat us, weaken us, and ruin our lives.
Direct and indirect attacks
The Bible makes it clear that the tactics of the devil fall into two major divisions: direct attack and indirect attack. He is capable of direct confrontation with human beings, as well as a subtle, indirect approach. The devil uses these two methods to maintain worldwide control over the race of humanity. The Bible indicates that there are fallen hosts of angels called "demons," whom Paul refers to when he writes, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 6:12).
It is crucial to understand that the phrase "heavenly realms" does not refer to heaven, God's eternal place of glory, the final home of every believer. In this context, "heavenly" refers to the spiritual realm, or more literally "the realm of the invisibilities," the invisible realities of life. The devil and his hosts are not visible, but they are very real. The devil's activity is in this realm of the invisible reality of life, the heavenly places, where God works.
The Bible tells us very little of the origin of the devil and his angels. But there is enough written to suggest that the devil was a being created originally as an angel of might, strength, beauty, and power. There is a brief reference to the fall of this great angel, whose name was Lucifer, and who became lifted up by pride. Pride is always the mark of the devil. Seized by pride, he chose to rival God and, in doing so, he fell from his station of honor and beauty and he became the devil. The Old Testament prophet relates the fall of Satan with these words:
How you have fallen from heaven,
O morning star [Lucifer], son of
the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nation!
You said in your heart,
"I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain.
I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High."
But you are brought down to the grave,
to the depths of the pit (Isaiah 14:12-15).
And in the New Testament, there is a scene in which Jesus sends
out seventy-two disciples to exercise His authority and further
His ministry. They return with a triumphant report: "Lord,
even the demons submit to us in your name" (Luke 10:17).
And Jesus replies that this is to be expected, because of who
He Himself is the eternal One who was there at creation, and who
has witnessed all of history, including Satan's fall. "I
saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven," Jesus told them
(Luke 10:18).
In his fall, Satan drew a third of the angels with him, and those
fallen angels constitute the principalities and powers, the organized
kingdom of darkness, as opposed to the kingdom of God. It is through
these hosts of wicked spirits that Satan is able to make a direct
assault upon human life.
This direct assault covers what the Bible refers to as "demon possession," the outright control of a human personality by the power of a wicked spirit. It also extends to such activities as soothsaying, occultism, spiritism (or spiritualism), and is related black magic arts such as astrology, horoscopes, voodooism, fortune-telling, witchcraft (wicca), shamanism, paganism, channeling, and the like.
A strong word of warning is in order here. There is no question that there is a great deal of fraud and deception in this whole field of black magic, channeling, and fortunetelling. There are charlatans at work who make their living off the superstitious fears of people, and they use deceptive tricks to fool people into thinking they are genuinely in touch with spirits and occult powers. It is very difficult to tell the difference between the genuine and the false in this field. Great skepticism, care, and clear thinking must be used by anyone attempting to investigate this dark realm. While there is a great deal of smoke and mirrors in the occult domain, the Bible tells us there is considerable fire as well. Despite the existence of fraud, there is truth dangerous truth behind the operation of black magic and witchcraft.
The Bible consistently warns us against dabbling in these matters. Here are just a few examples of biblical teaching on the subject:
"Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God" (Leviticus 19:31).
"I will set my face against the person who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute himself by following them, and I will cut him off from his people" (Leviticus 20:6).
When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? (Isaiah 8:19).
Under the Old Testament law, the people of Israel were strictly forbidden from having anything to do with wizards who speak in spells and incantations, who try to make contact with the dead, or who deal with the world of the occult. This prohibition was largely because any investigation into this realm immediately lays one open to powers beyond human understanding and makes it possible for demonic power to subdue the will of that person. This is dangerous ground. In fact, it often progressively opens the way to outright demon possession.
The devil's direct attack: demon possession
Many people are incredulous and disbelieving that there is such a thing as demon possession. "Surely you don't believe in such nonsense anymore," they say. "In this educated, sophisticated day and age, you don't really mean to suggest that there are such things as demons! After all, the Bible was written in ancient times for gullible, primitive people. We are much better informed today. What was once called demon possession we now know to be mental illness, and we can treat it with drugs and other therapies." The biblical reply to that kind of thinking can be expressed in three principles:
(1)The Bible is not a book of primitive superstition; on the contrary, the Bible carefully differentiates between mental illness and demon possession. The writers of the Scriptures were certainly aware of this distinction. One of them, Luke (who was a physician), was certainly acquainted with the distinctions between physical diseases and mental illnesses and demon possession (see Luke 4:40-41). In Matthew also, a careful distinction is made between those who were afflicted by diseases, those who were demon-possessed, and those who were mentally ill (see Matthew 4:24).
(2) Biblical cases of demon possession do not conform to the clinical pattern of any known mental disease. There are diseases of the body, there are diseases of the mind and then, quite distinctly, there is demon possession. Diseases of the mind, like those of the body, present standard clinical patterns and symptoms that can be readily recognized. But when you carefully examine the biblical accounts of demon possession, you find that these accounts do not fit any of the standard patterns of mental diseases. Mental illness and demon possession are clearly not the same thing.
In contrast to mental illness, biblical cases of demon possession always contain an element of debasement. There is uncleanness and moral defilement present.
