Vladimir the Terrible

 “Man…does not do evil against his will, under pressure, as though he were taken by the scruff of the neck and dragged into it, like a thief…being dragged off against his will to punishment;               but he does it spontaneously and voluntarily.”  Martin Luther

   Do you remember the 2001 Pixar hit, Monsters, Inc.? The film centers on two monsters James P. “Sulley” Sullivan and his one-eyed partner and best friend Mike Wazowski who are employed at the titular energy-producing factory Monsters, Inc., which generates power by scaring children. The more the monsters make children scream, the more energy they collect. 

  One evening after work, scarer Sulley, discovers that an active door has been left. He inspects the door and accidentally lets a small toddler girl into the factory. The monsters in Monsters, Inc. are anything but monsters. They’re not evil or dangerous or even scary. They’re just misunderstood.

  But there really are monsters. Obviously, not the type found in Monsters, Inc. Our sixth president, John Quincy Adams, said, “America…goes not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” Inherent in his statement is the assumption that there really are monsters in this world.

  Yet, that’s the problem with our leaders in Western Civilization – they don’t really believe that there are monsters. There is a widespread belief that terrorists, tyrants, and demagogues are just misunderstood and if we could just sit down and talk with them, we could reason with them and come to some sort of middle ground. They’re not evil, they’re just trying to get their message out. That’s how Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri described September 11^th as a “message with no words” which is “the only language understood by the West.” Terrorism then as some political scientists describe it is only a “communication strategy.”

  It was that kind of naïve reasoning that led to then British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain to claim “Peace for our time” in his September 30, 1938 remarks in London concerning the Munich Agreement with Adolph Hitler. The phrase is forever remembered for its bitter ironic value since less than a year after the agreement, Hitler invaded Poland and World War II began after France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany following Hitler's refusal to withdraw from Polish territory.

  The leader of the independent Orthodox Christian Church, Metropolitan Epiphanius I of Ukraine, was more in line with Scripture when he recently likened Vladimir Putin to the Antichrist, “The spirit of the Antichrist operates in the leader of Russia, the signs of which the Scriptures reveal to us: pride, devotion to evil, ruthlessness, false religiosity…This was Hitler during World War II. This is what Putin has become today.”

  One of the most highly regarded books of the 20^th century was Ernest Becker’s “The Denial of Death.” It’s regarded as a classic for its analysis of how human beings deny their mortality. But there is something people deny more than mortality: evil. Yet, we are seeing evil unfold before our eyes in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. In spite of the denial of those who also deny the truth of Scripture, the last century has seen more glaring evil than at any other time in human history. The descendants of Hitler, Stalin and Mao are Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin and the leaders of Iran, to name a few. The forces of evil in the world are now so powerful and so many and so difficult to corral.

  Iran continues to move ahead with its nuclear ambitions, which are a threat to both the United States and to Israel. North Korea has launched at least one hypersonic missile with nuclear weapons in the hands of an unstable, tyrannical, arguably insane regime.

  Consider the deceit and accusations of bigotry against any who dared to suggest that Covid-19 came from a Wuhan Lab. In spite of Communist China’s denials, the evidence seems undeniable. Yet, many Americans, especially the elite in the political class and media, immediately recoil in horror at anyone referring to China as an enemy because much of American foreign policy had been predicated for the last several generations on the opportunity of developing an unprecedented partnership with China that would basically create a new form of world stability. The United States now finds itself facing an evil world rival on an even greater scale than the Soviet Union through the entirety of the Cold War.

  It’s apparent that Putin is driven to be Vladimir the Terrible in his attempt to regain lost Russian glory. To understand Putin, one has to understand Russian history and the fact that what you have in Putin is a medieval mind with modern nuclear weapons. Putin’s understanding of Russia goes back to a ruler like Ivan the Terrible of the 16^th century.

  Historically, Russia has been led by despots, by tyrants, and there’s no national embarrassment for them in that. In fact, there is a sense of national glory tied to that kind of tyrannical leader and behavior.

