mocking the devil

I've been reading C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters over the past couple of weeks and I am struck by the insight Lewis had in writing them.  I am also enjoying his sense of humor.  The book opens, in fact, with a quote from Martin Luther stating the intentionality of the humor: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn."


For years I would have been one who was afraid to "mock" the devil in any way.  Perhaps I thought if I made him mad he might come after me, or something.  I'm not sure.  I've even heard of pastors and Christian leaders who have deliberately chosen to "back off" of something God was leading them to do in order to protect themselves and their families from feared direct attacks of Satan.  I have come to believe, however, that these fears are more shaped by Hollywood than the Bible.


I have run across others who have shared their fear of retribution from Satan because of something they have done or prayed, in warring against him.  After gaining some victory in prayer over the enemy, they will then add to their prayers a prayer against retribution - that Satan will not strike back.  While I can see how such a prayer might encourage faith, I do not believe it takes seriously enough the kind of authority Christ has given us over these forces.  Please do not misunderstand me.  I do believe that our enemy "prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour," (1 Peter 5.8) and that we must be on the alert for his schemes.  I do believe that when we make choices contrary to God's design and leading, we "give the devil a foothold," as Paul would say (Ephesians 4.27).  So there is reason to continue to stand - alert and guarded - against our enemy, lest we "invite" him back into our lives and give him a "place."  But to fear retribution from the evil one for victories we win in our spiritual battle is, I think, a misreading of the reality.


The Apostle Paul knows nothing of fear when it comes to the "spiritual forces of evil" in the world.  He does not dwell on them.  He names their defeat in Jesus' cross and resurrection, encourages his churches to trust in that victory and bids them advance with the Kingdom work God has given them.  Paul acknowledges that Satan is at work and powerful, but he himself is rather bold and fearless in the face of that power.  And he encourages us to be the same.


May you find grace and encouragement this week to live into the victory God in Christ has given us.  May you live and declare God's truth fearlessly, as you should.  And may we all maintain a sense of humor along the way!  Amen.

making a memory

A couple of weeks ago, when our Mission Briefing instructed us to read and reflect on Jesus' encounter with the demonized man in Mark 5, I read and re-read that story five days in a row.  Each day I was surprised to find new questions and meaning in the passage I thought I knew so well.  


For example, I had never noticed or paid any attention to the sheer number of pigs in the story.  You remember that the demons, Legion, begged Jesus not to send them out of the area but to let them go into a large herd of pigs nearby.  Jesus gave them permission and the demons went into the pigs.  Then the whole heard of them ran down the bank, into the lake and drowned.  Mark says that there were about 2,000 pigs in all.  Two thousand?  That's a lot of pigs.  I'm thinking there is no way anyone that day forgot about those pigs.  


Imagine 2,000 pigs running down a bank and into the water.  The noise.  The splash.  The stink a few days later.  Whatever else Jesus was doing in this strange little story, he was making a memory.  And the image onlookers would have had in their minds for decades to come communicated two truths, if they were willing to admit them.  First, this legion of demons had a lot of power - enough to cause 2,000 pigs to jump to their deaths.  That's the kind of power that had been abusing and torturing the man, before Jesus came on the scene.  That kind of power is frightening.  Second, Jesus had even more power than the demons.  Jesus, after all, is the one who sent them into the pigs.  Jesus was the one with all of the say-so in the story.  They had to go where he told them to go or, at the very least, where he permitted them to go.  The legion of demons were powerful.  But Jesus was more powerful.


This part of the story speaks to an important reality in our study of spiritual warfare.  There is no dualism in Christianity.  God and Satan are not "equal but opposite" powers.  Not in the least.  God (and God in Christ) is the one who is in charge.  The legion of demons under the command of Jesus testifies to this reality.


As we put on the full armor of God, wage war against the enemy, pray and seek to live in ways that bring forth the kingdom of God, let us always be reminded of this memory: "You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world." (1 John 4.4)

known unknowns, part 3

In previous posts, we discussed the theological reality of Satan and the few mentions of his presence in the Old Testament. Now here’s a brief synopsis of what the New Testament has to say.

In the New Testament, Satan and demons are all over the place, particularly in the life of Jesus. A primary function of Jesus’ ministry is freeing people from being inhabited by demons. Sometimes there is just one demon inside someone, and sometimes there are a bunch. The demon can make someone have a physical sickness or a mental disorder. It can cause the person to try to kill himself. It can drive people away from society. It can use the person’s mouth to speak. It can use the person to commit violence against others. And demons know exactly who Jesus is when Jesus shows up.

We know also, from other Jewish sources, that Jews, particularly Pharisees, had a well-developed, complex understanding of demons and demonization. They had outlined what kinds of reasons why people have demons and what kinds of things to do to get rid of them. They had elaborate rituals and people who were trained in them. Sometimes they were successful (Matt. 12:27) and sometimes not (Acts 19:13-16). People in other cultures/religions also were and are concerned with getting rid of evil spirits, also with elaborate rituals that sometimes work and often do not. In my experience, the more unsuccessful you are, the more elaborate your system becomes. When it doesn’t work, we tend to say, “It’s because we didn’t do this,” and when that doesn’t work, we realize there’s even more missing. Sometimes, even for Christians, it can become more about magical rituals than the authority and power of the Lord Jesus.