Also in the biblical accounts of demon possession we see an immediate recognition by the demon of the character and identity of the Lord Jesus Christ. When Christ would deliver people from demons, those demons would often call out and say (as, for example, in Luke 4:34) "What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are the Holy One of God!" The demons used titles for Jesus which the human victims of possession could not know. Though demons are in opposition to God, they inhabit the invisible realm and are well acquainted with spiritual realities; only such creatures could have instantly recognized the authority of Jesus Christ.
Further, there is always the presence of a totally distinct and different personality involved. In some cases multiple demonic personalities are involved, as in the incident where Jesus asks the name of the demon and the demon's reply is, "My name is Legion, for we are many" (Mark 5:9).
Finally, we see that Jesus is able to transfer demons from individuals to animals something that is never observed in cases of mental illness. How do you explain the case of the Gadarene swine? If demon possession is merely mental sickness or a hallucination or some kind of schizophrenia, then how did the demons leave the man, enter the herd of swine, and send them rushing to drown themselves in the sea? These cases simply do not conform to any clinical pattern of known mental disease.
(3) Jesus Himself described these cases as demon possession, and he treated them that way. In sending out His disciples, He gave them authority to cast out. demons. "Well," some would argue, "we have an explanation for that. Jesus was simply accommodating Himself to the way of thinking of the people of His day. They believed in demons and devils, so He simply spoke in those same terms." But it is impossible to take that position and be consistent with the rest the account of Christ's ministry, for we see Him constantly correcting misconceptions like that. On one occasion He said to His disciples concerning another matter, "If it were not so, I would have told you" (John 14:2). He did not come to coddle the superstitions and misconceptions of His hearers; rather, He came to reveal the truth about the world as it really is.
Throughout the Christian centuries there have been various outbreaks of demon possession described by missionaries in many lands. It is a rather commonplace phenomenon in many places in our world today. And it is significant, I think, that whenever Christian teaching spreads, the direct assault of these evil powers upon human life is kept in check. Even secular teaching, when it is moral and uplifting and based upon the Bible and Christian values, demonstrates an ability to keep these manifestations under control.
But when education becomes purely secular and denies the Bible and God, then even though men and women reject superstition and profess a degree of sophistication about these matters all this is not enough to keep these powers at bay. As our world grows more and more godless and secularized, we will witness an increasing tide of demonic manifestation in our culture guaranteed. There is no power in man to withhold these forces or to stand against them, because this is the manifestation of the god of this world.
When we, as Christians, are confronted with what we suspect is demon possession, the one thing we're told to do to help such people is to pray. These cases of demon possession, Jesus said, yield to concerted and persistent prayer. There is no need to chant or sprinkle holy water or conduct exorcism rituals, as the sensationalized Hollywood horror movies portray. Prayer is the recommended therapy in any case of this type. Let us give ourselves to prayer and nothing else.
For the sake of a balanced perspective, I hasten to say that there seems to be too much concern among Christians about the matter of demon possession. I know certain Christians who feel they must "bind Satan" before they do anything. When they go into a room to have a meeting, they pray to bind the powers of darkness. I know others who ascribe every common problem of human life to some manifestation of demon activity. The New Testament offers no justification for this type of approach.
The New Testament letters of the apostles seldom mention the
direct attack of Satan against human beings. There are a few instances
of this sort of attack, but after our Lord physically left the
world there seems to be a reduction in the evidence of demonic
activity. As we see in the four Gospels, these dark powers were
no doubt stirred up by His presence on earth, but they seem to
be less active as we move through the book of Acts and on into
the letters of Paul and the other apostles. There is much written
about Satan's indirect attack in the letters of Paul, but Paul
has little to say about the direct attack of satanic forces. Nowhere
do we read that Christians should "bind" the powers
of darkness before entering a room, nor that we should ascribe
all the common problems of life to demonic activities. That idea
is not in the New Testament.
By far, the majority of attacks of the devil against Christians
are not direct but indirect. That is why they are called the "schemes"
of the devil. Schemes suggest deviousness acting in a way that
is subtle, secretive, and treacherous. We need to examine this
more thoroughly, for the major attack of the devil and his powers
against human life is not by direct means, but indirectly by satanic
suggestions through the natural and commonplace situations of
life.
The devil's indirect attack: satanic subversion
The Bible tells us that the indirect approach of the devil comes largely through two means: "the world" and "the flesh." We often hear it said that the enemies of the Christian are the world, the flesh, and the devil, as though these were three equally powerful enemies. But there are not three. There is only one enemy, the devil, as Paul tells us in Ephesians 6. And our enemy, the devil, uses these two means, the world and the flesh, to make his indirect attack against us. Earlier in Ephesians, Paul addressed these words to Christians, including you and me:
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world [the first channel] and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air [a description of the devil], the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient (Ephesians 2:1-2).
In other words, Paul is telling us, "Do not forget, you Christians, that you too once followed the course of this world you were under the grip and in the control of the ruler of the power of the air, the evil spirit who continues to be at work in the nonChristians all around you." Paul goes on in to tell us in the next verse:
All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature [or "the flesh" in the King James Version-the devil's second channel] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath (Ephesians 2:3).
The most basic of these two channels is "the flesh," our sinful nature. When the Bible uses the term "the flesh," it does so in a symbolic sense. Many... of us, when we approach middle-age, are troubled with too much flesh. But that is not the sense in which the Bible uses the term. "The flesh," in this context, is not our bodies, not the meat and blood and bones of our physical life. It is a term that describes the urge to self-centeredness within us, that distortion of human nature which makes us want to be our own god the proud ego, the uncrucified self that is the seat of willful defiance and rebellion against authority.
