The Strategies of the Devil — Dr. John Kleinig

Machine-generated transcript; may contain errors.

I want to talk next about the strategies of the devil. And in this, I'll be outlining quite a number of things very quickly because I think that most of this, well, who knows won't be new to most of you. But however, I don't want to rush things. If there are matters here that need to be expanded, please just let me know that you need me just to unpack things a bit further. I find that it's useful for me as a pastor to do two things. One is to put myself to try and put myself in God's shoes and think divinely. Now, that comes hard. It's a hard act to do. But as a pasta, that's what I need to do is to think with the mind of Christ. And the mind of Christ is quite different to the mind of John Clinick.

Things look differently. If you look at it from his angle. But I also need to do the opposite, which is to think diabolically, to, as it were imaginatively, to stand in the shoes of safe and to understand what's going on spiritually in my life and the life of the people I serve. So I want to talk about the strategies of the devil, not from the point of your experience, because experience can be totally deceptive. If I'm going to pull this act off, I have only one source, and that is to use the scriptures. To use the guidance of the Word of God and the Spirit of God, so that I can, as it were, at least for what's important for my ministry, understand the strategies of the evil one. So that's what I want to do.

So, the script we talk about the devil's strategies. Now, strategy is a military term. No, strategy is the overall, you know, any good general has a strategic sort of objectives. They're not the immediate plans, but the overall objectives. Everything he does is to achieve the big overall strategy. So, Satan has an overall strategy that he seeks to carry out all circumstances in the spiritual battle. So that's the big picture. And then there are his works. What he actually does. This is a funny term, because in some ways, he does nothing. He's not a worker, in real sense, he's a spoiler, not a worker. So his work is spoiling work. They are the works, not of light, which is created, but darkness, hence spoiling chaos.

You know, we have the other idea around that Satan is somehow some Superman who can achieve all sorts of things. In fact, all he can do is spoil. But to understand his works. The works of darkness, and the ways that he works in people's lives, and that's the hardest of all, because very often, the ways are very, very subtle, they're not obvious. So his spoiling works, and then the way he achieves his strategy, which you can't see immediately, the ways by which he leads people into sin, and not only leading people to sin, but to walk in sin. Now, the picture he is of a journey. It's not just an occasional act, but to go on the journey, the journey of sin. Because the deeper he leads people into sin and darkness and impurity, the greater his hold on it, the more he has against them, the more he can undermine their faith.

His ways, which are the ways of darkness. And that's the problem. You can't see it directly, because it is in darkness and not in the light. Now, can you hear what I'm echoing by talking this way? In baptism, we do what? Do you renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways? I don't know, very often, we assume that they're all the same. They're very carefully chosen words, like all good ritual. And in many parts of the world missionaries need to fill in what are the ways of the devil in that society, and the ways of the devil in that society. It's going to be different here in North America to Indonesia. Or, well, something, Malaysia. India, Africa. Our aboriginal community, it's different to European community.

So, in New Guinea, an aboriginal community, you need to name specifically sorcery and everything to do with sorcery. Now, I don't know any sorcerers in Adelaide, there might be some there. But there's tons of them up in Central Australia, lots of them in Africa. So, what we need to see is that Satan has an overall strategy, which is the same everywhere, but in any given society, and in any given group of people, he works in a different way, there's different works and he has different ways of working. Now, it might be useful for you to think in terms of what's happening here in North America, that is uniquely. So, here, and I won't try to do that because you're in the position to do this I can only guess what's the case.

But I am convinced that, at least in Australia, that one of the biggest areas that he's messing around with, at the moment, is the whole area of sexuality. That's, if I would want to specify what's going on. OK? Big picture stuff. I need to think quite concretely about his overall strategy, the ways he partly his spoiling work, which is going to be different in different places at different times. And then there's also the ways he works. He's after all the spirit of the age which means he's very trendy. He knows what's going on and he anticipates, and he sometimes promotes the latest trend. Huh? The world, the world, his domain. He sets the traits, in some ways. Second point I want to make is very important, is that Satan doesn't present himself in his true guise, if he presented himself to us and to the world as the Prince of Darkness, what would happen?

Everybody would shun him. Ha, ha, he's far better. He comes disguised as an angel of light says Paul. Now, you need to, we need to hold that quite clearly. What does that mean? It means that he presents himself in the best possible light. Luther ironically calls him the super theologian, the angelic doctor. Now, if any of you know your church history, you know, who is the title of the angelic doctor in the Middle Ages? Aquinas. So he says, Aquinas is not really the angelic doctor. Satan is the angelic doctor. Doctor is theologian, the teacher. His expertise is in the area. Guess what? What's his academic discipline? Theology. He is the arch theologian. And he is, as Luther says, the speculative theologian.

That's his forte. That's his sub specialty within theology. Now, I'm not having a go at systematic theologians or anything here, but just to see that's his territory. And we need to realize that on the face of it, he is so pious and so holy, because he comes to us using the most holy thing of all, which is God's word. He knows the scriptures better than you do, and I do. What's the problem? He knows them, so he can not use them, but abuse them, and he misapplies both law and gospel. I'll give you a case a little bit later this evening. Oh, just one of his tax. So, he misapplies law and gospel. And when you misapply law and gospel, what are you doing? You seem to be doing, you know, you're not doing anything wrong theologically.

You're not teaching any heresy, but you are mis applying that you're doing the devil's work. And some of the worst things I've done in our ministry is in that area. Speaking, law, where I should be speaking gospel, speaking gospel, where I should be speaking, law. Well, in some cases speaking, neither law or gospel. Say nothing, saying, I don't know. Now, you can learn a lot about his nature and his works and his ways from the titles that are given to him. There is really only one proper name. He is basically, or even the proper name is not really a name, but is a title. So he comes without a name. Now, that's wonderful. He has no real identity. He comes with lots of titles, and I won't give you the worldly titles, but the scriptural titles.

