Transcript
I’m Alan Wartes. Welcome to Dispatches from the Spiritual Front.
I have to tell you these past few weeks have been hard for me. It has felt like God put me in time out while I struggled to hear and see some important things.
After my last post making the case that repentance is nothing short of giving our consent to die, I’ve struggled on a couple of different spiritual fronts.
The first will be familiar to anyone with experience trying to walk in faith in this world. After being so bold in talking about our calling as believers to die with Jesus on the cross, that idea was immediately put to the test in my own life. That’s not surprising. James wrote:
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything”
James 1:2-4
That sounds great and I’m in. But there’s nothing easy about it and choosing to see moments of testing as a source of joy is actually just another facet of choosing to die.
The second source of conflict is perhaps less universal. It has to do with my reluctance to admit where this conversation about radical repentance is headed. Honestly, I’ve been arguing with God over the message taking shape in my heart and mind. Not because I don’t think it is true, but because I don’t relish being the one to share it. It’s a hard message, sure to draw fire.
Essentially, it’s the idea that we can’t truly come out of Babylon, as we are commanded to do, without being brutally honest with ourselves about all the ways that we are still in it. That in many ways we still love it. We cannot grasp the urgency and severity of what we must do to repent and be ready for our Lord’s coming unless we’re willing to face the truth about the total corruption of this world and our collusion with it.
Repentance involves confession, and confession can only follow honest self-examination.
That’s a long way from the feel-good gospel so commonly preached today.
The life of authentic faith is one of stark contrast with the world that we must not look away from. It demands a binary, either-or choice to serve God or Mammon. There is no middle ground. John didn’t pull any punches when he wrote:
“Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life — comes not from the Father but from the world”
I John 2:15-17.
Unpacking what that means on the front lines of daily life requires uncomfortable and undoubtedly controversial truths that I’d rather not even think about, much less speak about publicly.
I’ve already stated in previous dispatches that nothing in this world is untouched by Satan’s deception and corruption. As strong as that declaration is, these past few weeks have been a painful awakening to the fact that it’s actually a massive understatement.
I’ve seen with fresh eyes that our world is deception. Not just parts of it; all of it. Satan has told a million lies that have corrupted everything we think we know about ourselves, about God and how we must live to survive. This can’t be overstated. The entire apparatus of the modern world — government, finance, science, education, health care, information and entertainment, religion and so much more — is the product of countless lies.
Admitting that and grasping the implications is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I know I’m not alone as many of you are coming to the same conclusion.
In the movie, The Truman Show, the main character slowly becomes aware that nothing in the world he knows and trusts is real. His entire life has been a carefully constructed and managed falsehood. In that story, the purpose of the deception is entertainment. He is unknowingly the star of a TV show watched by millions of people.
That scenario, as far-fetched as it sounds, is very close to the truth of our own lives. The only difference is who runs the show and why.
The lies we’re waking up to aren’t even very well crafted. It turns out the key to deception is not its cleverness, it’s our willingness to believe whatever we are told. Most people do whatever it takes to remain in the fiction, because it feels safer. But once you begin to see the truth it gets harder and harder to pretend you don’t — and it’s very important that we see.
Rejecting deception and receiving the truth has always been part of following Jesus. But we’re currently living in the moment the Bible foretold when Satan goes all in. The signs are clear that we are on the threshold of a whole new level of deception that will test our faith in ways we can barely even imagine. If you pay attention to the news at all you know what I’m talking about. The command to come out of Babylon, to abide in Christ and keep our eyes fixed on Him, has never been more urgent.
That’s the uncomfortable truth I’ve been chewing on for the past few weeks: I can’t go on pretending I don’t see it, but do I really want to be the messenger calling others to upend their comfortable view of the world? Am I really the right person for that job? Who cares what I think? Maybe the “time out” I felt was God telling me it’s okay to be quiet.
A breakthrough came when I realized that “time out” is the wrong way to describe where God has led me. It’s more accurate to say I’ve been put in spiritual rehab. Like an addict who finally admits he can’t continue living the old way. Or maybe like a brainwashed cult member fighting my way back to reality. And rehab is not an end, it’s a beginning.