We are all born with this sinful nature. None of us had to go to school to learn how to sin and be self-centered. Who taught us to lie? Who taught us to be proud and bitter and rebellious and defiant and self-centered? We never had to take classes in these. We're all experts in how to sin by the time we are ready to go to school. We are all born with "the flesh," and it is the presence of this sinful nature that makes us sinners.
James calls this the wisdom which is from beneath, which is "earthly, unspiritual, of the devil" (James 3:15). It is the devil--attacking indirectly through the essentially sinful character of our human nature. Paul says in Romans, as J. B. Phillips translates it, "everyone has sinned; everyone falls short of the beauty of God's plan" (Romans 3:23).
"The world," on the other hand, is the corporate expression of all the flesh-centered individuals who make up the human race. Since the flesh is in every human being acting in a way that is satanic, sensual, and earthly the total combined expression of such beings constitutes the world and determines the philosophy of the world. It is that tremendous pressure of the majority upon the minority to conform, adjust, keep in step, and go along with the crowd.
When the Bible addresses itself to Christians, it says, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world" (Romans .12:2). In other words, "Do not let the world squeeze you into its mold." Why? Because the world is flesh-centered, flesh-governed, and as Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit" (John 3:6). In order to be changed, people must be born of the Spirit. So this is the world that human society which insists on satanic value judgments and is guided by satanic pride and philosophy. While the world is totally unaware of it, nevertheless, it is under the control of satanic philosophy.
We must never forget the ultimate goal of these clever strategies: the devil seeks to destroy, ruin, and make waste. . That is his purpose toward you and me. You can probably think of people--people who were once full of promising potential--who have given the devil some toe-hold in their lives, and the devil has used it to destroy their lives. Perhaps they got involved in some habit that took over their lives, such as drugs or promiscuous sex or pornography. Or perhaps they have ruined their families by their habitual rage or destructive tongue. Or perhaps they have turned aside from the truth of God in order to chase some worldly philosophy or wealth or prestige or self-centered idea of "fulfillment." It is a story that is repeated . again and again, in life after tragic life: Satan schemes to destroy a life God loves and in that particular life, Satan wins because that individual was not aware of the schemes of the devil.
So we have been called to a battle against a vicious, scheming, unseen enemy. We are called to battle not only for our own sakes, not only for our own families, but for the sake of others around us. We must warn those around us that life is a battle, and that the enemy has us in his crosshairs. We must warn one another to be aware of the devil's schemes, so that we can be armed and defended against the devil's attacks. And we must pray for one another, because our only true defender is Jesus Himself.
Battling against these forces of darkness is what makes human
life possible on the earth. If Christians, who are the salt of
the earth, were not devoted to an intense, intelligent battle
against Satan and satanic forces, if we as believers did not choose
to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, then human
life could not exist on this planet. The forces of evil would
run rampant and unopposed throughout human society, and life on
earth would be a horrible, unendurable hell. It is the presence
of Christians, and the Holy Spirit who lives within us, and the
gospel that we bring, that makes the world as livable and bearable
as it is, even for nonChristians.
So we have an enormous responsibility before God and before the
entire world to give ourselves, body and soul, to this great battle
against the schemes of the evil one. We have a responsibility
to battle the schemes of the devil in this world, and to point
the way to the peace and security that lies ahead of us in the
world to come.
Prayer
Thank You, Father, that the victory is already won. Thank You for revealing to me the strategy of my enemy and for the assurance that I have already been brought out of darkness and into the kingdom of Your light. I no longer fight alone in a losing battle in my own fading strength. Instead, filled with Your strength and courage, I fight knowing that the battle has already been won upon the cross of Christ. Thank You for that victory! In the name of Jesus Christ, my Victorious Commander, amen.
I ONCE HEARD OF A MENTAL HOSPITAL that had devised an unusual
test to determine when patients were ready to go back into the
world. They brought candidates for release into a room where a
tap was turned on, sending water pouring out over the floor. Next
they handed the patient a mop and told him to mop up the water.
If the patient had a firm enough grasp of reality to turn off
the tap before mopping up the water, he was ready to go out into
society. But if he started mopping up the water without turning
off the tap, they knew that more treatment was needed.
While you and I would never miss such an obvious step as shutting off the tap before mopping the floor, the fact is that many Christians live their lives in a way that is from a spiritual point of view equally absurd. Each of us as Christians have been given the mop of God's truth and we have been told to use it to help mop up the evil in the world around us. But we can only be useful in mopping up the evil around us if we first have enough sense to shut off the flow of evil that pours into our own hearts from the world rulers of this present darkness.
That is exactly what the apostle Paul urges in Ephesians 6:10-13. We can be of no possible help in solving the moral, social, and spiritual problems of the world as long as we remain part of the problem. This whole passage is designed to awaken us and call our attention to the need for understanding the nature of our problem. As we have seen, it is through the channels that the Bible calls "the world" and "the flesh" that the devil makes his indirect and most insidious attack upon human life. "The world" is human society, along with its prevailing false values, amorality and immorality, godlessness and atheism, hedonism, paganism, New Ageism, and other deceptive ideas and isms.
"The world" brutally demands our conformity to its false values and ideas, and mercilessly punishes those who refuse to conform. That is why, down through the centuries and right into the present day, "the world" has practiced persecution and intimidation against Christians because when Christians truly practice their faith and preach the gospel, the world and its false values stand exposed and condemned.