He comes without a name. The usual name we give, where the capital S is Satan, but do you know what Satan means? It means somebody who prosecutes you in a court of law. So it's the council or the prosecution. Satan, in Hebrew, means the person who prosecutes you in a court of law. The prosecutor, the counsel for the prosecution, Satan, that's what hits. So you take that title, and you make a name out of it. It's the same, the other title is adversary. Now, adversary doesn't mean enemy, but it means the adversary in a court of law. So he's the one who accuses you and condemns you in which court, the heavenly court. But not just in heaven, he also does it in your conscience. Secondly, the name devil in Greek is diabolos, which means slanderer.

Oh, that's his special territory. Who does he slander? He slanders God. He slanders Jesus. He slanders the Holy Spirit. And most of all, he slanders you. Did you hear that? He slanders you. He spread slanders about you, and he slanders the members of your congregation. What does slandering mean? False witness? Spreading lies about you, saying you are something that you aren't. Now, slander is his home territory. And so, one of the commandments that he breaks and gets us to break particularly, in the church, is the eighth commandment, which all Christians are very good at, and I think we Lutherans, can't say that we're innocent to that regard. So here's the slanderer. He is the hey, pop poneros, the evil one.

I don't know if it's ever been pointed out to you that in the Lord's Prayer, the last petition, and deliver us from evil can also, and probably should be translated, the evil one, the evil one. And that word, and the idea behind that is that he is the one who evil is the perversion of God's good order, so he perverts God's good order. Once again, he doesn't create, he really destroys. He mucks up, and he can't be… You see, the devil can't even destroy. He merely spoils, what God has created. The devil does not create, he cannot destroy anything, that's God's business. The devil spoils God's good creation. He is the enemy. Now, the picture there is military terms. He's the one who attacks us, who seeks to kill us, which is then very closely connected with the title, the murderer.

And he works in a very specific way. He very often doesn't murder us, but he threatens us with the fear of death. So he's the arch terrorist, the spiritual terrorist. I don't know whether you realize that somebody like Starwin didn't have to kill all that many people, because he ruled with the threat of death rather than death itself. The threat of death is worse than… Death. And that's, you can see that, in many different ways, when you are working with people who are under spiritual attack. Still remember, I'm very, very graphic incident that happened to me one day. When I counsel people, particularly when I counsel women, as you know, there's great difficulty in doing that appropriately, and not only doing it the right way, but we seem to be doing it the right way, what I do is go for a walk.

So it's out in the open. So, there was this woman that I'd been seeing for a long period of time. She was really messed up because she had been sexually molested by a member of her family. Had gone into a rather disastrous marriage, that was rather unhappy, and then, got help from a psychiatrist who had sexually abused her, too, and she was an ongoing relationship with a sexual relationship with him. Look, it's the things that people do is beyond belief in some ways. There's no such thing as original scene. It's all very short. And it's the old stuff together again. Still remember, one very important time we're walking past the Anglican cathedral the Episcoponians Cathedral, which is down the hill from the seminary where I teach.

And we're going past the doors of the seminary, and she said to me, just out of the blue. I've gotta go in there. I said, OK, that's good. And so we came, you know, one of the good things about walking is that you're side by side rather than face to face, and you're both on the same journey, which is good, for counselling, and particularly difficult, counselling, not face to face but going on a journey, there's something great about that. I've discovered, OK? So this is one place, we haven't been sitting, and she confronted me, said, I have to go in there. I said, Good, we're doing it. And we came to the door. The door was open all the time, and came just to the threshold, and there was something there that shoved her back.

So, she went, Oh, my God, not that. And I caught it so that she didn't fall over. I said, What's the matter? She said, I can't go in there. I said, Why? I'll be killed. I said, what? He said, I can't go in there. I'll die. I said, No, you won't. No? No, she says, if I put my foot in there he'll kill me. Okay, what you do? You know, is this just psychological? Okay? So I said, Okay, that's, that's, ha, ha. Yeah? Oh, see, you know, okay, what should we do? Why don't you put your arm around mine? Just licking it in. And I walk over the threshold together. If he strikes you, it'll strike me. And she hesitated and says, Really? I said, yeah? Yeah, that's okay, bunny. I'm sure that I'm safe.

Why are you safe? Safe, huh? Say? Come past her. Come covered by Jesus. Okay, architecture. I'll give you color. She hesitate for a while, eventually see she agreed to do that, and we came to the entrance, and that one step across the threshold was one of the slowest steps I've ever taken in my life. We crossed it without any… And then after that, then she let go, and she walked down to front of the altar, to the end of the, and knelt down before the altar, and I just sat in the front pew and she spent about five or ten minutes there. It was one of the turning points in the top. You'll die. Now, I've heard this quite a number of times, with people under attack. The threat of death. If you go to church, you will die.

If you go and see past the climbing, you will die. If you, you know, that kind of threat. He is the murderer. Is he, in fact, able to murder us? Jesus says, yes, he can kill the body, but he can't kill the soul. Preeminently, he's the prince of Dutchness, which means that he works in the dark, and he works on the darkness inside of us. What's the darkness inside of me? It's my guilt, and my egg. Oh, he loves anger, loves anger. Envy and fear, love's fear. Mistrust and hatred, oh, hatred is sweet to him. He works in these dark areas within my soul, and he exploits them against me. And he uses them to do his dark and dirty work. He locks the darkness because he's unlike us, he sees in the darkness.

