October 26, 2003
"Deliver Us From Evil"

Two six year old boys were arguing about the existence of the Devil. One boy said, Oh, there isn’t any devil.” And the other little boy said, “What do you mean, there isn’t any devil, they talk about him all the way through the Bible.” And the first little boy said “Oh, that stuff isn’t true. It’s like Santa Claus, they talk about him all the time, but the devil turns out to be your dad.”

The remarkable thing about Halloween is that it’s not a day for kids alone any more. Now adults like to play dress up as much as children do. In fact, in terms of overall sales of goods connected to the holiday, Halloween is now the second-biggest event of the year, trailing only Christmas. Certainly driving around I see many houses decorated for Halloween, probably just as many as those that put up Christmas lights. We grownups like to pretend to be ghosts and witches and yes, devils, and laugh at ourselves as we do, but we don’t think they’re real, any more than Sponge Bob Square Pants really lives at the bottom of the ocean.

But when it comes to Satan, we should be afraid. We should be very afraid. Because he is very real.

Each week we pray the Lord Prayer’s together, often in such a matter-of-fact way that we don’t think about what we’re saying and what we’re asking. I know I’m guilty of that, just sliding by on auto-pilot. Let’s look at the words in context: “Our Father, who are in Heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” But the last part of the prayer has our attention today: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Some of you may already be saying, “Oh come on, pastor, you don’t really believe in a living devil, do you? That kind of thinking went out with the horse and buggy.” A lot of people refuse to believe that there is a being who personifies the reality of evil in this world. One of the problems with Halloween is not so much that it glorifies Satan, but that it transforms him into a comic-strip character, a superstition left over from an outdated culture. After all, we don’t believe any more that lighting jack o’lanterns will ward off evil spirits, do we? Our sophisticated culture won’t fall for that Prince of Darkness stuff. Isn’t he a wrestler in the WWF?

But when you think about it, this denial is Satan’s greatest achievement. If we have been persuaded that Satan, or Lucifer, or Beelzebub, the real force for evil, does not exist, then he has even greater freedom to road, even greater power to act.

My friends, God’s word insists that there is an evil force in the world, whatever name you want to give it. Isaiah wrote, “How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning, how thou art cut down to the ground…For thou hast said ‘I will be like the most high.’ Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.” Ezekiel writes, “Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. Therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God. I will cast thee to the ground.” And Jesus himself tells his disciples, “I beheld Satan as lightning falling from heaven.”

But more than just the evidence of scripture, we see signs of the reality of Satan every day. Every day we are put to the test. Every day we have to choose between good and evil. The choice is just as real for us today as it was for Adam and Eve. Frederick Beuchner, one of the greatest Christian writers alive, puts it this way: “God is all-powerful; God is all-good; evil things happen in the world. You can reconcile any two of these propositions with each other, but you cannot reconcile all three. The problem of evil is perhaps the single greatest problem for religious faith.”

Did you happen to see the video of the kids who staged the Columbine school massacre on the news this week? The video was taken a few weeks before the 1999 shootings, and the kids were laughing and joking as they test-fired their guns. One of them said after he shot a bowling pin, “Think what that will do to somebody’s head.” Where does that kind of evil come from? Does it just happen? Or is someone, some thing its author? We just concluded a look at the story of creation in Genesis and said that it’s impossible to believe that the universe just kind of organized itself out of chaos, and I would tell you that it’s impossible to believe that evil deeds just happen. I appeal to your sense of logic when I say that just as we believe that there is an ultimate force for good in the world, so must there be an ultimate force for evil.

Scott Peck, author of “People of the Lie,” said that he could not hope to convince anyone of the existence of Satan. “Conversion to a belief in God,” he wrote, “generally requires some kind of actual encounter, a personal experience with the living God. Conversion to a belief in the Devil is no different.” In other words, until you see the effects of God transforming lives, you will not believe. But Satan also transforms lives, and it’s not a pretty picture. I know the reality of Satan by what he has tried to do in my life and in the lives of others, and is still trying to do. As long as we are alive, he will never stop trying to snatch souls to his camp.