"The flesh" is that urge within us toward total autonomy and rebellion, toward being our own little gods accountable to no one, responsible to no one, obeying no one, respecting no one, and running our own little worlds to suit ourselves. It is that continual tug of self-centeredness and selfishness within each of us that keeps us from being completely His.
As you can clearly see, this struggle against the influences of "the world" and "the flesh" is not something merely theoretical or remote from our experience. It is a battle in which we are all engaged every moment of our lives because "the world," the outer arena of battle, is always around us while "the flesh," the inner arena of battle, is always within us. We cannot escape "the world," nor can we run away from "the flesh." We must always begin our battle right at the point where we are.
John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was a commissioned naval officer during World War II. In August 1943, the patrol torpedo boat he commanded, PT 109, was rammed and sunk by an enemy destroyer near the Japanese-held Solomon Islands. Kennedy and a fellow officer swam from one enemy-occupied island to the next until they found some friendly islanders who helped them get a message to U.S. forces. Years later, Kennedy was regarded as a war hero. His response: "It was involuntary. They sank my boat."
So it is with us. We don't have to volunteer to find ourselves in the middle of a war. It's involuntary. The war has already come to us. It is raging all around us, through the channel of "the world." And it is raging within us, through the channel of "the flesh."
You might be thinking, "That doesn't seem right at all!
I thought that when you became a Christian, Jesus would set you
free from the kingdom of Satan so that the devil could no longer
touch you! I thought that conversion would take you out of the
battle, not thrust you deeper into the conflict!" If that
is your concept of the Christian life, you couldn't be more wrong!
When you become a Christian, that's when the battle really begins!
Miserable Christians
Certainly, it is true that the devil can never totally defeat a Christian. Those who are genuinely the Lord's, who have come into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, have been delivered from total defeat. The devil can never get us back into the position of unconscious control he once exercised over us, as he does over the rest of the world. But the devil can demoralize the Christian. He can frighten us and make us miserable. He can blunt our effectiveness and make us feel weak and unfruitful for God. Even though we are ultimately victorious through Christ, it is at times possible to be more miserable as a Christian than you ever were before.
The devil has a special reason for wanting to make Christians feel defeated because a demoralized Christian is a Christian whose effectiveness has been diminished. The unredeemed worldlings are no problem to him they are already in his grasp. Let them try to solve the problems of their lives and the world through legislation, education, and a change of environment none of that bothers the devil in the least. He is quite content to let them go on rearranging the pieces of the puzzle without ever solving it. But the presence of every Christian in the world bothers the devil greatly. Why? Because each Christian is a potential threat to the solidarity of the devil's kingdom, to his rule over the rest of mankind and that is why the devil focuses special attention on us and seeks to hinder and discourage us.
When a Christian lives in obedience to the will of God, he threatens Satan's rule on earth. Every effective Christian is a potential door of escape, helping worldlings to move out of the devil's realm of darkness and into God's realm of eternal light. Every Christian who lives a life that is yielded to God and resistant to the schemes of the devil is a corridor of liberty, a center of light, dispelling one more patch of darkness and ignorance from the world around him.
The devil cannot allow people to escape from his dominion, so he is especially vicious and persistent in his attacks upon Christians. He marshals all his forces against us in order to discourage and dishearten us, so that we will not be effective and useful to God. Sometimes the devil attacks us as "a roaring lion," clawing at us through catastrophic circumstances in order to knock us off our feet and keep us from standing for God. At other times he comes as "an angel of light," a seductive and alluring temptation, offering us some attractive lure that seems so right yet which has a deadly, poisonous trap hidden within.
To be sure, Satan will assume direct control of a human life whenever he can, producing an Adolf Hitler or a Charles Manson demonic men, motivated by strange and' unexplainable passions. Sometimes the devil assails us through "the world" with its intimidating pressure to conform, to not be different, to go with the flow lest we be ostracized and thought of as "fanatics" or "religious extremists."
But most often the devil comes in disguise, through the channel
of "the flesh" our inner selves with silken, subtle,
suggestive schemes. That is the avenue of satanic attack the apostle
Paul warns us most strenuously about: the subtle schemes of the
devil.
The original extremist
According to the Bible, "the flesh," in this symbolic sense, is identified with the body that ultimately dies. Paul says, "But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness" (Romans 8:10). Notice that Paul doesn't say "your body is growing old and dying," as we would say. No, he says the body is already dead. He looks to the end of our physical lives and says that it is as good as dead already.
In this temporary state we live in prior to our resurrection, the body is the seat of sin or "the flesh" this evil principle of self-centeredness within each of us. Therefore "the flesh" is going to be with us for life. We may as well face that. We are never going to get away from it. We shall never escape it until that wonderful day of the resurrection from the dead.
But the body, soul, and spirit of man are inextricably tied together. No one can understand this. Where does your soul live in your body? Do you know? No, but you know that you have a soul, even though no one can locate it in the body. The relationship between the body, soul, and spirit is beyond our comprehension. But because they are so inextricably tied together, "the flesh," linked to the body, touches the whole person.
This is an important concept to understand. This means that the devil can influence us in the body, in the soul, and in the spirit. He has access to the whole person through the channel of "the flesh." Put another way: We are subject to the influence of these world rulers of this present darkness through our mind, our feelings, and our actions through our intelligence, our emotions, and our will. We need to see how this works. Through the channel of the mind the intellect the devil makes his appeal to human pride.