But because he sees darkness and sees in the darkness, he can never see the light. It says it were outside of him, he can't actually enter the light. He sees it from the vantage point of the darkness. So, it's as if he's standing out there can see there's life here, but it's not outside. Yep. Earlier, you had said that same does not read the heart of mine of the human Christian, whether they're Christian or not. Yeah. And yet, I don't know, I guess, who, the Prince of Darkness works and dark with guilt and anger and enemy. So much of that is incurring for Christian or not internally. How does Satan actually get at that? You don't have to be particularly perceptive. If you have any emotional intelligence you can pick these things up.

Not because you're reading people's minds but you're reading people's behavior. You watch what people help people react, what they say, what they do particularly how people react, and you can test it out to see whether it's there or not. You understand? One of the things that it's good, I don't want to make this a law or anything. It's very helpful here, pasta, to have emotional intelligence, which is not only being able to understand people intellectually, but to read people emotionally. And usually, we talk a lot about expression of emotions, but if you're going to have emotional intelligence, read them. You don't get that from what people say but help people act and react. And, there, am I right?

You know, they suddenly say that, that, are going to say, autistic people have have super intelligent, but they have no emotional intelligence. That, in fact, emotional intelligence is one of the highest level orders of intelligences. And even the simple thing of being able to read faces, the most significant things for me pastorally is to be face to face with people. Why? So that I can not just understand what they're saying, but I can read their faces so that I understand why they're saying something and what they mean by what they say. That's a whole side issue here. I don't know if I've answered your question. And I guess the face to face thing, I guess I would just question that, you said, you know, just…

Walking alongside… I would find that to be kind of challenging from a counseling perspective. Well, okay, all right. Okay. There's a time and place for things, and particularly in that fact, it's very difficult across the sex system particularly to somebody that's sexually traumatized, a very, very dangerous area. And the less emotional you can get, the better, okay? You gotta keep the emotion. This is more your area. Do you want to throw anything in here? Right on target, in terms of emotional intelligence being pivotal, and the deep sensitivity required, working with confusion, will invite on target on each dish. So, she's the expert. She'll give you 10 lessons on how to improve your emotional intelligence.

Lastly, he's the tempter. Now, we usually think he's the tempter because he tempts us to sin, and that's true, but the root temptation only begins once we have sin. He tempts us by accusing us by condemning us by in a thousand different ways. He tempts us to unbelief, he tempts us to rebellion. He tempts us to a thousand different ways by testing and trying to destroy our faith. Now, if you're going to understand deliverance, the ministry of deliverance you need to see that it's not basically about dealing with Digman possession, but it's dealing with temptation. Now temptation is the broad category. And Luther has a wonderful word. He uses the word temptation, you know, for Zulfong up in German, but he prefers the word unfector which means assault or attack.

Now, very few, in the technical sense Christians are, or even people are ever possessed by demons, but every single Christian is tempted. And the further you go on your Christian journey, the greater, the temptation. The more you come under attack. So, I'm using temptation in that broader sense. A assault attack by the evil one. We have no good English word. That covers that I can think of. Okay, now, I want to speak about three kinds of attack very quickly. The first attack is what we usually regard as temptation. So what does the devil get us to do people to do? It gets them to sin. Okay, that's the first level of attack. But, you need to see it both sides, he gets either me to sin against you, or he gets you to sin against me.

So there's always, wherever there's sin there's two sites to see. And we often forget that in our ministry. And in fact, the greater damage from a human point of view, and therefore, in terms of ministry, is not people who sin but people who've been sinned against. And this is particularly in the church. He will at all costs try and get you to sin against somebody. So that he can then use that as a lever within their conscience. So, singing and being seen against. Secondly, and then once he has done that then there is the second attack, which is the accusation and condemnation of believers. Now, I'm not talking about people out in the world, okay? People out in the world, he gets people to sin, and then what does he do?

Excuses, and so that they forget about it and they don't feel anything bad about it. But any threats of the imagination accuse them. He only accuses rich people? Christians. You need to see, be discerning in your dealing with people, he accuses and condemns Christians. He doesn't want to accuse unbelievers why? They're there? He's got them. Why should he frighten the horses? No, it's… He doesn't mind, scared them into… Well, the Christ arms, he… He got them. He wants them. He accuses and condemns Christians believers. Now, and there are, and this is my own terminology, there's a front door attack and a back door attack. The front door attack is that he gets me to sin against you, and then he accuses me, and then he tries, then he gets his trump card, then he condemns me.

In order to destroy my face. That's the one side. The back door attack is harder to see, and more devastating, and it goes this way, he gets you to sin against me. And then, he accuses, in my conscience, in my heart, are, are, are, you of sinning against me. He recycles it, like a closed loop, so that I keep en route playing. Have you noticed when somebody offends you, what happens? It comes back again and again and again. And every time you replay it, it gets worse. And not only that, it's sort of magnified by being replayed, and you feel more justified in saying, that person is bad and then you remember all the other evil things that person does, and so he not only magnifies the affairs, blowing it up, but then he connects it with all the other offenses that person has done against you, and even there's the ambiguous things that person's done get added to that, and then you get added to that.

All the other offenses that everybody else has ever done to you, until you get and then what's the result of that kind of accusation, you see, not accusing me of sinning, but accusing others of sinning against me. How do I feel? Angry. And so, as the front door attack, the symptom is guilt, the back door attack the symptom is anger. And brothers, the church, and our society is full of angry hurting people. And they're, okay, he's not finished there. What does he do? He stokes up the air guy. And what do I feel, then, about the person who's done the dirty by me? He eventually gets me to hatred. So, I, then, hate that person, and I seek to take what? Revenge, not with my hand, and maybe not even with this weapon, with my tongue, but I kill that person off, I execute them where, in my heart.

