Category Archives: Religion

He didn’t land on the cover of Time until he posed as the devil.

He later conceded it was the hardest book he’d written.

C. S. Lewis wrote The Screwtape Letters to imagine what it would be like to see this world – and Christians – from the standpoint of Satan and his demons. It became a bestseller and made Lewis a literary legend.

Part of this success comes from our longstanding insatiable curiosity with anything satanic. It is an irresistible preoccupation, sometimes even in the church. Today, an increasing number of sophisticated Americans don’t believe in a personal devil any more than they accept a personal Christ.

Assuming he exists and has an interest – the Bible says he does – what might the devil’s design look like?

One columnist wrote, “If I were the Prince of Darkness I would engulf the whole earth in darkness”.

“We know we are children of God,” the apostle John wrote in his first letter, “and that the world around us is under the control of the evil one” (I John 5:19, NLT).

He’s the “prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2, KJV). He and his diabolical subjects are “the rulers of this present darkness” (Ephesians 6:12, KJV).

Our fallen world has been the devil’s dark domain ever since Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden. The columnist noted this and wrote:

“I would begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve, ‘Do as you please’”.

As they walked fearfully through the forest, the Scarecrow told Dorothy and the Tin Man, “Of course I don’t know, but I think it’ll get darker before it gets lighter.”

It has – and it will.

The entire trajectory of every declining civilization is marked, guided and finally corrupted by moral nihilism. “Do as you please”. The West is no exception. America has been “slouching toward Gomorrah’, as the late judge Robert Bork once put it, for some time.

This doesn’t mean you and I shouldn’t pray for another Great Awakening – anything is possible with God – it’s just that a turnaround doesn’t appear in the cards anytime soon.

“To the young,” the columnist wrote, “I would whisper ‘The Bible is a myth’. I would convince them that ‘man created God’ instead of the other way around. I would confide that ‘what is bad is good and what is good is square’”.

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20, KJV).

Nothing is more contemporary than “relevance” or more scoffed at than moral certainty. “Tolerance,” observed G.K. Chesterton, “is the virtue of the man without convictions”.

Young Americans have been captured by popular culture – one of Satan’s most potent weapons in moving the masses. Even young evangelicals and their cool mega pastors, far from defending “the faith once delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3), have begun to question it.

“‘For the Bible tells me so’” declared one popular preacher last year, “that’s where our problem began”.

“If I were the devil, I would encourage schools to refine young intellects, but neglect to discipline emotions; let those run wild … With flattery and promises of power I would get the courts to vote against God and in favor of pornography”.

Continued the columnist:

“Then in his own churches I’d substitute psychology for religion and deify science. If I were Satan, I’d make the symbol of Easter an egg and the symbol of Christmas a bottle”.

Nothing has been more pitiful and tragic than the gradual secularization of the church in America; the church’s anxious aping of the world in hope of gaining the world’s approval. It is a fool’s errand that has weakened beyond recognition the last best hope of rescuing the nation and pulling it back from the moral abyss.

We’ll know spiritual revival is possible when it begins in the churches of this land.

Lewis didn’t write The Screwtape Letters simply to entertain his readers, though it did. He wrote so Christians would be more aware of the subtle strategies of Satan and better prepared to resist them.

“This world with devils filled” may threaten to undo us. We are not on a playground but a battlefield and called to battle we are. The Bible teaches us nothing if not that we are locked in a titanic mortal struggle against the world, the flesh and the devil – every day and in every way.

We need not let Satan “outsmart us. For we are familiar with his evil schemes” (II Corinthians 2:11, NLT).

“We are not ignorant of his devices” (KJV).

You and I may draw strength and confidence, even when the hot breath of the roaring lion is upon us.

Though Satan seems triumphant, his doom is sure. Jesus Christ came to “destroy the works of the devil” (I John 3:8) and that final victory is already won – and shared by every saint who has placed his or her faith in Christ.

Though Satan is strong, Christ in us is stronger (I John 4:4).

Though Satan is menacing, we can resist him – and are commanded to do so (James 4:7; I Peter 5:9). Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Fear not! Victory is yours!

The columnist who had Satan’s plan in place?

Paul Harvey.

