SATAN'S DEVICES Part One

POLITICAL SEDUCTION: Lowering our Vision

“Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.”  II Cor. 2:1 

I am an old man, not far from my allotted threescore and ten, and it is my observation that most of our people, including a number of the clergy, are horrendously ignorant of Satan’s devices. As a result, the devil gets an advantage over our people quite often. We have seen the results: Broken parishes, individuals lost to the fellowship of the church, strife and fighting within congregations, numerous scandals; and the result is that too much salt has lost its savor. Every time the devil gets such an advantage and scores a local victory, the people who appear to have survived the battle blame each other instead of looking into their own hearts and examining themselves. Most seem to have no idea that the only actual enemy in their church was Satan, not the people whom Satan moved them to treat without the mercy and charity commanded by God and demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ. Our churches everywhere should be filled with people, including people new to us regularly coming to faith in Christ, and people of all ages and backgrounds. But our churches that meet this description are few and far between, and those that do meet it have endured many storms and many attacks. 

The first device in this series is POLITICAL SEDUCTION: Lowering our Vision, which means allowing our focus to be on something other than the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. 

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.  Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

Matt. 4:8-11 

From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Matt. 16:21-26

          By the standards of God’s Kingdom, there has never been a Christian nation at any time in the history of the world. Yes, the kingdoms of Europe had their national churches, and in the fourth century the Roman Empire that had once persecuted Christians to the death, making our profession of faith a capital crime, took on a Christian identity that replaced its several centuries of having been a pagan empire. Modern Americans love to tell themselves that the American “Revolution,” as it is incorrectly labeled (Independence was established, but the British Crown was not overturned), was somehow the birth of a Christian nation. How a Christian nation was established by cutting ties with an officially Christian kingdom that had a state church, is a counter intuitive proposition at the very least. Most recently and absurdly, one Eric Metexas, whose new false historical narrative, Revolution, the Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World, argues that absolutely every Founding Father of the United States was a “born again Christian” committed to establishing a new nation on “the Sinai Covenant.” Well, of course the very title of the book is embarrassing, coming across as a jingoistic sales pitch that would never be taken seriously on any level of academic peer review. The idea of American Christians recommitting to an idea that never actually existed in history is silly enough (cherry-picked quotations out of any reasonable context not withstanding); and the proposition that modern Christians should embrace a new form of the first heresy in Church history, so old it is described in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles (chapter fifteen) and is the topic of the entire Epistle of Saint Paul to the Galatians, is manifestly error (see Hebrews 8:13). And yet, that is not the most dangerous part of this crazy idea among profound delusions. 

Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews? Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me? Pilate answered, Am I a Judean? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Judeans: but now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. (John 18:33-37) 

          The most dangerous problem with Eric Metexas’ new book is that it does, and for a while will, no doubt, serve as the latest version of one of Satan’s oldest and yet most effective devices: Lowering the vision and aspiration of Christians from announcing the Kingdom of God, evangelizing and making disciples, of building the Church as the living Body of Christ. Instead of the salvation of souls, it distracts believers with the impossible task of creating a “Theocracy.” If one thing is certain, it is that the life you will live, if you believe in Christ, is radically different from the life you will live if you do not believe in Christ. It is not the mission of Christ’s Church to establish some national form of government that uses force to make unbelievers pretend to live - hypocritically – by God’s commandments. That was tried in Europe for centuries, and the Christendom (as opposed to Christianity) that it produced died of a self-inflicted wound, inflicted in 1914 with the beginning of World War I, and succumbing in 1918. Out of the ashes of the “Great War,” also known as “The war to end all wars,” came the very first Atheist Communist empire, The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. With the emergence, corruption, and demise of Christendom in Europe, we have seen already that real Christianity cannot be established by the sword. Worldly means produce worldly ends, and those ends always equal the same thing: Death.

          Why, as we see in the above quotation from the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, did Saint Peter so quickly go from being the one so blessed as to confess the revelation given by the Father, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, to hearing Jesus say these words of warning? “Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.” Peter, and the others, were very happy to follow the Messiah as they understood him. Years later, writing to the Corinthians, Paul mentioned what had been the most widespread misunderstanding of what Messiah would be and do:

And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (II Cor. 5:15-17)

          Indeed. The carnal understanding of Messiah (or Christ) was the expectation that he would immediately overthrow the Roman Empire and set up his eternal kingdom. When Jesus spoke about going to the cross and being put to death, his own disciples did not yet understand the Suffering Servant passage (Isaiah 52:13-53:12), that his immediate mission was to die as the priest and sacrifice so that he could destroy death forever for all people (Isaiah 25:7,8). Peter could not hear his way past the mention of crucifixion and death. What was he expecting?

And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest. And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth.  (Luke 22:24-27)

          The most astonishing thing in that passage is that it comes right after the Lord establishes the sacrament of his body and blood foretelling his imminent death. Their understanding of Messiah was yet so carnal that they argued, right after Christ said those things, about “who will be accounted the greatest.” What does that even mean? It means that every word he said about his death had gone through one ear and out the other of each one of them. They could not hear it. To be the greatest probably meant, to them, to sit on his right hand and on his left in his kingdom. They had their sights set on worldly power in a kingdom not at all significantly different from the kingdoms of this fallen world, except that they would also be immortal (perhaps not really unlike pagan gods). Even after the resurrection they were not completely free of this fallacy.