Take revenge by cutting myself off from them, or them off from me, destroy the connection between the two. And at what point, then have I slipped from being sinned against to sinning? The moment that hatred, the hurt turns to hatred, or its affiliates, which is resentment, bitterness, or that kind of stuff. Okay, and then what is destroyed within the church? He does that, not to destroy my faith, but to destroy my love for you. And by destroying my love for you, then he also undermines my faith in Jesus and the other person's faith in Jesus, but his target is not so much against my faith, but against love for my brothers and sisters in Christ. Now, you can see this happening in many marriages.

In many homes, and every single congregation that I've ever had anything to do with. You know, the funny thing is, this, among Christian, offends me. I shrug it off. It hurts me, but it's no big deal. But if a Christian does it, then? Well, it's a capital offense. It's a capital fence, and particularly, if it's a pastor who does that. Then it's like, it's a super capital effect. It's unforgivable capital effect. Because it's disproportionate. And we say, Oh, well, I expect better of a fellow Christian. No. What's he trying to do by destroying love? He undermines faith, what's he doing with the congregation? He is destroying congregations. How many congregations hasn't he destroyed in this way?

How many Christian families, hasn't he destroyed? How many Christian marriages? Hasn't he destroyed through the back door attack? Have you got clear what I mean by back door attack? Now, that is his special domain. That's his special domain. That's where he has, I think, his greatest success in it. Okay, I'll just pause there. Any questions or observations on this? Have you got clearly what I've been talking about? So, there's two sockets. There's sin, and then there's abuse. Sin, which I do abuse, which is against me. Yes? Look, as the pastor, if you can recognize that this is going on. And you bring the word of God to the people. For deliverance, rescue. But they're so, so, deep seated because of,…

I don't know, their personality at this or whatever it may be. So they're no matter, they're no longer about the vertical cap, but they're about the social aspect of what. So how do you go about that? There's no simple solution. This is the area that requires the greatest conflict resolution, and you get a wonderful organization, sort of in your synod, or it's a power organization called Ambassadors of Reconciliation which I recommend very highly, on the practical level, and they do deal with a lot of stuff, this stuff spiritually. You know, just trying to unravel this mix, in practical terms and in spiritual terms. But this requires the cars level of spiritual skill to undo that, because usually it's not one generation, but it has a history going back to the very foundation of the congregation, whenever that occurred.

And there's feuds, and there's stuff that goes carried from generation to generation. And it's the devil's interest to keep stoking up the anger, the bitterness resentment, and the hatreds. Okay? Big topic itself, and I don't want to open it all up, yes? Yes. You said it was the devil jar that keeps stalking it up. Yes, not his job, that's his delight. The devils they like to stoke it up. How does this… You know, you imagine this false loop playing it all the way over and over in your head. Is there a way that he is able to manipulate our thoughts to play that over and over and over? Well, he just reminds us of this. So he can manipulate our thoughts. Well, by, yeah, just as I can manipulate like, my boss thoughts, by doing something nasty to her.

No, it's, he just keeps on, reminding us of it. Yep. Yeah, no, I think also, that the doubles in life here is getting us to break the spirit of attention. Oh, yes, a small peg is a tip, just a love. Yes, because real people can get us, hey we can't be… We've broken all the ten commands. Not just the, fit the moment, broken all the demands, yes. The most important way in which we undo this is by intercessory prayer. Praying for others. You pray the devil out of it are this kind of situation. Why did Jesus say, who are we to, what are we to do for our enemies? We love them by doing what? Not by our feeling, but by praying for them. So every enemy, in the inverted commas that I have, it's a call for me to pray for that person.

Deeply bonding for puts are brilliant. He says, God gives us our enemies in averted comments, he's speaking ironically, because they need our prayers. They need our prayers. I'll be dragged. Okay, I need to go on. Now, the goal of these attacks is, and here, I'm fumbled for the right terminology, and we have great difficulty in speaking exactly. And the distinctions I'm going to make I'm not my own, but they go back to medieval theologians that I find very helpful, provided that you don't see these as categories, but thumb rules, not categories, but thumb rules, they tend to intersect with each other. So, his goal is to get us in bondage to himself. Bondage means that we become his playthings, his slaves.

He gets somehow some hold on us. Now, the first level, if you like, stage is, that is, that he oppresses us by means of a guilty conscience. He just leaves us with a guilty conscience. And the result of a guilty conscience is that we lose the joy of our salvation. We lose the assurance of salvation. He oppresses us. Robs us of the joy of salvation, the assurance of salvation, oppression, very common amongst Christians. And you'll come across this, you know, in mostly the members. It struck me, the beginning of this year, I hadn't been teaching, just a bit of part time teaching since I retired two and a half years ago, but various reasons I took two classes, and it was basically the same guys to both classes.

And one was a sounds class, the other one was on the Turgics class. And it didn't take me long to pick up that all of them had issues of conscience. So I just emphasized conscience conscience, particularly liturgics, and I said, OK, every part of the liturgy, The goal of it is to deliver what? And a good conscience. And you won't understand its importance and its function, unless, you see, it's not communicating information or anything like that. It's to deliver basically a good conscience. And to see the way that those guys, at the beginning, there was a kind of heaviness about the class, and they were one of the least bright classes I've ever taught. Now, they weren't, from a human point of view, intellectually, brilliant, but to see what happened, during the course of that class, a palpable sense of liberation, from a sense of oppression.

They were all under some form of condemnation by the law. And I therefore was a bad conscience. And to see that just that burden of oppression being lifted and being replaced by joy. Now, I note up that each one of those is going to make a good pastor. Why? Because they've learned that being a good pastor means ministering to people's conscience, and giving the devil off their backs by giving them a good conscience. So that's the most obvious level, and okay, like, that's common. So there is the attack, Sydney, in order to oppress us. Oppress us, what's the picture there? Press, you get the word, press, press down, to keep us down, OK, Procressus? Yeah, the next level, if you like, will stage.

