Hear the Truth
This Sunday, we talked about “spiritual warfare” – about how ‘what we’re up against’ (the ‘spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places’ – Eph. 6:12) are out to destroy Christ’s body on earth (the Church) because it is through the Church that God has decided to fight His battles against evil. Not our typical topic – or way of typically talking and envisioning things – but important nonetheless!
I mentioned how, if you’d like a more personal and individual foray into the big ideas, you should read The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis. It’s an amazing work: insightful, challenging, witty. It is a series of fictional letters written from a more senior demon (Screwtape) to his demon nephew (Wormwood), who is just learning how to sabotage the faith of a new Christian. So the advice in the book is the opposite you’d ever take: it’s how to destroy, rather than build, faith.
Take a look at this one nugget from it:
“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.”
Do you get what Screwtape means here? Typically, when we (mortals) think about ‘the devil’ or ‘demons’, we think about the little red guy on our shoulder whispering wicked and naughty things into our ears, getting us to think bad thoughts, inspire evil intentions, and so on. Right?
Screwtape’s point is that they do their best work when they keep things out of our ears and heads and hearts.
Like the truth.
It’s why Paul implores us, as we ‘put on the whole armor of God’, to first fasten the belt of truth around your waist (Eph. 6:14).
Yes, the enemy wants us to be deceived, to be confused, to call the truth a lie and to instead, believe lies as truth (and in an age of fake news, A.I., social media, and foreign interference…it is hard to keep up!). But this is just icing on the cake…it’s not the main thing.
What our enemy wants to keep out of our ears and heads and hearts, according to Screwtape (and Paul, I think), is the kind of truth that Paul wrote about in Ephesians. The truth that:
- it brings God pleasure to bring us into his family as his children. (Eph. 1)
- God has lavished us with his grace, meaning overflowing forgiveness and redemption. (Eph. 1)
- God’s plan is to gather up and renew all that has been lost and broken. (Eph. 1)
- our lives, lived for Christ, cause God to be praised. (Eph. 1)
- we have access to the same life-giving power that raised Christ from the dead. (Eph. 1)
- God is rich in mercy. (Eph. 2)
- God saved us by grace, without us contributing a dang thing, because he loves us greatly. (Eph. 2)
- God saved us because he wants to share with us his immeasurable riches forever. (Eph. 2)
- we are not what we have made of ourselves, we are not the product of our deepest failures or greatest mistakes, we are not who we say we are, we are not what our families, friends, or enemies say we are, we are not what our successes or bank accounts or Instagram profiles say we are. We are what HE has made us. (Eph. 2)
Ok, ok, I know…I could go on like this. And I didn’t even get halfway through Eph. 2 and I skipped a bunch of really great truths…just read Ephesians again for yourselves!
Do you see how our enemy wins?
By keeping the truth – the glorious and surprising and world-flipping-upside-down and liberating and life-transforming truth of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Gospel – out of our ears and heads and hearts.
It’s why we need to keep opening our ears to the truth, and as we open our bibles, as we open ourselves up to one another in Step Groups and friendships and bible studies, and as we open our ears and eyes to hear and see Jesus again.
It’s why I want you, even today, to invite someone – who needs to have their ears filled with the truth – to “Come & See” Jesus with us this summer at the gazebo. Because,