Sunday Sermons
Satan's Tactics - Part 2
Part II
The slow road to destruction
Screwtape writes Wormwood in chapter 11, “Everything is clearly going very well. I am especially glad to hear that the two new friends have now made him acquainted with their whole set. All these, as I find from the record office, are thoroughly reliable people; steady, consistent scoffers and worldlings who without any spectacular crimes are progressing quietly and comfortably towards our Father’s house (i.e. the devil in this case)” (The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis, p. 44). Did you catch that part about these people not being guilty of any spectacular crimes? There are a good number of people who are not Christians, yet they do believe in hell, however they have been convinced that hell is reserved for only especially evil people, the type of people who end up in prison, murders, and the like. Yet Jesus and the apostles warned us that hell is also reserved for less spectacular sinners other than mass murderers. It is also reserved for people who simply neglect to do the right thing (Matthew 25:31ff; James 4:17; Luke 16:19ff), and for people who simply forget to put God first in their lives (Luke 12:20), people who simply do not believe in Jesus and obey Him (John 8:24), and those who refuse to forsake such ordinary and common sins as envy and jealousy (Galatians 5:19-21). Jesus cautioned us about thinking that only really bad things happen to really bad people, and noted, “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3).
Lewis makes an excellent observation concerning a life lived apart from God when he notes: “You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes, but in conversations with those he cares nothing about on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. Or can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here, ‘I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked’” (p. 50). How many people are caught in the previous trap, of really living a life that they do not enjoy? Sin, which promised such happiness, in the end brings complete boredom or worse(Titus 3:3).
The temptation of nothing
“Nothing is strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of the fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from God. It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one, the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts” (pp. 50-51). What is stealing our time away from God? Is God getting the best years of our lives or are we captivated by a string of really unimportant things? For all practical purposes is “nothing” getting in the way of being the Christian we need to be? This past month or week, what kept you from calling someone who needed encouragement? What prevented you from having someone over for dinner? What got in the away of asking that friend for a Bible study? Read again Matthew 25:44-45, then ask yourself what has been filling your mental time? What do you think about on a routine basis? Is it God and His word, or is it simply a collection of mundane and trivial thoughts? (Psalm 119:97). Concerning the wayside soil in the Parable of the Sower (Luke 8:12), one writer noted, “Some people's minds are worn smooth by the constant traffic of idle thoughts. They are superficial. They live on the surface. They have no deep interests. They cannot sit still to read, learn, pray, or think. They hate to be alone with themselves, lest they should be surprised into thinking” (Parable of the Sower. Givens p. 14).
Wanting to be distracted?
A red flag should go up in our minds when we are looking for something to distract us from prayer, Bible study, or meeting with God’s people. When a person is not living right, the one thing they dread is meaningful and effective contact with God in prayer or with God’s people (Genesis 3:8-10).
The danger of social ambition
Often we talk to our children about the dangers of peer pressure (1 Corinthians 15:33), yet adults face their own variety that can be very subtle. There is that danger and temptation of wanting to climb the social (or some other) ladder and in the process to abandon people and books that are truly good in favor of intermingling with the “best” people, the “right” food, and the “important” books (in the eyes of the world). Long ago Solomon wrote about the same danger: “When you sit down to dine with a ruler, consider carefully what is before you; and put a knife to your throat, if you are a man of great appetite. Do not desire his delicacies, for it is deceptive food” (Proverbs 23:1-3). “The perspiring social climber is gently chaffed, in three loosely connected paragraphs” (Kidner p. 151).