Remember that this is not categories, they tend to overlap. And it's not a matter of degrees, but it's a different focus. Is our obsession. Okay, the devil oppresses us by working on our conscience. We become obsessed when he takes control of our desires, and he uses what he perverts our desires, so it takes good desires, and he perverts them and uses them against us. So you have obsession by evil desires or what used to be called passions, which is nothing to do with passion, in the sense of being passionate, but a passion, in the traditional sense, is a disordered emotion that instead of you controlling it, controls you. And that leads then to a loss of control in some areas of life. The secular psychological term for this would be some form of addiction.

So addictive kind of behavior. And the obvious new thing, it used to be you know, addiction to gambling, or addiction to, there's a thousand ones different things. The new one is now addiction to pornography, or sexual addiction, which is, I think, in the new diagnostic, Bible what's it called? Oh, yes, yes, is actually now recognized as a legitimate psychological category, is that right? Yeah, it will be published next year we'll know for sure. Okay, that's at least the word. OK? But you can see it in pornography. Now, what's happened there? Satan plays on what's good, which is our sexual desire, and then perverts it? And turns it against us so that we lose control of that very important part of our lives.

And he doesn't have to have to push that too far, because if we get out of line what will he do? Just… Can you bring us back into line, as far as he's concerned? So, obsession. And then, most extremely, is our possession. Now, that's comparatively rare, where it takes over the whole itself. You have a lost knot of a area of your life, like emotions, or a bad conscience but in some way, you lose your nonpossession of your body, but you lose your sense of self, and somehow is taken captive. Now, I don't want to speak a lot about that. There's an appendix at the end where I give you some traditional Lutheran data on ministry to possession and some of the symptoms of that. So that's the second level attack, the first level attack is temptation to sin and then he gets us to sin in order to most of, you know, commonly, to oppress us.

And if he can get us one step further to some form of obsession, and we can have all sorts of obsession. You can have an obsession about work or obsession about, a 1000000 one things. It's taking emotional control of us. The third level attack is very subtle. So it's not attack on me and my salvation but it attacks my sense of vocation. My sense of vocation, and this is a uniquely ministerial. It happens to all Christians, but every pastor, that I know, that I've ever had anything to deal with, and every seminary student has experienced this. Okay? How does it work? As a pastor, we're given pastors, we're given an impossible task to do. Why is it impossible? Well, look, it's hard enough for me to do my own work, to be a father, to be a husband, to be a grandfather, to do the work that's required to be done.

But God calls me not to do my own work. He calls me to do his work. Supernatural work. Now, there's a recipe for failure. If I am going to do supernatural work, I can only do it with supernatural power. And one of the recurring features of, one of the most not features, to say, one of the most important experiences that we have in our ministry, guests, what is not your, you have, and I have, is not your success, but your failure. Can I repeat that again? Now, that's something countercultural for your USA people. The most important spiritual experience that you have as a pastor is not your success, but your failure. Now, however, when you fail, and I won't go into it because it happened in one of a million different ways, what does Satan do?

You fail, therefore what? You know what? You're no good. It's not only that you've no good as the work you've done, but you're no good as a person, and you're no good as a pastor. Therefore what? Go and get another job. Or if he can't get you quite to that, then he can destroy the joy of your ministry then you just go through the motions. And that's a uniquely ministerial problem where, basically, you are so crippled by your sense of failure, and the devil keeps on reminding you, and he doesn't need much help, because who else reminds you of all your failures? I think congregations are very good at that. And sometimes presidents, and are very good at that. And most of all, your own conscience is very good at that.

I can't say that I've been entirely happy as a pastor with anything that I've done. You see what my problem is? Psychologically, I'm a perfectionist. Okay? Comes as a curse. But in terms of spiritual terms, I'm not just happy to work for them, and sire I want to be the Messire. That's a recipe for failure, and dismal failure, and that's setting myself up as a sitting duck for attack. So his goal in this attack on ministry is to cripple my ministry, to make it as ineffective as possible. OK, going through the motions, but losing the effectiveness nursery, ultimately his aim is to destroy my ministry. Now, it'd be interesting, and I don't want to show hands, but just think about I wouldn't mind saying that if I ask that all of you would, say that you've experienced that, not once, but almost regularly, every week.

I have a particular cycle, you know, when I do the regular ministerial cycle, instead of telling, What's the worst day of a week for you as a pastor? Sunday night. And sometimes, if it carries over, it's Monday. And that's when you really feel the pits. It's partly emotional, but it's also spiritual. Particularly if nobody's, appreciated, you're certain, there's been some criticism, and you feel so sorry for yourself, and you pity yourself and your wife gets snippety with you, and she says, Dear, why do you have to preach so long? Perhaps you should have said this. Earned your groan inwardly, and you said, Oh, what's the use of it? I'm totally unappreciated. I'll do something that with people will appreciate, dear me.

And that's… That's when some of the nasty stuff… And if you've got a, just take one thing. If you've got a propensity to pornography that's when you hit the pawn to comfort yourself. Or you hit the grog, or whatever else is your comfort. It goes with the territory. So, they are those three kinds of attack. Now, that's just part of being a pastor. Remind you, all Christians have the corresponding temptation. And temptation, the vocation, is part of every Christian's lot. In this kind of situation, What Satan does is misapplies law and gospel. He is the theologian, after all. So he gets me to sin. Okay, and then he uses the law to accuse me of sin, and that's okay. He's doing God's work, but then he misapplies the law to condemn me.