He wrote If I Were the Devil in 1964.

And now you know the rest of the story.

Turn that down!

What?

The noise!

What’d you say?

TURN DOWN THE NOISE!

There, that’s better.

Have you noticed how much noise is out there? As a human race, we can’t seem to stand silence. It’s as if we fear that by being still we would risk an introspection too hard to bear.

This is cultural white noise.

An incessant drumbeat of shallow, angry, narcissistic banalities. We’re more divided as a nation than at any time since the Civil War and technology has made it easier and faster to simply talk past each other.

Nobody listens. Eager for a platform and their 15 minutes of fame, everybody talks.

We’re drowning in a foaming sea of cacophony; “a discordant and meaningless mixture of sounds”.

It’s his temperament – and his temper – that leads our new president to angrily tweet all hours of the day and night. He craves the limelight, which one would expect of a reality celebrity. There are dozens of others, just none as good.

In this, President Trump most resembles Theodore Roosevelt, of whom daughter Alice once remarked:

“Father would be the bride at every wedding – and the corpse at every funeral”.

The president has aroused an opposite – though hardly equal – reaction, adding to this deafening dissonance. It’s sheer idiocy that leads people with nothing else to do into the streets to chant, shout and throw rocks.

It’s been daily since the election.

In his prophetic poem, The Second Coming, WB Yeats wrote that “the falcon cannot hear the falconer” …
“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world …”

For the Christian, this world is too much with us. We can’t escape it, we can’t leave it; we’re left to cope with it. We too are creatures of our times.

You and I must embrace the silence. We must find a sacred solitude in the midst of carnal contentions. That’s not easy but nothing great ever is.

When Elijah the prophet fled the wicked queen Jezebel in fear for his life, he came to Mount Sinai – the mountain of God. There he hid in a cave, despaired of living and telling God to take him. The triumph of another mountain, Carmel, seemed a distant memory.

Elijah was discouraged.

“I have had enough, Lord” (I Kings 19: 4, NLT).

God invited Elijah to go outside the cave and stand. When God passed by, a mighty windstorm tore loose the rocks and howled in violent terror.

“But the Lord was not in the wind” (I Kings 19: 11, KJV).

Then a fearsome rumbling earthquake shook the mountain, reverberating through the valley below.

“But the Lord was not in the earthquake” (verse 11).

Then a blazing fire ignited the rugged mountainside threatening to consume all before it and Elijah hid his face from the scorching heat.

“But the Lord was not in the fire” (verse 12).

Then, after these violent noisy cataclysms of the natural order passed, order returned. Tranquility descended. Stillness gripped the mountain of God.

And then God spoke. He did not howl in his vengeance. He did not thunder in his holiness. He did not burn in his righteous indignation.

God spoke in “a still small voice” (verse 12, KJV).

It “was the sound of a gentle whisper” (NLT).

In that stillness, that quietness, that solitude upon the mountain of God, without any more distraction or disturbance, Elijah then heard the voice of his Lord speak to him.

It wasn’t the voice of contention. Or eruption. It wasn’t the voice of angry recriminations, nor was it the voice of anxiety or fear or dismay or uncertainty.

It was a still voice.

It was a gentle voice.

It was a small voice.

Elijah had to concentrate or he might have missed it. He had to listen with his ear. More than this he had to listen with his mind. Most of all, Elijah had to listen with his heart – pure, undiluted, sincere listening.

You and I must do this or we will miss God’s voice.

We’ll hear the mega-church celebrities seeking the cameras, the talking heads, bobbing, weaving and speculating; we’ll hear the politicians debating and angling.

We’ll even hear the devil accusing, pestering and nagging.

We’ll hear the wind, the quakes and the fire.

But we won’t hear God’s still, small voice. We won’t hear his gentle whisper to our heart.

Not until we are still.

“Be still,” he commands us, “and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

“We run hurriedly into the presence of God,” wrote nineteenth century pastor FB Meyer, “leave our card as on a morning call, then plunge into the eager rush of life”.

In prayer, we talk to God. We seldom give him a chance to reply.

Then we’re gone.

CS Lewis identified the dilemma of our human frailty – and the challenge in meeting it:

“All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in … Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.”