At first, rehab involves seclusion, a time of raw detox and withdrawal. That’s true whether you’re addicted to chemicals or to false beliefs. It’s as if all your molecules are being disassembled and you’re pretty sure you won’t survive.
But you do, and then the real work begins. However, that’s getting ahead of the story. There’s a lot to say about that. We’ll come back to it in a future Dispatch.
For now, I realize that saying the world as we think we know it is a lie sets us down in a whole field full of rabbit holes. Each one is stuffed with people willing to argue forever to defend their point of view. I have no appetite for entering that fray.
For one thing, that’s the realm of the intellect and what I’m talking about is spiritual discernment. It’s enough for me to say I’m convinced we live in an age of unimaginable deception and to trust the Holy Spirit to work out the truth of that in everyone ready and able to hear it. If that’s you, He will be your guide. Seek Him and listen.
Now, for just about anyone, what I’m saying is hard enough, but for followers of Jesus, it gets worse.
Because living in a fake and deceptive world has left what we call the church deeply fractured and confused. We know that’s true, we might as well say it out loud. After centuries of evil gaslighting — much of it from within the church itself — we honestly don’t know who we are, what we are, where we are, or when. That adds up to this: we don’t know what to believe, which is why Christians are so often at each other’s throats. Jesus warned of this when He said:
“At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people”
Matthew 24:10-11.
A little later in verse 24 He says that the deception will be so powerful it would even trick the elect, if that were possible.
There’s no way to escape the truth that that’s where we are today. Believers can’t take a step in any direction without stumbling into another bitter argument about who’s doing Christian faith right and who’s doing it very, very wrong. Everyone guards their particular rabbit hole like life depends on it.
And that’s the trap I’m determined to avoid — and which I urge you to avoid as well. Our purpose is not to prove a point but to perfect our faith by seeking refuge and strength in Christ alone.
The key to that — and to getting on with authentic, radical repentance — lies in the answer to a simple question: What does Satan hope to gain from all the lies? Knowing what he wants will point us in the direction we must go — the opposite way.
The answer is not complicated. Satan’s million lies all have a single, coordinated goal: to sow doubt about God’s supremacy and sovereignty over all things. Those are stations Satan claims for himself, as Isaiah wrote:
“You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God … I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’”
Isaiah 14:13-14
But notice that Satan’s key strategy for accomplishing this is not to challenge God directly but to fight a proxy war — through God’s human children. All the deception we see around us is a continuation of the original lie Satan told in Eden.
He said, “You can be more than what God made you to be.”
It’s obvious that our world is saturated in that message.
But Satan’s claim to a throne of his own is just hot air … unless we believe it. He coaxes us into that belief by suggesting that we also deserve to rise above the place God gave us. In the ultimate bait and switch con, he entices us to worship him by exalting and worshipping ourselves.
Believing his lies and colluding with the culture that’s built upon them has made us the most idolatrous generation in history. The evidence for that is undeniable: we worship ourselves, even when making a show of worshipping God.
Revealing and renouncing Satan’s lies and repenting of our role in perpetuating them is the work of faith in our time. This is enormously difficult, which is why we don’t want to talk about it. It’s a severe test of our faith that can only be undertaken in complete dependence on the Holy Spirit within us. That’s why we must die to the old, sinful self that relentlessly clings to the world as it is.
Our task is to restore what Satan’s deception has taken from us — the fearful knowledge that the Lord our God is One. God is Almighty God and there are no other Gods before Him. He alone is the source and creator of all things. Everything in heaven and on earth exists for him and through Him.
Every lie, every edifice of falsehood dissolves in this truth. Truth is the weapon that sets us free.
“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
2 Corinthians 10:3-5
There is no better definition of Satan’s deception than this: It is “every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.”
The harsh truth is that this covers everything in this world. But it also contains the key to our victory: the knowledge of God as He truly is.
In the next Dispatch I will return to the idea that we all urgently need to enter spiritual rehab to reclaim this knowledge and the power it holds for demolishing strongholds. I will lay out a practical program for how we can do that.
Until then, grace and peace by yours in our Lord Jesus Christ.