Through the channel of the emotions, the devil works on human fears and passions. In the realm of our actions, our behavior, the things we choose to do and say, the devil makes his appeal to pleasure, since we are essentially sensuous beings.
See how accurately this concept is illustrated by the story of Eve in the Garden of Eden. We are told that when she saw that the fruit was good for food it offered the pleasant sensation of eating (the appeal to the body); and it was a delight to the eyes, awakening within her a sense of beauty (the appeal to the emotions); and when she saw that it was desired to make one wise (the appeal to the pride of mind, the appeal to intelligence, and the love of wisdom and knowledge), she took it and ate.
These are simply the channels by which human beings are moved, whether for good or for ill. This is the way men and women are. Both God and the devil appeal to us and seek to move us through these channels: the emotion (the heart); the mind (the intelligence); and the will (the power to choose).
You may say, "If the devil and God both move us by the
same channels, what is the difference?" The difference is
simply this: The devil moves to create an imbalance, an eccentricity.
The devil is the original extremist. God moves, however, toward
balance, harmony, and beauty. The difference is not how they work,
but the direction in which they move.
A Sanity of Balance
The greatness of the gospel is in its appeal to the entirety of our humanity, to our whole being, body, soul, and spirit, and to the whole of life. It is this fact that reveals the divine origin of the gospel so clearly. The gospel of Jesus Christ touches and explains all of history. It has a clear and consistent worldview, and it provides a framework for every science, every endeavor to investigate reality, and every effort to understand and make sense of all the events of history.
The gospel is not content simply to treat the symptoms of the human condition. It offers a radical solution to our fundamental problem. We often come to Christ asking him to resolve some immediate difficulty in which we find ourselves, like a man with cancer going to a doctor and saying, "I have a rash on my arm. Oh, yes, I do have cancer but don't bother with that. Just treat the rash and I'll be on my way." No doctor worthy of his medical degree would honor such a request and neither does the Great Physician, Jesus Christ.
The Lord does not simply treat our symptoms and stop there. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and He knows that if He merely solves this small problem here or that difficulty there, He has only touched the surface of our lives. The rest of our lives, the core of our lives, will remain diseased and dying. So, in His gospel, Jesus makes His appeal and applies His power to the wholeness of our humanity and to the wholeness of our lives. His goal is to confront the eccentricity and imbalance that sin and the devil produce in our lives, and to bring us into a sanity of balance.
You can see this wonderful sanity in the life of our Lord. Read the Gospel accounts and you are instantly impressed by the marvelous balance in the personality of the Lord Jesus, and by the perfect poise He exhibits in every circumstance. His words challenge and confound the greatest thinkers of His time, and they listen to Him with astonishment at His insight and wisdom. "No man ever spoke like this man!" is their awed response and, of course, they are exactly right. There never was another Man like Jesus Christ.
But Jesus is not all intellect, making His appeal to the philosopher and thinker alone. As you read the Gospel account, you see that He is also warmly human, a Man with an unmatched depth of compassion and human concern. He laughs, He weeps, He touches lives, He awakens the emotions and wonder of those around Him, He attracts people to Himself, He displays a supernatural magnetism and warmth. He is not content merely to feel certain emotions nor to merely communicate great truths. Rather, the beautiful balance of His personality is expressed in His practical deeds, in His actions in the unforgettable, undeniable events like the healings, the raising of the dead, the confrontation of evil and hypocrisy, the sacrifice upon the cross, and the resounding miracle of the resurrection.
What's more, this wonderful sanity of balance that we see in
the personality of our Lord Jesus Christ is also evidenced throughout
the Bible. In every book, on every page of Scripture, we see that
the whole man is ministered to: the needs of the soul, of the
body, and of the spirit all kept in a delicate equilibrium with
nothing out of balance.
Everything is in harmony--the mind, the heart, and the will are
all moved together. When God gets hold of a human life, He touches
every part of that life. Anything less is an incomplete message,
a mere fragment.
I am indebted to Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones for pointing out that this sanity of balance is beautifully expressed in one of the great hymns of our faith, "When I Survey The Wondrous Cross" by Isaac Watts:
When I survey the wondrous cross,
On which the Prince of Glory died...
Notice the depth of meaning in these words: My mind is engaged when I think about the cross, when I give intelligent consideration to what it means, when I think of all that was involved in that supreme hour when Jesus hung between heaven and earth! The cross captures the human dimension of the intellect.
And then, another dimension of our humanity is touched by the next few lines of the hymn:
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
My emotions are engaged when I think about the cross. I am moved to both grief and joy when I think of what the cross cost the Lord and how the cross has enriched and rescued me. Anyone who can talk about the cross of Christ without being emotionally moved has not really understood the truth. The truth of the cross is designed to reach the heart, to move us and involve us at the level of our feelings. And this hymn goes on to probe our emotional response to Christ and the cross in the next lines:
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small...
Here, compressed into an economy of words, is a sense of the grandeur of the work of the cross, the extent of it, and the glory of it.
Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
Love does what? It demands! My will is engaged when I think about the cross. In the words of this hymn, I find a compelling call to action.
In his baptized imagination and poetic soul, Isaac Watts understood that the appeal of the gospel is to the entire span of our humanity, in all of our human dimensions. The whole human being mind, emotions, and will is totally engaged by the cross of Jesus Christ. That is how God works!
He is thorough. He is balanced. And He calls each of us to this same sanity of balance.
