Spiritual Warfare – the enemy’s strategy and tactics part 7 – Anything else he can think of!

As we wrap up (for now!) this consideration of the strategies and tactics of our enemy, we consider some other aspects of the tactics he uses against us. He has had a very long time to perfect his operations and mankind has proved very fertile ground for his attacks against God via God’s people!

We will look at aspects like dissatisfaction, distractions, contented worldliness, uncertainty, disrupting relationships, resentment and self-pity. Fertile ground indeed! And how should we respond? The whole armour of God!

I’ve been reading through C. S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters to see how he described the enemy’s strategems, and what an enlightenment it has been! Unfortunately for our purposes, Lewis doesn’t go into what we need to do to counteract them, indeed he later confessed to not being able to! Writing about 20 years after the publication of the original “Screwtape Letters”, he writes, in the prologue to “Screwtape Proposes a Toast”, why he never wrote any more ‘Letters’:

“… though it was easy to twist one’s mind into the diabolical attitude, it was not fun, or not for long. The strain produced a sort of spiritual cramp. The world into which I had to project myself while I spoke through Screwtape was all dust, grit, thirst and itch. Every trace of beauty, freshness and geniality had to be excluded. It almost smothered me before I was done. It would have smothered my readers if I had prolonged it.

I had, moreover, a sort of grudge against my book for not being a different book which no one could write. Ideally, Screwtape’s advice to Wormwood should have been balanced by archangelical advice to the patient’s guardian angel. Without this, the picture of human life is lop-sided. But who could supply the deficiency? Even if a man — and be would have to be a far better man than I — could scale the spiritual heights required, what “answerable style” could he use? For the style would really be part of the content. Mere advice would be no good; every sentence would have to smell of Heaven.”

C.S. Lewis’ Prologue to “Screwtape Proposes a Toast” (Fontana Books 1965)

I certainly don’t claim to be a better man than Lewis(!), but we know One who is! And we have His Word and the full armour of God. The problem is, “How do we apply it?” Let’s take a look at some of the enemy’s strategems Lewis describes in The Screwtape Letters. (There are others, but if you want to know what they are, you’ll just have to read the book!)

Wrap truth up in jargon

For example, Screwtape’s first piece of advice was to get the ‘patient’, the human being assigned to the junior demon Wormwood, not to pursue ‘truth’ as such but to wrap it up in jargon thereby obscuring the plain truth. Don’t tempt him with reasoned arguments as that might awaken his reason and that would be fatal to their cause! (ch.1)

Distraction

So, rather than getting him to look into arguments for and against truth, distract him with lunch or the newspaper stall he passes on the way to get his bus home; just immerse him in the ordinariness of life. (ch.2)

Focus on Petty annoyances of those in his life

When the patient became a Christian (a marked failure of their scheming!), Wormwood was to suggest to him that this was just an internal experience, and to make sure that his relationships were spoilt by petty annoyances about which his new-found faith was supposed to give him no help. Wormwood’s task was to make him feel justified to hold these grudges, focussing on the other person’s annoying habits and misinterpreting straightforward things that were said by undue reflection on the tone of voice or body language of the other person. (ch.3)

Focus on feelings

One of the most successful lines of attack would be to get the patient to focus on his feelings, turning his gaze from God to himself; persuading him that he had to work up the right feelings in order to pray but keeping the Person to Whom he was praying a vague concept with no practical effect of his circumstances. (ch.4)

Focus on uncertainty

Wormwood was to ensure that the patient felt uncertainty about his circumstances and future, especially regarding something unpleasant that might or might not happen (in his case, call-up for military service as WW2 had just broken out when this was written, but we can see the application to the uncertainty all around us today!). This uncertainty should be seen by the patient as ‘his cross to bear’ and definitely not the process of discipleship! (ch.6)