  U.S. president after president, administration after administration watched Putin rebuilding Russia’s nuclear arsenal, even as the U.S. was spending less and less on defense. We’ve seen Putin not only build Russia's military but use it. Georgia, Crimea, Eastern Ukraine. No one should be surprised by what’s happening, yet most seem shocked, not just surprised.

  Understanding and knowing the Bible matters. Your worldview matters. As Christians, we must understand that. The Bible teaches, even when it allowed for kings, limited government. While the Bible does not provide support for one form of government over another, Scripture teaches a limited role of government.

  Due to our fallen human nature, God chooses to use government as a tool to uphold order, justice, and the rule of law. Thus, believers are to respect and pray for their leaders while submitting themselves to the authority provided by the government. Scripture makes clear that God has placed limits and expectations on the government. In the Old Testament, for instance, Israelite kings were expected to obey God’s laws as written in the Pentateuch. In the New Testament Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-14 teach the same with the focus primarily on justice,  law and order.

  Because of the evil of the human heart, the government is to be limited, controlled, and held accountable. That’s the foundational problem with Putin and other diabolical leaders, there is no accountability or control.

  But there is a God in heaven (Daniel 2:28). The same God who allows evil men to rise can and will take them down. While we do not know the future of Ukraine, we do know the future of this world. The King of Kings is coming back and one day there truly will be “peace on earth.” As the Apostle John said, “Even so come Lord Jesus” (Revelation 2:20, KJV). 

Can we help you spiritually? Can we help you know Jesus better? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or, call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address. 

A Literal Devil? This is 2021 not 1321!

 “There is no devil in the first two chapters of the Bible and no devil in the last two chapters. Thank God for a book that disposes of the devil.”  Vance Havner 

   During the autumn of 1944 Germany had been beaten back behind its borders. The Nazi war machine was in tatters and the repeated bombing raids of the Allies all but assured that Hitler’s forces would never rise again. Around the perimeter of Germany’s borders, the Allies spread a thin line of forces. One person observed that Allied forces were was so scattered that a man could slip in between its lines without being observed. 

  All across Europe, there was celebration. Parties, dances, speeches all of them rejoicing in Germany’s defeat. The war was effectively over. The only problem was that somebody forgot to tell Hitler and Nazi Germany. 

  Even as his forces were being shattered and driven back Hitler was devising a plan for one last onslaught. Underground factories churned out more weapons, armament and ammunition. More of Germany’s young and old men were conscripted and trained for war. As Europe celebrated, Hitler conspired. His goal was not to drive back the Allies into the sea, as much as it was to divide the British to the North and the Americans to the South, so demoralizing them that they would sue for peace on his terms. Hundreds and thousands of men died because somebody forgot that the enemy still lived and that the war was not completely over.

  We have a much greater and more evil Enemy than a Hitler. His name is Satan. Intellectuals and those in academia are shocked that there are still people who believe in a literal Devil. After all, this is 2021, not 1321.

  If you do not believe in moral absolutes, if you believe that good and evil are relative and on a continuum, then it’s easy to scoff at a literal devil. When evil is relative, it quickly becomes a socially constructed concept, different for each culture and society. It’s held then that different cultures have varied ideas and beliefs about what constitutes “evil.” What is evil to some may well be acceptable and even valuable for others. Morality, good and evil become nothing more than an opinion a world flooded with them.

  To explain away evil or to suggest that it’s only a social construct or a psychological problem is impossible to rationalize away in light of some of the vile evils of just the last century. Was the Holocaust, the genocide of six million Jews who were systematically murdered, nearly two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population a sociological aberration? How could one witness Auschwitz or Treblinka or any other death camp and come to that conclusion? Or conclude it was a psychological failure not a moral one?

