Conversations at the Ranch with Dudley Hall

What is the deal with temptation? Are we just playthings that God is watching as we struggle with an enemy that is invisible and amazingly deceptive? Does he enjoy seeing us get trapped and fail? Are we being tested with some vast rewards going to those with the best score, but most of us feel like the perpetual “D” student?
  The Bible tells of three battlegrounds with three different human representatives. We gain invaluable insight as we examine these. We begin with the presupposition that is clear in scripture: God has chosen to do his earthly work through human instrumentality. Humans have been privileged to share the cosmic battle that has been waged by the devil for longer than we have clear history. When scripture alludes to the rebellion in heaven, it implies that the angel, Lucifer, rebelled against God. Though he was cast out of heaven, he did not give up on his quest to dethrone God. After creation, he
attacked the first humans with accusations against God, in order to gain the authority to rule in the human’s stead. But the story is not about the devil. It is about the God who created humans to share the very life of their creator, displaying the nature and character of the Father, Son, and Spirit. We are privileged to demonstrate the truth that defeats the liar; the compassion that defies the murderer; and the peace that makes the riches of this world only tools rather than treasures.

I have mentioned in earlier messages how confusing all the discussions about the end of the world had been to me during college and seminary. The coffee shop debate often brought out charts and maps. The pressure was on to declare your stance on the issue of “pre-,” “post-,” and “a-.” If you didn’t experience the intensity of those discussions in your journey, the issue was about whether Christ’s return would occur before the beginning of the millennium (“Pre-” as in Premillennialism), after it (“Post-” as in Postmillennialism), or if there would not be a literal 1000 years of Christ’s physical reign on earth (“A-” as in Amillennialism).

It seems that some have missed the point of the apostle Paul’s warning about pow- erless religion because they have delayed it to some future last days. He is clear that he is not speaking of some distant future, but the last days that were present then and are present now. Paul was living in the last days of the Old Testament era, as it was being fulfilled in Jesus and his new people. This era officially ended in 70 AD when Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed by Rome. Paul also is aware that the last days of history began with the resurrection of Jesus and would extend until his final consummation. During these last days, the powers of hell would come against the truth of God’s finished work through Jesus, the final sacrifice and reigning king. He spent much time warning the early believers to watch out for the wolves that would come in to devour the freedom of the new believers. The Jewish leaders who rejected Christ were relentless in their efforts to thwart the growth of the people of God. Governments ruled by demonic ideologies tried to marginalize and mock the group they called, “The Way.” We are still in these last days. The battle over the truth of God’s word still rages. Though the authority of the principalities has been stripped by Jesus’ death and resurrection, they seek to dominate by deception. Only the truth as revealed in Christ can displace the lies.

It is common to hear of someone going off the rails with a temper tantrum and justifying it by their pent-up anger but seldom do we diagnose our inner frustrations as coming from pent-up love. I think we should consider it. One of the blessings we receive by sharing life with Christ is the love poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. 

In a culture where the economy is largely based on people being discontent with what they have so that they will buy something more, contentment is a rare state of mind. Too many of us have bought the lie that more stuff will mean less misery. We are captives of materialism, which demands that we measure our happiness by what we have, compared to what some others have. We already have so much that we must rent storage space to house our stuff. Sadly, much of the stuff we pay to store will be sold at garage sale prices by our children who consider it useless. Surveys show that even the very rich are not content. They don’t worry about having enough to provide for their needs, but they fret over what to buy to enforce their standing among their peers. They compete with symbols of wealth that they hope will ensure their standing. The amount of stuff we have doesn’t seem to matter, though we continue to gather it. The one thing we have tried to gain by accumulation we have missed: contentment. 

The public’s perception of Christians is not very good. Various surveys reveal that many have bought the description of Christianity offered by secularism and have focused on the failings, mistakes, immaturity, and imperfections of Christians. 

We should expect this since our culture seems to be obsessed with distorted caricatures of those we don’t want to know. The common complaints regarding Christians are that we are hypocritical, judgmental, and unloving. Where those criticisms are true, we should quickly repent. But we should also note (with humility rather than snark) that we never claimed to be perfect; so when we fail, we aren’t hypocritical, just needy. We confess that we need a Savior, not only to go to heaven, but to live. When we believe that there is a standard of right and wrong, we aren’t being judgmental, we are acknowledging God. When we try to stop people from destroying themselves and the culture, we are not necessarily being unloving. But it is futile trying to defend ourselves by arguments. We just need to be who we are.

Spiritual warfare has been dragged through many pits of distortion in an effort to establish how we relate to the forces of evil in the world. It seems that every 20 years or so, there is another outbreak of “deliverance ministries” focused on how we gain victory in our own lives over the influences of demonic powers. Those of us who have been through some of those cycles can remember screaming at demons in the middle of the night, arguing with voices that claimed authority beyond ours, and realizing that such an approach was not featured in the early church. War stories of demon bashing often resurface as we remember the days of discovery.

There is much about the powers of darkness that we don’t know, and we are not encouraged to know, but what is unmistakably clear from the New Testament is that we are God’s chosen force against the powers of darkness on earth, and we fight by standing in the victory won by Jesus at the cross.