How hard for me to do. How important that I do it.

God help us to find the time and the place for silence.

Then – and only then – will we hear our Master’s voice.

Who is Steve Bannon?

We don’t really know much about him.

He’s the mysterious figure behind all the scenes; a conservative media guru.

He helped elect Donald Trump the 45th president.

Now, in a move that perplexed many and angered others, President Trump has made Mr. Bannon an official member of the National Security Council.

It’s an unprecedented action – and controversial.

Mr. Bannon – a political operative – will now have direct participatory access to the highest levels of national security decision – making. The NSC is a very powerful and exclusive group. Members advise the president on complex matters of critical concern and worldwide impact.

This is all about access to power and authority.

Because of what the president did, Bannon has the right to walk right in and take a seat at the table where life and death decisions are often made.

It’s official from the very top – he’s in. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? He’s out.

Access is important. It’s not always easy.

To gain entrance into our own bank accounts, we often have to answer security questions. In setting up an account recently I had to provide answers to four different questions.

Unlike Mr. Bannon, you and I are not likely to be made members of the National Security Council. Our influence and access are more limited. The President of the United States is not going to appoint most of us to any important post.

When God was dealing with the people of Israel in the Old Testament, access to the Almighty Creator was not only severely limited – it was a terrifying thing.

Even Moses, the courageous leader of the nation, trembled in the fearful presence of the holy and omnipotent God. “I exceedingly fear and quake”, he said (Deuteronomy 9:19, Hebrews 12:21, KJV).

The Israelites would timidly follow Moses to the foot of Mount Sinai – “a place of flaming fire, darkness, gloom, and whirlwind” (Hebrews 12:18, NLT). Moses alone could ascend. Moses alone could make intercession for a sinful people and plead their case before a displeased Deity.

Engulfed in “blackness, and darkness, and tempest” (KJV), the holy mountain symbolized the awful gulf that stood between God and the human race. There was no real access to this God, only wrath and judgement; no bridge from mortal flesh to divine purity.

“For they heard an awesome trumpet blast and a voice so terrible that they begged God to stop speaking” (Hebrews 12: 19, NLT).

The story of Israel’s travail – the record of its sinful cycle of repentance and rebellion – is a revelation of man’s hopelessly fallen condition – then and now.

God kept his distance. People made sacrifices according to exact requirements. The priests made the people’s confession. It was not easy – their world was filled with the consuming awesomeness of an untouchable Maker.

“If even an animal touches the mountain,” God commanded, “it must be stoned to death” (verse 20, NLT).

The writer of Hebrews – a letter to Jewish Christians – pivots at this point and offers a beautiful contrast to all the gloom and doom he’s just described.

But this contrast doesn’t begin here.

It was magnificently symbolized the day Jesus Christ died on the cross.

As the earth rocked and the heavens wept, the mighty and impenetrable veil in the temple which separated the people from their God was torn asunder from top to bottom.

The way to a holy God was now made possible by what Jesus did when he took our sins upon himself. When he paid the price.

Access denied was now suddenly granted.

Paul said it directly to the Ephesians:

“For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Ephesians 2:18, KJV, emphasis added). Through Christ, God opened up a new life and a new way – simple in its beauty, profound in its meaning.

Equal access under God’s new law – his new covenant – had forever changed our relationship to him. Here was a new and brighter day.

Paul wrote in Romans:

“Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege …” (Romans 5:2, NLT).

You and I now have “access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (KJV, emphasis added).

A dreadful mountain reminding us of our sin and God’s unapproachability?

Gone.

Not Mount Sinai anymore with all its fire and thunder.

“No, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering” (Hebrews 12:22, NLT). There are the innumerable saints – “the general assembly and church of the firstborn” whose names are “written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect” (Hebrews 12:22-23, KJV).

I cannot envision that glorious scene without a lump in my throat.

What a difference Calvary made!

The mountain of foreboding replaced by the city of rejoicing.

And there, in the midst of it all, is Jesus our Lord, “the mediator of the new Covenant” (verse 24).

You and I have access to God.

That’s better than the NSC.

“So, let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most” (Hebrews 4:15, NLT).

That’s real access.