Grotesque caricatures
Now let's contrast the wonderful balance of our Lord with the actions of the devil. What does the devil try to produce in our lives? He tries to create imbalance! He works overtime to enlarge one element of human nature at the expense of the others. He pushes us toward extremes, and tries to turn us into people who are characterized by only one thing. Instead of whole, balanced persons, we are grotesque caricatures of what God created us to be.
There are many who actually take pride in emphasizing one part of their being above everything else. There are the intellectuals we call them "eggheads" or "brains." They say there is nothing important in life but the mind, the ability to reason, and they give themselves over completely to the development of that one area of life. As a result, they are so absentminded, so impractical, so emotionless and arid in their personalities that we can hardly live with them! Because they are out of balance, we call them "eccentric. "
Then there are the emotional people, those who say, "Oh, don't talk to me about intellectual things or practical matters. I'm a free spirit! I want to experience life! I want to , feel!" These people are always living in their momentary emotions. They are led about by their feelings. They do not make careful, thoughtful decisions based on biblical principles or facts or information. They simply do whatever "feels good" or "feels right" at the moment and as a result, they create enormous chaos for themselves and the people around them. The world has become increasingly filled with people who believe that feelings are all that matter. Rarely, anymore, do you hear people say, "What do you think about this or that?" Usually, people today ask, "How do you feel about it?"
Some feelings-oriented people are given to intense, obsessive self-examination. They marinate themselves in their own emotions, and are narcissistically introspective, endlessly examining themselves. Of course, there is nothing wrong with self-examination kept in balance with a focus on God and on others, a certain amount of inward focus is very much a part of the Christian life. But some people never look anywhere but within! They are constantly looking at themselves, examining themselves, thinking about themselves, over-dramatizing themselves, talking about themselves, psychoanalyzing themselves, obsessing over themselves. As a result, they are so self-absorbed, egocentric, and emotional that we can hardly stand to be around them!
Then, of course, there are those who say, "I have no patience with intellectualism or emotionalism. I believe in being practical. I believe in action." We call such people "hard-headed pragmatists" or "do-ers." They are concerned only with deeds, accomplishments, actions, and results. They don't ask, "What do you think?" They don't ask, "How do you feel?" They ask, "What do you do?" They ask, "What have you accomplished?" They ask, "What's the practical use or benefit of this?"
These are three personality extremes the intellectual, the emotionalist, and the pragmatist. All three of these extremes are wrong. They are unbalanced. God did not create human beings to be extremists. He created us to be balanced, to exhibit a rich and well-integrated blend of human intellect, emotion, and will. It is not God who produces these extremes in us, but the devil. The devil takes each of these facets of our humanity (which God designed to be used as human assets and strengths), and he prods us toward an unhealthy imbalance and eccentricity.
Take the realm of the mind, for instance. One of the schemes of the devil is to tempt people to exalt reason to the exclusion of faith. Faith is a function of the will, of the soul. That is why faith is the, most human characteristic of humanity. It is that element of our humanity which is our basic motivator. That is why everyone can exercise faith. You are not human, you are not even alive, if you cannot exercise faith.
But the devil tries to move from a balance in this area by appealing to our pride. We love to think of ourselves as rational, intellectual beings who have a logical reason for all our ideas, beliefs, and actions. But this exaltation of reason opens the door to error and arrogant self-deception. We delude ourselves into thinking that we are motivated by logic, when in fact we are generally motivated by emotions, desires, and dimly understood drives then we use our intellect to come up with pseudo-logical, self-deceptive rationales to justify our illogical, emotional decisions!
One of the great examples of this, which we often hear these days, is the worldly teaching that the Bible is a primitive book for a primitive age, that biblical truth and morality are "irrelevant in today's world," that all truly "enlightened," "educated," "modern," or even "postmodern" people know that the Bible is just a collection of outdated stories, fanciful myths, and out-of-date moral concepts. Secure in our intellectual smugness, we know that the Bible cannot be believed as a historical record, nor relied upon as a moral guide. Not only are we free to ignore biblical truth, but we don't need to believe in any concept of truth. We are free to invent our own reality, our own truth, our own morality, our own worldview, without some deity looking over our shoulder, telling us what is right and wrong.
The same people who tell us that the Bible is no longer relevant and trustworthy never stop to ponder the fact that the further our society moves away from the teaching of Scripture, the more debased, corrupt, and cruel humanity becomes. As the world has moved away from belief in God and the Bible, we have seen a corresponding rise in crime, political corruption, teen pregnancies, teen suicides, divorce, fatherless children, disrespect for marriage, single parent families, abortion, pornography, drug abuse, alcoholism, racism, plus a general decline in personal integrity, responsibility, decency, and civility. The worse the world gets, the more people apply the "solutions" that created the problems in the first place and that is why there is a spiraling upward of social ills and a spiraling downward of morality and decency in the world.
There is an active effort in our society today to erase the
image of God as a loving heavenly Father. It began as an effort
to devalue God's image by picturing Him disrespectfully as "the
Old Man in the Sky" or "the Man Upstairs." It has
gone so far today that even many churches and denominations now
picture God not as a Father, but as a "politically correct"
(and hence, biblically incorrect!) gender-neutral "heavenly
Parent" or even a "heavenly Mother" or pseudo-goddess.
The gender politics of the radical feminist movement have successfully
infected the church, seeking to destroy the positive image of
fatherhood and manhood in general, and the image of the heavenly
fatherhood of God in particular.
