CS Lewis

Screwtape’s Tactics Revealed

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This is a summary of various tactics used by Screwtape and his devil minions to bring ruin to the new Christian.  Chapters are noted in parentheses.  Scroll down through the list – it’s quite comprehensive!

Tactics of the enemy:

-Use of jargon in the church (1)

-Concerned not with true or false but trendy (1)

-Drawn constantly to immediate sensual experiences (1)

-Pressure of the ordinary without quiet time or peace (1)

-Pride, already knows everything, shallow, unteachable (1)

-Confused, no time for complex thinking (1)

-Old habits (2)

-Church is imperfect, full of hypocritical people (2)

-Disappointment with church and people (2)

-Boring, dryness of persevering (2)

-Keep dependent on emotional high (2)

-Mutual, daily annoyances of relationships (3)

-Keep blind to obvious faults of self (3)

-Distract from simple duties by thinking how hard bigger duties are (3)

-Make focus on irritations with spouse and family (3)

-Keep them from praying (4)

-Prayers lazy, unfocused, not concentrating (4)

-Make prayer a mood not effort of the will (4)

-Prayers focused on self and feelings (4)

-Praying to something/image not God (4)

-Ignoring reality of death, blind, refuse to consider (5)

-Contented worldliness *best weapon (5)

-Maximize uncertainty; focus on future (6)

-Fear, anxiety for future (6)

-Confusion about “cross to bear” (6)

-Direct malice toward neighbors, benevolence toward people he doesn’t know (6)

-Deny existence of spirit world (7)

-Lull into lukewarm complacency (7)

-Or fire up and divide into factions around irrelevant issue (7)

-Make saving the world the end goal (7)

-Mix politics and religion (7)

-Create partisan spirit in the community (7)

-Shock at period of difficulty, blind to cycle of life that is good and bad, feels unfair (8)

-In rough time tempt with sensual pleasure, esp. sexual (9)

-Addict to a declining pleasure (9)

-Isolate from experienced Christians (9)

-Despair (9)

-Effort to feel good by sheer will power (9)

-Circle of worldly and intellectual friends who lead astray (10)

-Create parallel lives Christian life vs. secular life, inconsistency (10)

-Debt, spending more than can afford (10)

-Neglect work or people (10)

-Domestic tension (10)

-Jokes as an excuse for behavior (11)

-Keep attending church but drift spiritually (12)

-Slow, gradual fade is more effective than a big sin (12)

-Social conformity, give up own interests (13)

-Always thinking, never acting (13)

-Proud of humility (14)

-Self focused (14)

-Too afraid (15)

-Too confident (15)

-Living in the past or the future (15)

-Fear, anxiety, greed, ambition, discontent (15)

-Church hopping, critical, uncommitted (16)

-Always comparing, critical not teachable (16)

-Sermon too easy, watered down (16)

-Sermon too hard, too strident (16)

-Focus on superficial church differences not doctrinal (16)

-Gluttony as excess, or as extreme pickiness, dominated by food (17)

-Deceive about love, sex, and marriage (18)

-Deceive about spiritual significance of sex (18)

-See everything as black and white (19)

-Marry one who makes life difficult (19)

-Make feel like temptation lasts forever, the only escape is to yield (20)

-Use media to create picture of perfect woman, impossible to find, create discontent, focus on sensuality (20)

-If cannot tempt to sex outside of marriage, then marry poorly (20)

– Darken intellect, no critical thinking allowed (20)

– Multipronged attack, several directions at once (20)

-Interruptions, lose free time, irritate with loss control of time (21)

-Focus on illusion of ownership of body, time, life, things – then frustrate (21)

-All that is good twist it for evil (22)

-Constant noise (22)

-Isolate him, dumb down spirituality (23)

– Remove spirituality, or corrupt it (23)

-Change picture of historical Jesus (23)

-Spiritual pride *strongest vice (24)

-Superiority of belonging to special group (24)

-Mocking those outside the group (24)

-Love for change and novelty, desire for constant change (25)

-Distract with trendy thinking, desire to be trendy (25)

-Disguise the real threat (25)

-Blinded by love, erotic enchantment (26)

-Chase earthly happiness (26)

-False spirituality (27)

-Confuse about prayer.  No means it doesn’t work.  Yes can be easily explained with secular. (27)

-Historical ignorance.  Non-intellectual. (27)

-Cut off every generation from others, intellectually, socially, etc. (27)

-Never ask if it’s true, evaluate author’s bias instead (27)

-Confuse about death.  Think death is the end.  Think survival is the greatest good. (28)

-Middle aged adversity, so long, so hard. War of attrition. (28)

-Adversity causes to lose hope, not persevere (28)

-Prosperity creates worldliness, attachment (28)

-Preoccupy with safety! (28)

-Noise, danger, & fatigue.  Wear them down.  Conscience muddled. (29)

-Create fear, hatred, shame, cowardice. (29)

-Keep peace!  War & calamity awaken them from spiritual stupor. (29)

-False hopes.  Disappointment. Tiredness. (30)

-Disappointment perceived as injury (30)

-Confuse/deceive with idea that death is the end (31)

Thinking About Hell

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DamnedIfYouDoI heard a great sermon on  hell last Sunday.

“Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?  I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?  I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” – Luke 13:2-5

I’ve been thinking about hell all week – and rereading C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce.  Here are a few quotes that have stuck with me,

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened. ”

“The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”

“I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road.  A sum can be put right: but only by going back til you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, ‘with backward mutters of dissevering power’ –or else not.”

Did you get that?  “All that are in Hell, choose it.”  The reoccurring theme here is choices… Little choices, big choices, choices every day and every hour.  Choices to love, to obey, to surrender, to seek truth, to reach out, to engage, to labor…. Or choices to disobey, to turn away, to be independent, to seek our own good, to hide behind falsehood, to ignore, to not love, to be lazy…

Over time our choices will define us and the path that we walk on.

One day we shall come to the end and discover that we have chosen our own destiny.  God, in His grace and mercy, desires that we choose to follow Him… to take the narrow path, the path of surrender and obedience… And if we do He will do everything in His power to help us along, making us stronger, sustaining and encouraging us, and using us to bring about His kingdom on earth.

If we chose not to follow Christ He does not give up on us but continually pursues us… Yet, like a warm coal that is separated from the fire, as it draws farther and farther away it becomes harder and harder to breathe life and flame into it… It cools and eventually there is no possibility of a fire left in it.

God is calling – You choose.  Hell is a reminder that the choices we make matter, right now.

Here’s the sermon: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/fusion-sermons/id554555824 under the title “Hell And Who Goes There”.  He covers what Jesus meant when He spoke of gehenna, God’s love and justice, universalism, exclusivism, and inclusivism, and more.  It’s well worth 30 minutes of your time.