Steve Bannon can have the White House.

The tall gaunt man in the black suit wore a weary smile.

A neighbor from back home in Springfield had just asked him what it felt like to be president.

Abraham Lincoln chuckled.

“Well,” he told him, “it reminds me of the story about the man who was once tarred, feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. When asked what that was like, he replied, ‘If it wasn’t for the honor of the thing, I’d just as soon have walked’”.

Lincoln, in his own inimitable way, expressed a sentiment shared by many of his elite colleagues.

“With me,” remarked James Polk, “it is exceptionally true that the presidency is no bed of roses”. His health ruined by its demands, he died three months after leaving the White House. He was 53.

“As to the presidency,” wrote Martin Van Buren, “the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it”.

Lyndon Johnson, who compared being president to “a jackass standing in a hail storm – you’ve just got to stand there and take it,” conceded its impact:

“The presidency has made every man who occupied it, no matter how small, bigger than he was; and no matter how big, not big enough for its demands”

Thomas Jefferson called the presidency “a splendid misery” and observed:

“No man will ever carry out of the presidency the reputation which carried him into it”.

Following the disastrous Bay of Pigs fiasco in the first months of his presidency, JFK acknowledged his responsibility. Invoking an ancient proverb, he ruefully commented, “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan”.

A week from now, Donald J. Trump of New York, the only man in history to assume the Presidency of the United States without either political or military experience, will officially take the same oath once spoken by Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson.

This “glorious burden” has broken strong men and destroyed without mercy weak ones.

History is an unremitting judge.

Ask Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan, failed presidents who froze in the face of a moral and political tsunami they neither understood nor could control. Ask Hoover, whose fate is forever inextricably linked to the Great Depression.

LBJ’s Great Society – and reputation – were savaged by Vietnam. Wilson’s League of Nation’s was rejected, crippling the proud man’s health and crushing his spirit. Richard Nixon, who went to China and the Soviet Union in breathtaking strokes of foreign policy genius, will be forever remembered by school children as the one president forced to resign in disgrace amidst historic scandals.

George H.W. Bush, triumphant in Desert Storm, was defeated for re-election by the voters’ perception of an out-of-touch indifference to economic problems.

Even FDR faced rebuke for foolishly and arrogantly trying to pack the Supreme Court. Truman didn’t know about the atomic bomb when he suddenly assumed office in the midst of World War II. He and he alone made the decision to drop it on Japan.

For a new president humble enough to listen, the voices of the past cry out from beyond the grave about the unforeseen challenges and pitfalls awaiting every new leader. A president ignores those lessons at his own peril.

Humility doesn’t appear to be Mr. Trump’s greatest virtue. He’d do well to consider a leadership example from 3,000 years ago.

When his father, Israel’s greatest king, died Solomon knew he had big sandals to fill. The new king conducted his own inauguration. He assembled the nation’s leaders – military, legal and political and led them to God’s holy Tabernacle in Gibeon. There he and the leaders worshiped God, seeking his blessing upon the new reign. Solomon made 1,000 burnt offerings (II Chronicles 1: 2-6).

That night, God appeared to King Solomon.

“Ask what I should give thee,” God told him (II Chronicles 1:7, KJV).

What would the average American politician ask for if he knew God would give him anything?

Power, success, popularity, a great legacy? A landslide re-election? A place on Mount Rushmore?

Solomon asked God for wisdom and knowledge. Correct information and the skill to apply it with discernment. Some leaders may be smart, well-informed and quick witted. But they still can make costly mistakes. Solomon was humble enough to confess his own limitations in the face of his overwhelming challenges.

“Who can judge this thy people, that is so great?” (verse 10, KJV).

The smartest leader can stumble and fall without wisdom. Wisdom – knowledge tempered by judgment – is a God thing and the good leader will have the integrity and character to seek God’s help.

Solomon did and God granted his request – and blessed his reign.

Lincoln plainly conceded that he had not controlled events but events had controlled him.

“I have been driven many times upon my knees,” he told a friend, “by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.”

When he moved into the newly-built White House in 1800, John Adams offered a prayer in a letter to his wife Abigail. FDR had it engraved on the stone fire place in the State Dining Room.