If you want to be a truly "enlightened" and "contemporary"
thinker today, you must not embrace the "patriarchal"
concept of God the Father. No, you must view God in a more vague
and meaningless way. You must view God not as a person, but as
a "force" or as a "universal principle" or
as "the ground of all being." This theme has been offered
as if it were a revolutionary advance in theological thinking.
It is, in fact, nothing but an ancient pagan heresy.
We see echoes of our own age in the story of Paul's journey to the center of intellectualism in his day the city of Athens. As he walked around the city, he found evidences of a superstitious, ignorant, and pagan faith everywhere he went. He even found an altar dedicated "TO AN UNKNOWN GOD." Then he went to Mars Hill and gave a speech to the Athenian intellectual elite. He said to them:
What you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else...For in him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, "We are his offspring" (Acts 17:23, 25, 28).
Paul is saying, in other words, "Look, even you as pagans are intelligent enough to know that God does not dwell in temples made of stone. How could the Creator of the universe be contained by such a paltry man-made dwelling place? Even your own Greek poets recognize the fact that God is not far from anyone of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being. You already know that much about God now I'm going to give you the complete, biblical revelation, so that you will know exactly who God is!"
Primitive faith is the simplest level of faith, and we see such primitive, uninformed, ignorant, searching, groping faith among the intellectual elite of Mars Hill, and with many of today's nonspecific, nonorganized faiths, such as the New Age movement. Many New Agers believe in a concept they call "God" but they are apathetic or actively hostile toward faith in Jesus Christ. Like the Athenians, they worship an unknown God, and they do so in ignorance. It is the devil's plan to keep such people in their ignorance, always searching and never finding the truth that is right in front of their eyes.
We also see primitive, simple faith in the recovery movement
founded by Alcoholics Anonymous. Many in the recovery movement
say the Lord's Prayer and believe in a "higher power"
but do not recognize Jesus Christ as their "higher power."
This is not a criticism of those who are at this searching, groping
stage there are many Christians today whose first introduction
to God was in the form of this vague "higher power."
As they grew in their understanding and dependence upon God for
their sobriety, Jesus gradually revealed Himself to them. In time,
they became not merely followers of a shadowy "higher power,"
but followers of the risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
But there are also many in the recovery movement who never move
beyond primitive faith. There are even some who claim a pagan
deity, a New Age concept, or some other substitute deity as their
"higher power." Though the recovery movement has accomplished
much good and has saved many people from alcoholism and other
destructive habits, the devil will use anything to accomplish
his purposes. It is part of his strategy to keep people locked
in a primitive faith, never moving on to a more mature faith in
Jesus Christ. The devil will frequently keep people in their primitive
faith by appealing to human pride, planting such ideas in their
minds as:
"I'm too sophisticated for old-fashioned, Bible thumping, organized religion." In other words, I'm intellectually superior to those ignorant fundamentalists and evangelicals who believe that outdated book full of myths and fables.
"I believe in God, but I prefer to imagine my own God. I would rather worship God in a meadow or by a running stream than in a church." In other words, I'm intellectually superior to those poor saps who waste their Sunday mornings in church when they could be sleeping or hiking in the woods.
"I don't need to read the Bible or go to church to understand God. The Bible can mean anything you want it to, and churches are just full of hypocrites." In other words, I'm so intellectually superior to everyone else that I can make up any god I want.
The devil cleverly appeals to human pride and arrogance, duping the "intellectual elite" into thinking that ancient pagan myths and heresies are really "new advances" in religious thought!
Another scheme the devil employs against us in the realm of the intellect is doubt. The devil plants his heresies and incites false teaching. False teaching always takes an extreme position exaggerating one particular aspect of truth and blowing it out of proportion, turning some small piece of God's truth into an overblown, extreme position. The devil even uses this ploy to promote false ideas about himself. He will cause some Christians to become so focused and fanatical about the subject of the devil and demons that they lose their focus on God and His Son and His power. To such people, the message of the devil is, "Yes! I am real, I am the devil! Remember, I am a powerful, cunning adversary, so you'd better focus all your thought and energy on defeating me!" And those who are lured into this trap run the risk of falling into the clutches of superstition, occultism, and other obsessive, fear-focused practices and beliefs.
At the other extreme, the devil will lead some people including many church people! to become so intellectually smug that they refuse to believe in the existence of a real, personal devil. I have actually met pastors who say, "I believe in God, I believe in Jesus Christ, but I do not believe in the existence of a personal devil" And isn't that a clever ruse on the part of the devil? Isn't concealment the perfect way to trap unsuspecting prey? That's why duck hunters hide in a blind, waiting for the ducks to pass by, unaware of the double-barreled, 16-gauge death that is waiting to explode in their direction! And this is exactly what the devil does. He hides, he lays in wait, he persuades people that there is no such thing as a real, personal devil and that is the perfect set-up for an ambush! When humanity is unbelieving and unsuspecting, then the devil is perfectly free to do exactly what he wants among us!
Among Christians, the devil will often attack in the realm
of the intellect to lead us to be overly obsessed with certain
points of theology. There are many Christians who pride themselves
on being intense students of the Bible and systematic theology.
They have studied all the great theological schools of thought.
They have wandered through all the dark woods of theological differences
and have climbed the icy peaks of doctrinal fine points, such
as predestination and dispensationalism and prophecy and Bible
numerics and on and on. God never intended that Christians should
need a doctorate of divinity or a pocket calculator to understand
His Word or to live out His plan for their lives. Jesus said that
the faith that saves is a childlike faith, and I believe that
one of the great triumphs of Satan has been his strategy of pulling
people away from a simple childlike faith and leading them into
endless, pointless disputes over doctrinal minutiae.