  What about Stalin’s Great Purge? How does one rationalize that evil is not real or there is no face of the Devil behind the large-scale repression of the peasantry or the ethnic cleansing by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union? After assessing twenty years of historical research in Eastern European archives, American historian, Timothy D. Snyder concluded that Stalin deliberately killed about 6 million, which rises to 9 million if foreseeable deaths arising from his heinous policies are taken into account.

  Is the Rwandan Genocide of a million souls, the Cambodian Genocide that butchered between 1.5 and 3 million people at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, or Mao’s Great Leap Forward that ultimately exterminated tens of millions, with death estimates ranging even between 15 and 55 million, making the Great Chinese Famine the largest one in human history just social constructs? Just ask the families of the 17 victims of Nikolas Cruz if evil is subjective? Ask them if there is no such thing as right or wrong?

  Evil has a face. Such depths of perversity can’t be explained without a literal Devil. Satan is the great deceiver. One of his greatest deceits is to convince people that he doesn’t really exist. But Satan really does exist, just as surely as God exists. He isn’t some vague, impersonal force; he is a real person—that is, he has a real personality. Just as you and I can think and make decisions and act, so Satan can think and make decisions and act. The difference is that everything he does is evil—without exception—because he is totally opposed to God.

  The Bible teaches that Satan is the number one enemy of God and mankind. Satan comes from a Hebrew word meaning adversary. Devil comes from an equivalent Greek word also meaning adversary or slanderer.

  Throughout Scripture Satan is known as “the ruler of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2); “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4); “one who has the power of death” (Heb. 2:14); “the cosmic powers of this present darkness” (Eph. 6:12); “the great dragon (Rev. 12:9); “the evil one” (Matt. 6:13); “the tempter (1 Thes. 3:5); the accuser of the people of God (Rev. 12:10); and “the father of lies” (John 8:44). But praise God, he is a defeated foe. Wise are the words of Ann Voskamp, “Satan prowls but he’s a lion on a leash.”

  While Satan is a very powerful, spiritual being who hates God and His people, he isn’t equal with God but is engaged in a constant battle against God. We must not take him lightly. Ephesians 6:12 reminds us, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against…the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ”

  The most important truth that Christians need to remember is that Satan is a defeated foe. By His death and resurrection, the Lord Jesus overcame all the powers of death and evil, and someday His victory will be complete.

  While skeptics deny the reality of Satan, Bible believers cannot. God’s Word warns us to be aware of his plans. “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Believers must resist him vigilantly and steadfastly, aware of the reality of his plans to defeat us. When tempted, we must submit ourselves to the Lord, resist him and he will flee (James 4:7).

  A little girl was once asked how she defeats Satan. She said, “When Satan comes knocking at the door of my heart, I send God to answer the door. When Satan sees God, he says, “Oops, I am sorry, I must have the wrong house.” We can’s defeat Satan on our own. We need God’s strength to enable us to conquer him. We must fight Satan, but we must only fight Satan through the power of God proclaimed through His Word. The victory was won 2,000 years ago but we must be vigilant in the fight until Satan’s final defeat. We will win but only in our Savior’s power!

Can we help you spiritually? Can we help you know Jesus better? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or, call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address. 

Evil: It isn't just a show

“The devil divides the world between atheism and superstition.”

                                                                                                George Herbert

This Halloween if you want to risk a friend rolling their eyes, tell them that you believe that Satan is real. About 50% of Americans don’t believe in the existence of the devil. The latest surveys indicate that born-again Christians are the most likely to believe in the devil (86%).

  Yet, nothing delights Satan more than when people do not believe in him or take him seriously. Years ago liberal theologian, Rudolf Bultmann dogmatically stated, “it is impossible to use electric light and the wireless, and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time believe in the New Testament world of demons and spirits.”

  Many believe the devil is a fable, just a bit of fiction, some cartoon character dressed in red with a pitchfork and tail. They contend that truly educated and thinking people don’t believe in a literal devil.