What's wrong? The law was not given to, condemn us. That's not the function of the law to condemn us. Or the opposite is true. He gets me to sin, and then he uses the gospel to excuse my sin, not to justify sin, but to excuse sin. Now, that's a particular modern Lutheran and modern Christian thing. It's everywhere here in North America and Australia. The technical theological term for it this gospel reduction is something. Which doesn't deliver justification of sinners but delivers justification for sin. By the way, it's not only for sinning and sinning against, but also for our failures and ministry, he uses the two this way. Okay, that's a pretty, in some ways, a pretty dismal story, but the funny thing about…

Take some pressure. Things are never spiritually the way they say. Why on earth does God let this happen? Where earth is this part of the deal? As I said, things are not always the way they see in the spiritual world. Just listen to some of the things that Father Luther has to say, he says, quite confidently, the devil is the best teacher of theology. He's not my favorite teacher, but I, you know, Luth would say that he has learnt more from the attacks of the devil than from anyone else. You can't be a good theologian and pastor unless you got through, been through the school of temptation attack. Because what happens, then, when the devil attacks. You, it doesn't know what the attack is.

You're driven back to what? God, Christ, God's word, and prayer. And that's where you really learn theology, not theoretically, but practically. And then, see if you can work out the sense of this. The devil is the comforter of the faithful. Now, comforter in the Latin means somebody who strengthens you, makes you encourages you and builds you up. In what ways the devil, the comforter of the faithful? Because it's kind of productive. It misfires. And so he strengthens our faith by attacking our faith. He strengthens our love. This is the stranger thing. This will test the love by attacking our love. Now, that's something that I had taken very bitter experience, in the grueling controversy about the ordination of women.

The temptation was to treat people on the opposite side as my enemies, rather than brothers in Christ, to be able to weather that, to build up love. In a situation of theological and spiritual controversy. This comes from his preface to his writings. Remember, he has, says, talks about a study of theology, and he says, There's three ways you learn theology, and has to do with spirituality. It's through prayer, or artio, meditatio meditation on the word, and then 10 cuts you know, attack. And this is what he says about tack attack. As soon as God's word takes root in you now it's the picture, you get the seed of the word, and as soon as the seed of the word starts sprouting and growing, okay the danger is that it's going to grow bigger and bigger, so as soon as the word starts growing and producing its harvest in you, that's the picture, the devil will afflict you, and make you a real doctor, that's teacher of theology, and teach you by his temptations to do what?

To seek and to love God's word. So temptations are the means, Luther says elsewhere, is the hammer by which the nail of the word, and the spirit through the word, is driven deeper and deeper into the heart. Okay? Under attack, then, you have, when I'm under attack, I either give in, or else I'm, I go back to my only resort. My only comfort, which is the word of God and prayer, because I help. I can't do it. It's too big. Help me. And, driven back then to the power and comfort of the word, and this Holy Spirit through the word. Luther has a very interesting take or proof, if you like, of our two things. How do I know I'm saved? How do I know that God is pleased with the work that I'm doing?

Could this could apply to any area of life? How did I know that God is pleased with me as a husband, as a father, as a grandfather? But most importantly, how do I know that God is pleased with me as a pastor? This is what Luther says. When the devil harasses us, We know ourselves to be in good shape. Also, he says, how do I know that I'm saved? Because the devil gives me such a… Hard time. Just think the logic of that through. It's sort of counterintuitive, because if I wasn't saved, what would the devil do? Couldn't be yellow. The very fact that he attacks me is proof positive that I'm saved. The fact that I have come under terrible attack, spiritually, at certain times of my ministry, shows what, about what I'm doing?

That I'm doing, what God wants me to do. He's pleased with me because the work that I'm doing is biting. Is stirring up the opposition. Now, there's a danger of mishearing that brothers. You know, you can obviously see that's excusing. The more bumptious I am, the more I upset people, that's pro positive that I'm doing the right thing. Luke is not talking about bathrooms. Please. And then most paradoxically, he says, the worst temptation is, no temptation. And I could have listed about 100 other sayings about this. But you see, it's counterproductive. It goes with the territory. And this not only for ourselves, but we then need to see what's happening in our church, in our congregation. We need to understand the mind of the evil one, on the one hand, but more importantly, we need to see the way that God is working paradoxically.

In fact, you could say, when things, this is also what Louis the first said, he says, the best times are the first times. When things are absolutely rosy in your congregation, then you need to watch out on our phone, you can't expect trouble of some kind. And not only fear it, because what does trouble do? It brings the hidden things out into the open, and when they're out into the open you can expose them to the light, and you can deal with them. Okay? When things are going well, where there's peace, where there's no peace, Jeremiah uses the picture of whitewashing the water. Now, it's whitewashed, it looks very nice but underneath, there is all sorts of unpleasant stuff. How's time going? Okay, I've still got 15 minutes.

OK. Just a pause here. Any, reactions or, challenges or whatever question. How that makes sense, because that's… And I hope Molly is making sense, but it's helping you to understand some of the things that are happening in your ministry. Yes? I'm reminded of that, in a sense, it's a civil argument. Here, Fluis, in, they have in the strength, in the book, you've got the scene where the individual is asked to defile the cross of Christ. And the man said, He never believed in it. But when he was asked to do it, it struck you. Maybe there's something to this. It's sort of that saying, like… It's exactly the same logic. There are in logic, okay, the same reality. Yeah, look, there's all sorts of funny things in the spiritual life, which are not, you know, it's counter to our normal way of thinking.

I have a practice quite often with people that I spend with counselling, is to, sometimes, you know, we seem to get in a deadlock, and I just hold my hand like that, and I turn around. Which means what? Just turn it around seeing it from the opposite point of view. This is the way you're seeing it, but let's now turn it around and see it the way God sees it. And the picture looks quite different this way, too, that way. Or if you want to, another illustration that's being used quite frequently, and Tolkien uses that in one marvelous story it's like a tapestry. When you make a tapestry, you have the underside, and it looks an utter mess chaotic. You can't make any sense of it, but you turn it around, and you see the picture and it's a wonderful picture.