An appeal to fear
Another wide-open window of opportunity for the devil's scheme is the realm of emotions. We live in an age which practically enshrines the emotions as a god. "Trust your feelings, Luke!" said the New Age guru Obiwan Kenobi in the science fantasy film Star Wars and millions of movie-goers have been following that deceptive advice ever since!
We are used to believing our feelings. From babyhood we have been used to reacting to the way we feel and accepting the way we feel as a legitimate and accurate description of the way things are. Nothing could be more foolish! There is no more uncertain, unreliable, and unrealistic guide in life than our feelings. Feelings come and go, and most of the time they do not relate to reality at all, because they are subject to so many influences changing circumstances, our own changing perspective, and even the hormonal and chemical changes that take place within the human body and human brain.
The devil seduces some Christians into the belief that true worship, true faith, true joy consists of constant emotionalism. These Christians must have a regular dose of hand clapping, shouting, dancing, falling down, and an array of seemingly miraculous manifestations. If they don't experience these extreme emotional experiences, they feel that they are no longer experiencing the Christian life, they no longer "feel the Spirit." This can lead to a zig-zag, updown emotionalism where the Christian alternates between feelings of religious ecstasy and feelings of abject defeat and depression. God never intended for us to live that way. He intended us to live lives of balance and equilibrium, not trusting in momentary surges of emotion, but in His rock-steady, unchanging promises and truths.
The devil will seduce others into an opposite extreme, a morbidly unhealthy view of emotion a view which says that happiness is sinful and that joy is a mark of spiritual shallowness. Such Christians are all gloom and introspection, and the faith they practice is a stern,' gray, dismal shadow of what Christianity was intended to be. This extreme is no more godly and Christian than is extreme emotionalism. God created us as emotional beings, and He reaches us not only through our intellect and our will, but also through our emotions. The devil's scheme is to create an imbalance and to distort our emotions so that we are in one extreme or the other, so that we are either all emotion or no emotion at all! If you find yourself in these descriptions, then it is time for you to wake up and shout, "No more!" to the schemes of the devil.
Another way the devil uses human emotion to keep Christians
defeated is by leading us to be ruled by our negative emotions.
He preys on our thoughts and induces worry in us, making us anxious
about the future, anxious about making decisions, anxious about
whether or not God really loves us and whether or not we truly
belong to Him. God's prescription for this form of satanic attack
is found in Philippians 4:6: "Do not be anxious about anything,
but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
present your requests to God."
Or the devil may appeal to us through our fears. He blunts our
effectiveness by making us timid and afraid to move out in faith,
to live boldly and speak out boldly for God, and to dare great
things for God. The devil would have us shrink back, hesitate,
and tremble. The devil always appeals to our fears while God always
appeals to our faith. From faith comes hope and love, but the
devil wants us to give way to our fears. God's prescription for
this scheme of the devil is found in 1 John 4:18: "There
is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because
fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made
perfect in love." And 2 Timothy 1:7: "For God did not
give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love
and of self-discipline."
Again and again in the Gospels, Jesus told His disciples, "Don't be fearful, don't be anxious, don't be troubled." Why? Because, He said, "I am with you." Fear and anxiety are the opposite of faith, of trust, of hope, of love. When we are fearful and anxious, we are seizing the reins of our lives from God's hands. We are saying, "God, I can't trust You to do what is right in my life. I don't know if You really know best, if You really care about me, if You're really taking care of me." Fear is the failure of faith. That is exactly what the devil is after. If you give way to fear, you will soon be discouraged and defeated. If you give way to defeat, you will begin to hate and the devil will have accomplished his purposes. He has destroyed, he has ruined, he has laid waste that which God loves and desires to bless.
In the realm of our will and our behavior, the devil seeks to draw us into a continual round of new, exciting activities. He tries to push us into becoming "workaholics," never knowing peace or rest or satisfaction, always driven, always active and often exhausted and defeated. He may even push us toward religious activity, being so busy working in the church and Christian groups that we never take time to follow the prescription of Psalm 46:10: "Be still, and know that I am God." We become like Martha in Luke 10. She was always busy, always doing, always preparing and cleaning and taking care of her guests and then she became bitter and annoyed when her sister Mary was found sitting at the feet of Jesus listening, learning, worshiping, and reveling in the presence of her Lord. It was Mary, the learner, who chose the better part, not Martha the workaholic do-er. If you see yourself as Martha right now, you need to be very careful and very much aware that you may have succumbed to one of the devil's schemes and it is time to wake up and find the peace and balance in life that God intended you to have.
The devil will sometimes push us in a different direction of activity he will lead us to wear a rut in the road of our lives, to dig such a deep trench of habits for ourselves that we cannot get out. We become slaves to tradition, to habit, to daily custom, to the attitude that says, "This is the way I've always done it why change?" So we go through our lives doing the same old thing, never risking, never attempting anything new, never allowing anything to shake us out of our complacency, until we one day reach the end of our lives only to discover that we never truly lived, never truly discovered the adventure that God planned for our lives.
God never intended life to be lived in a rut. His goal for our lives is like a great bustling superhighway right through the center of life full of action and activity, with rest stops along the way, with occasional detours and side roads, and with an ultimate and glorious destination: our eternal home. That is the road Jesus traveled