Sun Tzu, a Chinese general who lived thousands of years ago, wrote a book of military strategy that is still read today, “The Art of War.” One of his central points can be condensed down into three simple words: “Know your enemy.” How can you fight an enemy that you don’t know anything about? You can’t. You’ll get slaughtered, and on Sept. 11, 2001 3,000 people paid with their lives, because we didn’t understand the evil of the enemy.

Nigel Wright in his book “The Satan Syndrome” writes that “It’s not that Satan is impersonal, like a bureaucracy, he is a non-person. Everything that God created in us as persons, the devil cannot have. As we have been given a spark of divinity, and thus drawn close to God, so Satan is everything that God is not. Satan’s purpose in creation is not to try to destroy God, he knows he cannot do that. He wants, rather, to draw us into the vortex of what he is, and destroy our personhood, too. In short, Satan wants to take as many of us with him as he can.”

So who is Satan, and how will he come after us to destroy us?

First of all, Christ calls him the Father of Lies, and Satan wants to expose us as liars. Satan makes few appearances in the Old Testament, but one of the stories where he does appear is in the Book of Job. In this story God points out his servant Job as being the most upright, moral person there is, but Satan, whose name literally means “the accuser,” sneers at Job and tells God “Of course he’s good, you’ve given him every blessing imaginable. Take away all those good things and then watch your friend curse you.” Satan’s world view is that creation is nothing but one big, fat, stinking lie, this notion that a bond of love exists between God and his people.

One of Satan’s triumphs is that he has created a culture in which lies are as common and casual as hiccups. Satan wants us to lie often and easily, so that we won’t recognize the truth when we see it—including the truth about God and his love for the world. One sociologist estimates that the average American lies 50 times a day.

A store manager heard his clerk tell a customer, “No ma’am, we haven’t had any for a while, and it looks like we won’t be getting any for some time.” Horrified, the manager came running over to the customer and said “Of course we’ll have some soon. We placed an order last week.” Then the manager pulled the clerk aside and said, “Never, never, never, never say we’re out of something—say we’ve got it on order and it’s coming. Now what was it the customer wanted?” Said the clerk, “Rain.” Just keep piling on lies, and soon no one will believe in anything.

Second, Satan wants us to despair. One of the great horror movies of all time, “The Exorcist,” depicted the fight of two priests, one older, one younger but shaken in the faith, to save the soul of a little girl who seems to be, against all arguments of science, possessed by a demon. The two priests pray over the little girl, sprinkle her with holy water, order the demon to leave, but nothing works and the little girl seems to be teetering on the point of death. Exhausted, the two priests sit outside the bedroom for a moment and the younger man cries out “Why? What would the devil want with this little girl?”

And the older man replies, “Satan wants us to despair. He wants us to feel forgotten by God. This girl is the symbol of innocence and if Satan can have her he can have anyone.” Satan’s top priority is to get between you and God and sever that bond of love between you.

Third, Satan is a master tempter. He says “There are no standards. There are no rules. There is only what feels good.” How many of you remember the comedian Flip Wilson? A very funny guy in his time. His character Geraldine used to crack me up. Whatever the situation, you knew the punch line was always going to be, “The devil made me do it.” Geraldine always said it with a smile, and you just knew that she thought that giving in to temptation was the most fun a girl could possibly have. And that’s exactly the attitude Satan’s trying to develop in us—to know that certain things are wrong, are bad for us, are sinful, and enjoy giving in to them anyway.

Oscar Wilde, a great Irish writer who ruined his talent by indulging himself in drinking and sex, once said, “I can resist everything except temptation.” You can hear the glee in his voice as he says it. What you can’t hear is the death knell of Wilde’s own destruction, how he went to prison for corrupting teenage boys, how he died at 46 broke and alone.

 But Satan laughs in delight at an attitude like Wilde’s. He knows that everyone, including those who have heard God’s word, is a target for temptation. He even popped up in the desert to target Christ, knowing that it was when Christ assumed our humanity he also assumed our vulnerability. He wouldn’t have tempted Christ if it weren’t possible to win the game. Satan has many names, but one of them isn’t “stupid.”