Okay, what we see is the underside of the tapestry. We don't see the picture that's being created in our lives and in our congregations, as the tapestry is created. Yes? Well, a couple of years have been exploring with people undergoing pretty difficult times. The idea of when St. Paul says, God gave me a messenger of state. I've fallen in the flesh. For a fletcher, a messenger… They harrest me. To harass me. And I said, well, doesn't, you know doesn't God know what he's doing? Yes, he doesn't. It does, because how does he go on? Yes. He says, Three times, I ask the Lord to remove the thought. He says, No, no, no, no. Right. Why strength is sufficient? My grace is made perfect in all weakness.

We also say my grace has made my victory is accomplished through your defeat. That's what the cross is all about. And we are minister, aren't only ministers of the cross, but we administer under the cross. Now, that's not a dismal treatment. That's the secret of joy, ministry. It's not this one. And please, I don't want you to go away saying, you know, OK, I feel awfully burdened. This is the secret, if you like, of joy ministry. Somewhere else, it's… That third attack, his goal of spiritually ineffective ministry, just as we can't see our holiness, our own holiness. I don't think we can all see our effectiveness in ministry, either. And, you know, sometimes people will comment, or they'll give you credit for something that you've forgotten about, or you didn't realize, or that you helped me more than you imagined, you could imagine those things aren't really on the front burner for us.

Yeah, and it's very important that they're not in the front permit. If I could see my successors, what would that do? It'd be the recipe for pride and fueling? Remember what I said about glory? You know, the great John Klein, it has come at once again. Everybody admire me. And even if everybody else doesn't, I mean, I'll do it myself. But I've also found something else. So God keeps, he not only hides our sins but he hides our successes from us. Quite obviously, the reason is obvious but then I don't know if you've discovered, but something that has happened to me a number of very important times in my life. When I'm feeling most discouraged, and I feel, look, I've accomplished nothing.

One of the things when you get older, the older guys know that you look back in your life in ministry and say, what have I accomplished? Nothing. And it's not just ministers, but most of your members, at the end of their life particularly men, feel that they've accomplished nothing, are terrible desolating since. It all wasted. At times when that temptation comes, do you know what God has done for me? He's sent, he's lifted the curtain, as it were, in a most unexpected way. Now, there's some areas where I have a suspicion, I'm a sneaking suspicion that something could happen. Now, a lot of places which I thought success proved out to be failures in the long run, but there's some places where I you know, I think, you know, I might, or God, might have, done something, usually in some way, but he doesn't lift the curtain there to show me, but he shows me something from left field.

I get a letter or visit from somebody whom I had a marginal contact with at one point in my life, and they come to say thank you. Thank you because of this, and you know what? I don't remember. In some cases, sadly, I don't remember them. What's God doing? Look, if you have been, if I know, if I have been successful through you, in this passing little pastoral exchange, okay how much more do you think of accomplished, where you've really put in the hard yards, why does God occasionally lift the curtain? To encourage us when we're most discouraged. It's remarkable that how that can lift your spirits and just put your back and carry on for a remarkable period of time. Yes, thank you, brother. That's very perceptive and very useful generating administry.

Okay, yes. My mind is a book of job, and… Yes. My job is usually, like, if he doesn't know why, but then… Yes, but also, that's a book about intercession, by the way. John is the great intercessor. And his friends are models of bad pastoral care. Not because their theology is heretical or unorthodox. The theology is absolutely orthodox. But they speak the right, I mean, they speak the word of God in the wrong context. They misapply God's word to Job. What they say is true, but it's not true for Joe in his situation. So every time I read Joe, I cringe. Because of that, no, Now, what should his friends have done, they start off well? They do something that I do Vietnam. They sit with Job for seven days and seven nights.

Fantastic. Doing vigual with joke. Just be in there. But as soon as they open their mouths they would love it. They do the devil's work, then. As soon as they start speaking. What should they have done? Prayed for Johope. And the irony is, then, what does Job eventually do for them? He prays for them. So this is a wonderful textbook on pastoral care, and the danger of misapplying God's Word, impossible care and also the importance of intercessory care. And intercept repair is, by the way, is not just speaking, but just the ministry of being, being with the person who's suffering, suffering, apparently under the wrath of God, because that's the way it appears. It's not the underoff, because right at the beginning, why does God allow Joe Satan a free hand to attack Joe?

Joe, Joe, Joe is, Rachel. He's the model person. The attack shows, not Joe Sin, but God's approval of Joe. Now, how about that for a twisted way of looking at things? Yes. Coming back to this idea, you said before about the Bell cannot read our minds. But experientially, as he works on us, it sure seems like he's in our heads. Yes. Oh, yes, I'm gonna get, he misses without thinking. So, I guess maybe this, what I'm trying to keep my head around a little bit, maybe the separation of that, you know, so if he can't read my mind, there sure seems like he's working on my mind. Yes. And he will bluff it. So that he's pretty good at it. So it's uncanny. That he seems actually, to be reading what I'm thinking.

And that's all he needs. Once even if we think maybe he can, then what's the next step? He actually is doing it. And then, OK, he's got another card against us that he can play whenever he wants to. He's a liar. And he works with lies, deceptual, and very clever, they were doing it. Now, in terms of reading, I don't think you know, don't I use the term, you can't read our minds, I think I use the term, he doesn't know our hearts, and he's, God is the only one who knows our hearts and minds. I can have a pretty good situation, so particularly my grandchildren. I can read what's going on there without them saying things, because they give themselves away. My wife does that awfully well with me.