“I pray to heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and on all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.”

King Solomon would say “Amen”.

Let this be our prayer on the eve of a new administration.

It had to come.

It’s an axiom.

In logic, this means a proposition, not subject to proof or disproof. Its truth is assumed to be self-evident because most people believe it. Once broadly accepted, it becomes a premise from which other conclusions are logically and inescapably drawn.

Nobody has proved it’s true. It may not be true. But enough people believe it’s true. So it’s seen as true and declared as true.

One central axiom of our time is the normalization of a new form of personal morality. The most important and irreversible vanguard of shifting sexual mores in America is the widespread and rapidly growing acceptance of homosexuality.

It must be true.

Once gay marriage was established as a constitutional right, the war was over. Traditional values had lost, tolerance had triumphed. There were all sorts of complex demographic, cultural and political factors leading to this approval but it was undeniable.

It’s an axiom.

Life goes on.

We’re not going back.

We live in a new world and we must be brave.

“Trans”.

That’s the abbreviation for the latest frontier – transgendered people. They are neither “her” nor “him”. They’re somewhere in between, moving in one direction or the other, seeking their true identity; reveling in their happy selves as members of the opposite sex from the one they were trapped in at birth.

They are the new champions of change – literally.

Past generations might have scratched their heads at the mystifying phenomenon. It’s another example of an infinitesimal minority managing to roil the cultural waters of an entire nation.

The Governor of North Carolina backed a new state law restricting public restrooms to those of the same sex at birth. Saying it was discriminatory – a powerful word if ever there was one – the Justice Department, urged on by President Obama, threatened to sue the Governor.

The bathroom law was all washed up. It never stood a chance.

Tolerance is unrelenting in forcing itself on all those who disagree. None dare raise a conscientious objection and be seen as hopelessly out of touch with “the real world”.

That’s ironic. It’s also an axiom of our age. It must be true.

We’ve embraced boundless tolerance – except for dissent.

The other day a news magazine arrived. On its cover were Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. They both were sporting yard-long noses. The Truth Hurts was the headline.

Perhaps this picture is prophetic.

Describing the corruption of an earlier age, Isaiah wrote:

“So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter” (Isaiah 59:14, NIV).

This nation is set to nominate the two least popular and most controversial and morally-challenged candidates for president in American history. It may end up being a contest over who has told the fewest lies – or the biggest.

“Truth has fallen in the streets, honesty cannot enter”.

People get the government – and the leaders – they deserve.

It’s another axiom; true through all ages and in every civilization.

In a society where “justice is driven back and righteousness stands at a distance”; where evil is called good and good evil; in a culture where bitter is substituted for sweet and sweet for bitter; and in a land where leaders more often reflect the dominant values than shape them, the sad and pathetic choice we’ve been given in 2016 is richly deserving.

This is a choice for our times; the emblem of poetic justice.

We are reaping what we have sown (another undeniable axiom).

“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn” (Proverbs 29:2, KJV).

This is God’s axiom.

It’s his judgment upon a people who have chosen to cast off moral restraint, define their own morality and seek their own way.

Trump and Clinton have been supported by millions to whom truth and integrity are subjective, relative and – in the end – dispensable. It’s rampantly true in people’s personal lives, why not in the lives of their leaders?

For the Christian this is not the time to despair or give up. It is the time to pray, think and vote.

No matter what has happened to get us here, is happening now or will happen in November and beyond, our sovereign God is in control. He knows the end from the beginning, and he will protect his church against even the gates of hell itself.

And a corrupt president – if we should elect one.

God’s still on his throne.

He has a plan.

Take heart.

Yes, you may sometimes feel like a Puritan living in the midst of Babylon but remember God’s people have lived in interesting times before.

Take the first century, for example.

“Be on guard,” Paul told believers then. “Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong. And do everything with love” (I Corinthians 16: 13-14, NLT).

Don’t fear the polls. Trust God.

“Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness” (Psalm 37:4, NASB).

Paul closed his second letter to the Corinthians with this consolation:

“Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you” (II Corinthians 13:11, NLT).

Our faithfulness, his presence.

It’s logical. It’s true.

It’s a divine axiom.

Today, tomorrow and forever.