Sunday Sermons
Satan's Tactics - Part 1
“So that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes” (2 Corinthians 2:11); “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11); “Taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one” (6:16).
In the above passages we learn that the devil has more than one scheme or tactic in seeking to tempt men. The term “schemes” or “wiles” carries the idea of a definite method or plan of deception, a deliberate planning or system and therefore refers to his crafty, subtle, deliberate strategy in seeking out our most vulnerable point (1 Corinthians 7:5; Ephesians 4:27). In 1941, C.S. Lewis wrote a little book entitled, The Screwtape Letters, which is a fictional correspondence between a demon by the name of Screwtape and his underling Wormwood. The books deal with advice from Screwtape about how to tempt men, either how to keep them from becoming Christians, or once they are a Christian how to get them back into the devil’s camp. In this lesson I want to combine some of Lewis’ observations with the Scriptures so that we can resist the devil with greater efficiency. As Lewis begins, he reminds us that one of the great errors into which the human race can fall, is to no longer believe in the existence of the devil. He also reminds us that the devil is a liar (John 8:44), and wishful thinking exists in the realm of evil as well as on earth.
Jargon, not Argument
Lewis observes that there was a time when humans knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved they really believed it, and they were prepared to alter their way of life as the result of a chain of reasoning. But many people in modern times no longer think of doctrines as primarily true or false, but as academic, practical, outworn, or contemporary. “Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don’t waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong, or stark, or courageous---that it is the philosophy of the future. That’s the sort of thing he cares about” (pp. 9-10). Reason and argument are not foes of Christianity (as some think); rather they are great allies (Acts 17:2-3,11; 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22). Remember, God can out argue anyone (Job 9:3), and we have His truth in the Scriptures (John 17:17). The devil really does not want people “thinking”, because “by the very act of arguing, you awake the patient’s reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result?” (p. 10). Getting someone to discuss the Scriptures with you and attending to universal and eternal issues, withdraws their attention from the “stream of immediate sense experiences” (p. 10). The devil does not want people thinking about eternal things; rather he wants to keep them enslaved to the pressure of the ordinary and mundane things of life (Mark 4:19). The devil is afraid when the word of God is taught and people start listening to it (Mark 4:15; Acts 13:8). Screwtape observes that he was just about to lose someone, when he struck instantly at the part of the man which he had best under his control and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch. I have observed this tactic among Mormon missionaries who promise to come back to study but never show up. The devil does not want them really studying the Scriptures with you, to him such reasoning is a dangerous thing.
“I know it all”
Screwtape observes, “The best of all is to let him read no science but to give him a grand general idea that he knows it all and that everything he happens to have picked up in casual talk and reading is the result of modern investigation” (p. 12). The devil is not a great teacher; rather it is his task to confuse people with disinformation. I see this when I encounter people who have picked up on the idea that the Bible has been corrupted, it has been inaccurately translated, books have been removed, it is the product of an evolutionary development, and so on. They have really never truly studied any of these issues, but are often parroting what they have picked up in casual conversations (Acts 17:18,21). I have also observed a prejudice against anything not written in the last five or ten years, as if all the research by past generations is worthless. Lewis writes, “The mere wordphase will very likely do the trick. I assume that the creature has been through several of them before—they all have—and that he always feels superior and patronizing to the ones he has emerged from, not because he has really criticized them but simply because they are in the past. You keep him well fed on hazy ideas of Progess and Development and the Historical Point of View, I trust, and give him lots of modern Biographies to read? The people in them are always emerging from Phases, aren’t they” (p. 40). What Lewis says is dead on. How many celebrities do we see justifying their divorces and many marriages by saying that it was something that they needed to do or a phase they needed to grow through in order to grow? The devil tries to convince the sinner that where he is right now is a needed phase for personal growth. He tries to convince the unfaithful Christian, that their former faithfulness was simply an immature period of time. This is especially true when people go into liberalism. The devil convinces them that their former soundness and stand for the truth was rather childish and that now they are far more enlightened, realizing that most things in life are not black and white, right or wrong. Again Wormwood writes, “Keep his mind off the pain antithesis between true and false. Nice shadowy expressions—‘it was a phase’, ‘I’ve been through all that’ and don’t forget the blessed word, ‘adolescent’” (p. 40).