  If Satan is only a myth, how do you explain evil? One can’t turn on the evening news without being repeatedly confronted with the reality of evil. Evil is very real! No honest person can deny the problem of evil. Because of that any world-view, religion, or philosophy that acknowledges evil is real, and as a really evil thing, present in our world – is a thousand times more plausible and livable than a religion or world-view or philosophy that denies the reality, or the evilness, of evil. One of the most undeniable facts of our existence, is that evil is real, and evil is evil, too often very evil.

  To attempt to deny that evil exists is to live with your head in the sand and to attempt to deny reality. Yet, trying to deny reality – whether related to evil or any other aspect of reality, doesn’t work. Reality is like gravity – sooner or later, it catches up to you. The longer that you pretend it isn’t there or try to deny it, the harder and more forcefully it crashes in on you.

  For example, some religions tell us that suffering (a type of evil) is just an illusion and you can escape this illusion by achieving a certain frame of mind. This, though, denies the reality of evil. But when the evilness of suffering, sickness or death hits you, you find that any “truth” that tells you that suffering is merely a state of mind or a figment of your imagination and that you should be unbothered by it, is an offensive and unlivable lie.

  While atheism doesn’t fit with the unavoidably moral universe in which we undeniably find ourselves, it’s often accompanying “privation theory,” (that evil is only the lack of good,) doesn’t do justice to the fact that evil is an objective and often horrible real entity. Evil is not merely the “lack of good,” it’s positively vile.

  Even most atheists acknowledge the reality of evil. Yet, if you claim there is evil and injustice in the world, where does one find a moral standard of justice? Doesn’t it seem logical that if there are moral laws, there must also be a moral Law-Giver? For there to be a judgement of evil, it must be based on more than one’s own subjective and benign moral feelings.

  C. S. Lewis’s response to this idea is worth pondering: “My argument [as an atheist] was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust. A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line…Of course, I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too…” If there is “evil,” that argument presupposes “good” and some standard of what is good and what is evil. Otherwise neither exists or it is all subjective. The most logical argument is that both exist and God is the moral Law-Giver.

  In his book, The Death of Satan, noted scholar and professor at Columbia University, Dr. Andrew Delbanco, argues that “a gulf has opened up in our culture between the visibility of evil and the intellectual resources for coping with it.” He goes on to argue that many secularists attribute all human cruelty and evil to psychological deprivation or social conditioning, and, in so doing, trivialize the heinous evil that humans are capable of.

  He then recounts the story of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who along with many American elites during the Holocaust gave “no priority to the rescue” of the victims. Later on, after the evidence for the atrocities became too great to disbelieve, the President was given Kiergegaard to read and said that, for the first time, the Christian philosopher gave him, “an understanding of what it is in man that makes it possible…to be so evil.” Dr. Delbanco contends that secular liberals (a group of which he considers himself a member) had lost any concept of radical evil.

  It’s been often said that one of Satan’s greatest tricks is to make people believe that he doesn’t exist — and that’s true. When we deny his existence, we become blinded to the reality of evil, and we fall for his lies about God and about ourselves. Satan is real; the cruelty and vileness of our headlines scream it every day.

  Yet, the most important truth about the devil is this: He is a defeated enemy! By His death on the cross Jesus overcame Satan’s charges against us, and by His resurrection from the grave Jesus conquered Satan’s rule of sin and death. Someday, and I hope soon, Christ’s victory over Satan will be complete. Satan and his evil horde of demons will be banished forever.

  Jesus has won the victory! He died to set us free from Satan’s power. While we need to be wary of Satan, we do not need to fear him – he’s a defeated foe. He may tempt and attack us, but the grace of God in Christ will always make us victorious over him. As 1 John 4:4 promises, “But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world” (NLT). We must turn to and rely on the Lord Jesus, who defeated our great Enemy. As we build our lives on Him and His truth, He gives us hope and power, both now and forever.

Can we help you spiritually? Can we help you know Jesus better? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or, call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address.