Yes, again. Well, in just kind of following up on that, what would, how would you describe them in means of communicating his all the stuff? I don't know. The scripture doesn't tell us. It's a very important rule that we need to observe. One is that to be a good pastor means to be a agnostic, in the right areas, where scripture speaks, I can speak, where scripture is silent. I don't know. And therefore aren't silent. Now, that's something that maybe you don't have the same temptation, that because I'm the kind of person that I am that's, for me, the hardest thing to come up to constantly, and you'll find occasionally, when I'm giving answers, in fact, I'm transgressing my own rule. And going beyond what is written.

Remember that whole season, Corinthians he writes so that the Corinthians will not go beyond what is written, not to go beyond what's written. It doesn't mean it's hidden from us, or it's bad for us, but it means that if we go beyond what's written, we speak without authority. And we are stepping on dangerous ground. So I don't know. And frankly, I don't care. Because ultimately, I'm a practical guy. Despite the fact that I've got a PhD or something. Yes. You are disgusting, addiction in terms of dramatic obsession, and,… So, I'm,… I'm wondering, and you mentioned that, you know, there's no addiction, which is probably kept coming out of the news. Yeah. And yet, psychological cures are generally not affected, and they have both both…

General civism. Yes. A spiritual,… Chipmacking, broadly spiritual programs… So, alcoholics, and all, which is very interesting, very fascinating way of dealing with that form of addiction. So what's your, what is your perspective on, the church's role in treating addiction and, and, you know, various recovery programs that are out there? Because addiction has like, like, say, I spoke about mental sickness. There's two faces to it. At least. Addiction, I think, has, I don't know if I'm writing about this, has at least three faces to it. Then it's physical. It's physical. And then it's psychological, mental, and then also I claim it's spiritual. And to deal with it, you need to deal with it at all those three levels.

Now, I'm only competent, and I barely feel competent. Let's just say, I've never had much to do with alcoholics in that, or drug addicts. I've had to deal with some people, not to get them off, but then they'll not pick up operations after coming from addiction. Hopefully hard business. But in some other cases, like gambling yes, and more recent times, stuff that's come on my plate is pornography. Now, what I've got to do is realize my own area of competence. What's that? Spiritual. I'm not competent to deal with the physical side of it, and the physical side, and I'm not competent to deal with the psychological side. And in most cases, that I'm aware, it comes out. So there's one guy, one pastor, who's had awful battles with pornography, a great pastor, but still, it's a great temptation.

And it goes back a long way to his 1st sort of sexual experiences of being exposed to early magazines, in itself quite innocent, that when he began, and then quite unwittingly, in terms of dealing with it spiritually, it came out that one of the sources of the addiction but sources here, cause, I don't know, but one of the problems is his anger against his mother. And against his mother, herself, had been sexually abused, and, sort of withheld affection, then, and she wasn't capable of showing affection, to her husband, and then to her son when he needed it most. Okay, now that kind of messes with you your sexual development. And he went right off the roads, then, 19s early 20s, coming after that.

Now, it wasn't for me to deal with that psychological part of it. You know, the family dynamics, although he raised it up, and we prayed about it and he, you know, a dramatic moment in the situation was, and all of a sudden, it dawned on him, what the, one of the problems was, which was the anger, which had never occurred to him. And he broke down, and he cried, and cried, and cried, when they came out. Harm, the anger, heart, begins his mother. Because on the face of it, he would say he loved his mother. Okay, now, yeah, so there's a whole number of dimensions, and when we work, we best work together with doctors and qualified psychologists, maybe even psychiatrists. Now, a bit of your, your, you're much more…

Aversed in this area than I am. Would you like to add anything there? I would simply like to underscore, then you've identified the need to work collaboratively, you know, professionals in an interdisciplinary community, and that's how we see the help most people recover and go without the lapse. And if it doesn't necessarily mean that the person has to be a doctor has to be Christian. Or even this, if it's, it's more important that they're a good, good doctor and a good psychologist or psychiatrist and that they are a Christian doctor, see Christian psychiatrist. Would you agree? I agree with you, Kyter. Yeah, we need sort of a multidiscipline, approach. And since this is a big problem, if I've been in my area, you know, wherever you happen to be, I would identify the resource people, in that area.

And look, I know, and I've come to discover the resources. There's lots of agencies that help you know, sort of, like, just, there's alcoholics anonymous. So there's all sorts of agencies that have been established to help people in these various areas, find out where they are and how reputable they are, find out which doctors you can trust, that are going to just stay within their area of competence, and not pooh pooh the spiritual side. And that you can refer to the confidence and also find out what the psychological help is available. And one of the problems that you might have for you guys who are living in the country is that there's no psychological help within a cui. Oh, that's a straight term, with a shelving distance.

Is that a problem here in the States for you? Some of you guys out in the country, the nearest qualified psychologist, led on psychiatrist, might be 100 miles away. Now, that's not terribly useful help. However, can I emphasize that, you do what you're called to do and stay within your station and vocation? Don't pretend to be a doctor, and don't imagine that you have any psychological competence. And even if you do, unless you are registered as one, stay out. Leave it to Bev to fix up. No, this is very important, and I'd just like to emphasize that very, very strongly, because you do great damage, if you, because God works, and this is, once again, we get this business reporter in chaos.

Satan works where you get chaos, where boundaries are crossed, and confusion results. It's important where people have been troubled to build up boundaries, and to reorder and help people to reorder their lives, and to allow God or the Holy Spirit to reorder their lives. And even if they can't have full care sometimes for a long time, all that you can do is a kind of holding operation. Most cases, look, all our life, in a sense, from a spiritual point of view, is the holding operation, because the real healing comes with the resurrection. And somebody mentioned earlier, in the whole business of spiritual administrative delivery, yeah, the patience. There's no immediate cure. You know, it's quite obvious for many people who are depressed.

They're always gonna, that's always gonna be a problem. Or a person who's got, there's an alcoholic, you know, even if they don't pick up the grog, they're always going to be alcoholics as long as they live. There's no healing this side of eternity for that.