The thing that amazes people about Jesus is that it’s all very simple with him. He just tells the demon to get out and the demon gets out. He doesn’t imply that the demon got in because the person did something to invite the demon in; he never has conversations with people that would get to that root; he simply treats them like a casualty of war and heals them. Sometimes he does see the need to get to know more about the demon (Mark 5:9). Sometimes it’s not instantaneous and there’s a bit of a struggle. It’s also important to know that his disciples, even after receiving authority over demons, are unable to cast one out. Jesus said in response that “this kind doesn’t come out except through prayer and fasting” (Mark 9:29).  I know that some of us have been helped and delivered from demons by a more elaborate and formal process of inventorying our lives to get rid of places where we have given the devil a foothold. This was probably good, maybe necessary – if it worked, that’s all that really matters. And there’s an amazing authority in Jesus for deliverance. 

After Jesus, deliverance from demons accompanies the preaching of the apostles as they spread the word of God from place to place, but the letters to the churches do not mention anything about deliverance. They mention a struggle against Satan, both offensive and defensive, in which Christians are to engage wisely, but the much greater emphasis in the letters is on who we are in Christ and how to live in community. That’s really important. Paul casts out demons when he needs to, but he doesn’t make a big deal about that when he teaches the churches.

The biggest type of spiritual warfare we can engage in is to strengthen ourselves in Christ and to build up the church, which is in the process of implementing the victory of the cross in this world against the powers of the world that were defeated, but are still active. As you go about applying spiritual warfare principles to your life, this is what you need to focus on. Focus on God directly, and Satan only indirectly. What we are for speaks much more loudly than what we’re against. Go church! Live strong! Stand!

- Pastor Bo Bannister

known unknowns, part 2: satan in the old testament

In the Old Testament, Satan does not appear very often. But he and his pals are there nonetheless. “Satan” does not become a proper name for a while, either (just, “the satan”, the adversary).  Genesis 3 makes no mention of Satan as a character, just a talking snake. The New Testament (Rev. 12.9) explicitly links this snake who tricked Eve in the Garden of Eden with Satan.

There’s quite a bunch of wacky stuff in the Old Testament.  Genesis 6 has “sons of God” having relations with “daughters of men” and producing superhuman offspring.  I can tell you that anyone who claims to know exactly what’s going on there doesn’t.  But it has parallels with mythological stories in other cultures, where gods have these types of dealings with human beings.  It says a lot, both about those gods, and about the heavenly beings that God created.  It seems like they interfere in places where they ought not interfere.  So before there is any mention of one figure in charge of this rebellion, there clearly is a rebellion.  It goes against the created order of things; it sets these beings in superior relation to humans and aids in leading humanity astray to the wickedness and great violence that precipitated the Flood.

We also know that there are no monotheists in the Bible, not in the modern sense.  No one would claim that there is only one god (but for us there is only one).  There are other gods – Baal, Ashtoreth, Milcom, Chemosh, and Artemis, to name a few.  The Old Testament shows a God who is quite angry with these other gods and does battle against them.  The poetic literature is certainly full of reference to God putting other “gods” in their place and subduing them to bring about order in God’s creation (Pss. 74.14; 82).

There are other beings as well, called “evil spirits,” who do bad things.  They make King Saul go crazy (1 Sam. 18.10-11), so that he tries to kill David.  They lie to false prophets so that they will give false words and deceive people (1 Kings 22.19-23).  They are associated with idolatry and sorcery (Lev. 17.7), distorting the relationship between God and human beings.

Then there is Satan. In the Old Testament, he is really just “the satan” or “the adversary.”  He is one of the heavenly beings, and for some reason, he has the right to act as the adversary of humanity, within a limited scope set by God.  He pretends to be primarily interested in God’s righteous reputation, and so he tries to cut human beings off from God’s protection and plan by bringing up their sins or trying to get them to sin.  This is in direct contrast to intercessors like Abraham (Gen 18) and Moses (Ex. 32.11-14), who were indeed so concerned with God’s righteous reputation that they strongly urged him to show mercy.

In Job 1-2, Satan tries to prove that the only thing keeping Job righteous is his personal prosperity, and, in order to test Satan's accusation, God gives Satan permission to mess with Job's life.  Satan is wrong!  In Zechariah 3, Satan is trying to get the high priest Joshua kicked out of the priesthood, because apparently Joshua has done something wrong, something which makes him stained.  God’s response is to take Joshua’s dirty clothes off and put clean clothes on him.

So we see here that demons are interested in ruling over humans instead of serving them, in distorting the created order (overwhelming human beings with the ominous threat of chaos and being out of control of nature), in distorting human relationships by driving people against each other or away from society through disease, and by putting human beings and God at odds, either by setting up false gods in place of the true God or by getting human beings to turn away from God.

We’ll see how these powers are ultimately defeated by Jesus Christ when we talk about the New Testament next time.

- Pastor Bo Bannister