Connect with socially desirable contacts

Wormwood was to ensure that the patient fell in with ‘good’ people, maybe well-off or intellectual, people he might admire and want to be like, but who were entirely in satan’s camp (even though they might not know it themselves!). Then get him to try and model himself on them, enjoy their conversation and humour and ‘fit in’ in order to be accepted into their circle. Go on to encourage a feeling of superiority as he has ‘spiritual enlightenment’ which they do not, and when he is with Christians, to feel superior as he is an enlightened man of the world and maintains a ‘balance’ in spiritual matters. (ch.10)

Turn faith into external rituals rather than internal transformation

Still further, encourage him to maintain the externals of faith without the internal reality, using ‘inconsequential sins’ and boredom. Then to look back on his early Christian fervour as just a ‘phase’, even a phase that he may grow out of, like all the other phases of his life and interests thus far. Should he realise what is happening and humble himself to repent, then help him to be proud of his humility, turning humility into some sort of self-deception, whereby he thinks that humility is having a low opinion of his talents and character, even though they are actually good things about him, and thereby confusing him by making him try to believe things which are actually untrue and constantly turning in on himself in an effort to achieve the impossible! (ch.12)

If you reveiw these points, I think you’ll be able to see a clear strategy emerging!

Lewis goes on to describe:

• how the enemy uses dissatisfaction with the church you are attending and turning us into critics rather than pupils (ch.16)
• gluttony disguised as delicacy (“Oh, all I wanted was just …” – note the “I wanted” though! and the false impression of humility and being undemanding. concealing a spirit of ingratitude) (ch.17)
• getting us to believe things not because they are true but because they seem to work (ch.23)
• the “Christianity and …” syndrome (good works, psychology, faith healing) as opposed to “mere Christianity” – simply Christ; the tendency to want more and new exciting things, diminishing pleasure and increasing desire (ch.25)
• confusing unselfishness as being something I give up, as opposed to something I do for someone else – the first being a cause for pride, the second being the root of true service. And then twisting it so that I push for what I think you want to do, while giving up what I want to do, and the other person does the same so you end up doing what neither of you actually wanted and both have a glow of self-righteousness while feeling peeved about it! (ch. 26 p. 133-5)
• attacks on our perseverance either through ‘settling down’ in prosperity and feeling ‘at home’ in this world, or through the challenges of adversity (ch. 28)
• encouraging us to think that we have something to fall back on in ourselves, other than God (ch.29)
• making us feel that our faith is just an illusion when faced with ‘real events in the real world’ (ch.30)

The great dragon, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world! (Rev. 12:9)

Strategy: Anything else he can think of! Our response: The whole armour of God – being ‘in Christ’ and enjoying the ‘fellowship of the Holy Spirit’

Dissatisfaction	Grumbling	1 Thess. 5:18; Eph. 5:20; Phil. 4:6
Dissatisfaction	Poverty/Riches	Phil 4:12-19; 1 Tim. 6:17; Matt. 6:25-34
Distraction	Fixing your thoughts on what’s going on around you and in the world	Heb. 12:1-2; Phil. 4:8
Disunity	Petty annoyances or grievances	Phil. 2:1-5
CRABS	Critical spirit/gossip	1 Pet. 3:8-9
CRABS	Resentment and Unforgiveness	Eph. 4:32; Matt. 6:14-15; 18:21-35
CRABS	Anger	2 Tim. 1:7; Prov. 14:29
CRABS	Bitterness towards others for any reason	Eph. 4:31
CRABS	Self-pity	Phil. 2:1-5 & 6-11
Disruption	Satan hindered Paul’s plans 1 Thess. 2:18 by opposition Acts 17:15	Acts 18:9-11

Strategy: Persecution and suffering. Our response: Breastplate of righteousness

Tactics	Our defence
Persecution/violence	Acts 5:41-42; 1 Pet. 4:12; James 1:2-4; 2 Thess. 1:5,6
Suffering	1 Pet. 2:18-25; 3:17-18
Physical & emotional sickness	Luke 13:16; James 5:14-16
Mental and physical oppression	Acts 10:38; 2 Cor. 12:7-9