So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth." (Acts 1:6-8  RSV)

          It was another ten days, after nine days of prayer together, on the Day of Pentecost, that they received the power of which the Lord spoke; and it seems that they finally understood something altogether different. They were not called to wield worldly power, but rather to be his Apostles to build his Church among all people everywhere. In addition to these words from the Book of Acts, let us look at another detailed statement of the Great Commission.

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age."  (Matt. 28:16-20 RSV)

          In the Great Commission you will see nothing about establishing a theocracy. Even the word “nations” as used here simply means making gentiles into disciples of Christ. The Greek word (ἔθνος, ethnos, from which we get the English word, “ethnic) has nothing to do with “nation states” with armies, borders, and governments. It simply means that the Church is called to make disciples among every ethnicity of mankind. A disciple is a learner, a student of a teacher or rabbi. Who is our rabbi? The now risen and glorified Lord Jesus Christ. What are the disciples to be taught? “To observe all that I have commanded you.” Who is to be taught what he commanded us? Disciples. There is nothing in this commission about enforcing his commandments on unbelievers. Conversion cannot happen that way.

It a device of Satan to distract us from this mission by using such men as Eric Metexas and others, men who write and speak by demonic subtlety to tempt God’s people to dream of having power over others, of being part of a carnal kingdom. Instead of making disciples of Jesus, they want to establish a Christian version of Sharia Law to enforce upon the infidels – very much the stuff of another religion altogether. And, of course, to subjugate the infidels to God’s law, force is necessary at some point. Just ask any Jihadist; Muslim or “Christian.” And, if subjugating people into some kind of obedience is the goal, then people around us go from being images of God in need of mercy to being enemies. The corruption is obvious. Well, I prefer the power of the Holy Spirit over the power of the sword. Choose this day whom you will serve.

The subtlety of the serpent runs very deep, and when we view human history objectively and honestly, we cannot escape the fact that throughout the worst of it during the Medieval and Modern periods, often the established churches in the West have participated in, or at least supported, some of the worst crimes committed by the various kingdoms, empires and states that were known collectively as Christendom. The result is that our witness as the Church has suffered. We have many stains in the historical record that we cannot simply wish away or ignore. But our witness is not completely destroyed. As long as we acknowledge that much evil has been done blasphemously in the Name of Christ, we are doing as much as we can to meet the demands of honesty before the world. What we must never do is to either try to defend the indefensible, or to accept the past failures and sins of men who called themselves Christians, as normal.

          But we must balance that by resisting the accusation that colonialization, as bad as atrocities undeniably were, was ever an essential part of Christian missionary work. Preaching the Gospel to the people in every nation is not an option, but rather a command from the Risen Lord to his Church. Right here we come to a point where Satan attacks us on two fronts. The temptation is to believe that we must either defend the misguided teachings and endeavors of men who compromised Christian morality so that they could serve kings, emperors, and states as if God’s kingdom was somehow of this world (John 18:36), or to disobey the Great Commission by accepting a new idea that missionary work is inherently colonialist and somehow a crime against non-Christian cultures and religions. If we defend atrocities we participate in past sins and discredit ourselves and our mission; and yet if we retreat from missionary work, we deny the Lord and his Gospel. The way forward is to be honest about what various nominal Christians did wrong, which forces us to act with humility, while continuing to preach Jesus Christ and build his Church – His Church; not a mere part of Western culture as a chaplaincy for any state. Western culture is of this world (or cosmos). It is not Christianity, but rather Christendom, at best a compromised substitute. The Church of Christ is in this world, but not of this world, as we all should know.

          And let this serve as a lesson to keep in mind as we continue this study: Satan’s devices quite often come as a two-front war. Often it seems as if we have only two choices, both of which must be wrong. “Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not (Matt. 22:15-22)?” The answer, the solution, always takes us to this simple rule: Render unto God the things that are God’s. On the subject of missionary work that means seeing whose image is on the human being, and out of love for each and every person, always to believe in and seek to obey the Great Commission no matter where we are, as opportunity is given.

Now, looking at the quotations from the Gospel of Matthew (above), and thinking about the seduction of political power that has often tempted the Shepherds of God’s Church to give over their consciences to kings, emperors, and states, it is necessary to understand that power-lust is one of Satan’s devices. I have warned more than one clergyman not to attach his reputation to any political party, any political figure or candidate, or any political ideology. One may as well tie his reputation to a wild horse; the animal will go, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, wherever it chooses. Loyalty to party and to party leaders will, no matter what the party is, cause you to justify and defend crimes and atrocities against human beings made in God’s image. It is a matter of when, not if.

You are not called to become part of a corrupt political machine. You are not called to abandon the Lord’s Great Commission in order to revive “Western civilization” or a thing called Christendom, no matter how profound and seductive the serpent’s subtlety. You are called to be part of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, to be the Body of Christ as his Incarnation is yet manifest in Pentecostal, not carnal, power. You are called to serve by gifts of the Holy Spirit in the mission of making new disciples wherever you are, that they may be baptized and hear the voice of our great Rabbi, and made ready to enter eternal life as partakers with the God the Father and with Jesus Christ His Son. It is a device of Satan to distract you from this glorious calling and fellowship.