The expression, “put a knife to your throat”, means to curb your appetite or control yourself (like “bite your tongue”). “What you say and do at a banquet or elegant dinner tells others what kind of person you are. The ruler who hosts a dinner has a sharp eye on his guests. Some are so awed by the elegant surroundings and rich array of food that they will probably miss out on the real purpose of the evening. Others will overeat, thereby revealing greed and overindulgence. Wise men, however, will eat with moderation and restraint, constantly aware of what the host is asking of them” (Alden pp. 167-168). The food at such a banquet is called “deceptive”, because the ruler is not simply hosting a party. Nothing is free, and the ruler probably wants something from you, whether it is information or a favor. “The banquet may be a buttering-up occasion” (Bible Knowledge Comm. p. 956). “The rich do not give away their favors for free. They want something in return, and it is generally much more than what they have invested” (Garrett p. 195). The verse serves as a warning to those who long to be around the rich and powerful. It is a reminder that the stakes can be very high in such a crowd and the games that they play can be very dangerous. Lewis makes a good comment when he notes, “The man who truly and disinterestedly enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring two pence what other people say about it, is by that very fact fore-armed against some of the subtlest modes of attack” from the devil (p. 54). Emphasize that statement, “for its own sake”, that is you enjoy doing something, not because you are depending upon it to make you happy or give meaning to your life, nor because other people are impressed, rather, you do it because you simply like doing it.
Temptation and wanting to live in the future
Lewis notes, “the Present is the point at which time touches eternity” (p. 60). Such is true, for what I do now affects eternity one way or another (2 Corinthians 5:10), and I really only have freedom and choice right now in the present moment (Hebrews 3:7 “Today if you hear his voice”; 2 Corinthians 6:2 “Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation”). At the present I need to mediate upon God’s word, examine myself, bear the cross, give thanks, serve others, and put first the God and His kingdom. Wormwood writes, “Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human to live in the Past. It is far better to make them live in the Future. Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past, fear, greed, lust, and ambition look ahead. Do not think lust an exception. When the present pleasure arrives, the sin (which alone interests us) is already over…We want a man hag-ridden by the Future…We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, never kind, nor happy now” (p. 62). We need to be careful that we do not think that our time here is unlimited and that there will always been enough time to “get around to” what really needs to be done. The devil often tempts us to neglect important opportunities by convincing us there it can always be done tomorrow. Instead of chasing after the future, why not rather just work hard and live right today, and the future that arrives will be the right future for such a person. There is a definite spiritual danger in placing all our plans and dreams in an uncertain earthly future (James 4:13ff).
The temptation of trusting in feelings
Even though Lewis wrote this book at the beginning of the Second World War, what he says about the devil’s temptations and marriage could have been written yesterday. “We have done this through poets and novelists by persuading the humans that a curious, and usually short-lived experience which they call ‘being in love’ is the only respectable grounds for marriage; that marriage can, and ought to, render this excitement permanent; and that a marriage which does not do so is no longer binding”(p. 72). Our modern society is very into “feelings” to such a point that very important moral and eternal choices are being made on the basis of how people feel at the moment (Proverbs 16:25; Hebrews 12:16; Philippians 3:19 “whose god is their appetite”). There are a number of people who also assume that if they are presently feeling good or presently happy then there is no need to change. Yet present happiness is not evidence that one is right with God, “Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep” (Luke 6:25). In addition, the devil has convinced many people that love is primarily and solely an emotion, yet God notes that love is much deeper (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).
The temptation of having my own truth
“The whole philosophy of Hell rests on recognition of the axiom that one thing is not another thing, and, specially, that one self is not another self. My good is my good and your good is yours” (p. 73). This is demonstrated when people today will say, “What is truth for you may not be truth for me”. Yet such a statement completely ignores the fact that what I do or do not do affects someone else (Ephesians 5:28; Proverbs 10:1). The great commandment includes loving one’s neighbor as oneself(Matthew 22:39), but this commandment is completely ignored and violated when people want to argue that what is “good” for you is not “good” for me, and what is “true” for you is not “true” for me. How can I really seek what is good for my neighbor if there is no consistent standard of “good”? (Romans 13:8-10). The command to do no “wrong” to a neighbor demands that both my neighbor and I am under the same standard of right and wrong. The truth of the matter is that people who want to have their own private “good” end up hurting others in the process when they exercise that supposed good.