The Temptation of Disappointment
The man to whom wormwood was assigned actually becomes a Christian, but the advice now is to “work hard, then, on the disappointment or anticlimax which is certainly coming to the patient during his first few weeks as a churchman. It occurs when lovers have gotten married and begin the real task of learning to live together. In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing” (p. 14). We see this temptation in Luke 8:13, where the person who received the word with joy ends up falling away. One of the greatest temptations for the Christians is disillusionment with either other Christians, the daily life of being a Christian, or the rejection they receive from the world. This temptation is working when we see people complaining that the church isn’t doing anything, members are hypocrites or they are tired of worshipping God in the same manner. Such accusations reveal that a person is far more concerned with emotion than with truth. Wormwood is cautioned, that if this new convert makes it through this period of disappointment, “they become much less dependent on emotion and therefore much harder to tempt” (p. 14). This means that the religious person who is demanding that every worship service be some spectacular production, or “holy wow”, is one of the easiest people to tempt.
The Devil and Our Minds
I thought Lewis made a wonderful observation when he has Wormwood saying, “It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out” (p. 20). (Philippians 4:8). What is the devil trying to keep out of our minds? “You must bring him to a condition in which he can practice self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts about himself which are perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house with him or worked in the same office” (p. 17).
The Devil and War
We might be tempted to think that the devil relishes war among nations. When Lewis wrote this book it was 1941 and things were not going well for the Allies, yet he reminds us that one of the devil’s best weapons is “contended worldliness” and in war time that weapon is rendered useless for “in wartime not even a human can believe that he is going to live forever”. “How much better for us if all humans died in costly nursing homes amid doctors who lie, nurses who lie, friends who lie, as we have trained them, promising life to the dying, encouraging the belief that sickness excuses every indulgence” (p. 25). The recent pictures of soldiers from the war zone in Iraq being baptized in make shift baptisries in the desert should remind us that facing one’s own morality is a healthy experience (Hebrews 9:27). Many people realize that they will die, it is just that they have believed the devil’s lie that they will not die for a long time (Luke 12:19).
The Devil and the Spiritual World
The devil certainly does not want us believing in him, for such a belief would acknowledge the existence of a spiritual reality and that would open up the door for belief in God and an afterlife. “When they believe in us, we cannot make them materialists and skeptics” (p. 30). Lewis observes that the devil tries to mythologize science. He wants people to talk about the life force, which denying the actual existence of spirits. It is amazing how many people consider themselves “spiritual” simply because they believe that there is “something out there”. Let us wake up and realize that the pagans in the Old Testament, including the Canaanites, did not simply believe there was something out there, but rather they have definite names for definite gods, yet they were condemned. Being spiritual and being a believer is inherently linked with believing what the Bible says and acting upon it (Matthew 7:21; John 3:36; 1 John 2:3-6; 3:7 “the one who practices righteousness is righteous”).
The Devil and Sophistication
The Bible notes that evil companions can corrupt good morals (1 Corinthians 15:33), yet the most dangerous are those who come in sheep’s clothing. Wormwood writes, “I gather that the middle-aged married couple who called at his office are just the sort of people we want him to know—rich, smart, superficially intellectual, and brightly skeptical about everything in the world”(p. 41). Lewis notes that people often begin to assume all sorts of cynical and skeptical attitudes which are not really their own. Often this is done to impress the right people, shock others, and blend in. “All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be” (p. 42). (Proverbs 4:23). In view of the number of warnings that Jesus gave against hypocrisy (Matthew 6:2,5,15), we surmise that living a double life is a common trap into which man falls. “I have known many humans live, for quite long periods, two parallel lives; he will not only appear to be, but actually be, a different man in each of the circles he frequents. He can be made to take a positive pleasure in the perception that the two sides of his life are inconsistent. This is done by exploiting his vanity, He can be taught to enjoy kneeling beside the grocer on Sunday just because he remembers that the grocer could not possibility understand the urbane and mocking world which he inhabited on Saturday evening. You see the idea—the worldly friends touch him on one side and the grocer on the other, and he is the complete, balanced, complex man who sees round them all. Thus, while being permanently treacherous to at least two sets of people, he will feel, instead of shame, a continual undercurrent of self-satisfaction” (p. 43). There is a temptation to feel that there is a certain sense of style, sophistication, and intellectual progress to be found apart from God. But the truth of the matter is far different (Galatians 5:19-21; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Titus 3:3; 2 Timothy 3:2ff).
