Thursday, April 10, 2008

The Devil is Sterile in His Own Designs

That is something to think about. I don’t even remember where I heard that line expressed quite that way. The devil has no original control in this world. The devil has no independent agenda. What the devil does is to play off what humans do. Granted, that provides enough ammunition for total self-destruction as a species, but it closes an important door.

It closes the door of the cosmic war between heaven and hell spilling over our heads and hearts. Rather, that battle is fought in and for our heads and hearts.

This accounts for a couple of things. First, why there is very little ‘back story’ in the bible concerning the cosmic battle raging beyond our reality. What we do have then becomes very, very tantalizing. Second, that the devil has manipulated the popular media to pull our attention away from the real battle of good and evil.

For example, take Roman Polanski’s movie “The Ninth Gate” with Johnny Depp. It contains elements of the plots of so many of the apocalyptic supernatural thrillers. It assumes there is a supernatural conspiracy beyond the natural conspiracy toward sin and evil in the souls of humanity.

Footnote: Media Observation-The movie captured me in its pacing, I was disappointed by the ending.

All these supernatural movies and television shows and books and websites, they all draw on a fascination within us that there is something bigger and more conspiratorial going on ‘out there’. And when these stories remain in the real of escapist fiction that we can view with a healthy desire to be entertained, they can be kept in proper context.

But I think our very fascination with the supernatural and the occult is a play on our being in the image of God, an image now corrupted. We have hearts for ‘greater things’. We have echoes of the divine in our very makeup. So says Genesis.

In the New Testament, demons were exorcized in two ways, they were cast out in the name of God and, when that was not enough, through the use of prayer, a more prolonged exposure to the power of the Living God. We don’t armor up with cosmic talismans or ally ourselves with beings of higher (or lower) orders to get the job done.

I think the devil just uses the contents of our imaginations to throw us off the true path to bring in the Kingdom of God.

1 comment:

WalksOnWater said...

Hi Pastor,

Look forward to seeing you Tuesday Bible Study and discuss the contents of the youtube sent to your e-mail.

Thanks.