Fourth, Satan is a roaring beast, looking for souls to devour. That’s how he is depicted in the first epistle of Peter, and the irony here is that it was Peter that Jesus was addressing in today’s gospel lesson from the Book of Luke, “Satan has received permission to test all of you, to separate the good from the bad, as a farmer separates the wheat from the chaff.” And when the bad have been separated out, Satan will feast on them. Why is the wheat separated from the chaff? So that the worthless can be thrown away. Who are the worthless? Those who hear the Word of God, and reject it.

Finally, Satan is a master gardener, one who can plant seeds of doubt in the middle of the strongest faith. Doubt has been the devil’s secret weapon from day one, since he slithered up to Eve and asked, “Did God really tell you not to eat fruit of any tree in the garden?” How did he tempt Jesus? By saying “If you are the son of God, turn these stones into bread.” Not “Since you are the son of God,” but “If you are.” He tried to plant seeds of doubt in Jesus that he was truly the son of God.

Can you see the devil still using this tactic today? Have you ever heard someone say, “I used to believe this, but now I’m not so sure?” You might hear it as “I used to go to church regularly, but now I’m not so sure it’s important? Why can’t I worship God on the golf course?” Or “I used to believe there was only one way to God, through Christ, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe the Christian way is only one way.” Do you recognize the devil at work when you say, “I’m not sure what I believe anymore.” The truth remains as plain as it ever was, but the devil plants seed of doubt.

If you know your enemy, you can fight him, and what’s more, you can take heart, because you also understand that there IS an enemy. Then we can believe with all our hearts that God is a father, and he is not responsible for either the huge, horrible tragedies like 9-11 or the individual but no less painful tragedies of life like cancer or job loss or the death of loved ones. Far from being our enemy, God is our only hope in a world where evil seems to be running wild. What do we need to be protected from this ravenous beast, this grand master of lies?

First, we need faith. Faith is the great shield that can protect us from any tactic the devil can use against us—and we have seen that he has many weapons to choose from. When we respect our enemy, we prepare for him, and when we are protected behind the shield of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, we know that we’re ready. Christ told Peter, Satan has been given authority to test everyone, and when we’re armed with faith, it’s like the final exam in school—we’ve studied, we’ve reviewed, and we’re walking into the classroom confident that we’re going to ace the test. We know what’s out there.

For many centuries the islands of New Zealand were uninhabited. No human had ever set foot on them. Then the first settlers arrived. They were Polynesians from other Pacific islands who had sailed a thousand miles in outrigger canoes. They had sailed all that way with the intention of building new homes in New Zealand.

But how did they know the land was there? How did they know they wouldn’t simply keep sailing until they ran out of food and water and died? The Polynesians had known for generations that the land was out there, because their voyagers had seen a long white cloud on the distant horizon. They knew that when a cloud stayed over one place for a long time, it meant there was land beneath it. In fact, that’s what New Zealand was called, the Land of the Long White Cloud. Faith is like that. It is sailing to an unknown future. But it is not mere chance, or guesswork, or superstition. There are facts behind faith, facts that suggest conclusions.

Second, and most importantly, we need to pray. We need to pray for Christ’s direct intervention in our lives, knowing that our own power is hopelessly inadequate to defeat an enemy like the one we face. Perhaps a rewording of the Lord’s Prayer might sound something like this:

“Father in Heaven, lead me today. I will follow you as a sheep follows its shepherd. I do not know what the day holds, but I ask that you not let me go where I will be tempted. But if in your plan and by your permission I must be tempted this day, don’t let it ruin me. Don’t let it stain my life. Don’t let me slip from following you. And Father, keep the Tempter away from me, for I know his power and my weakness. And if I must withstand his temptation today, protect me and let the temptation, by your grace, produce in me the fruit you intend—making me more like my Master, Jesus.”

Jesus believes in the devil. Do we? Jesus prayed that the Father would protect us from the evil one. Do we? Father, lead us not into temptation, but save us from the evil one. Amen.