The Screwtape Letters, CS LewisRivermont Presbyterian Church – Sunday School Class
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. I Peter 5:8-9
Letter # _XV – Summary Title: Time and Eternity
Give us this day our daily bread …Lu 11:3
He has also set eternity in the heart of man ..Ecc 3:11
Who loved us and by His grace give us eternal encouragement and good hope…ll Th 2:16
Take hold of the eternal life.1 Ti. 6:12
Whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. Jn.3:16
Eternity for God is the endless present, not simply an older time. CSL
Where except on the present can the eternal be met?CSL
All times are eternally present to God. CSL
Eternal life is no more mere bribe, but the consummation of our earthly discipleship.CSL
All that is not eternal is eternal is eternal is eternally out of date. CSL
The Dialectic Nature of our lives:
“Therefore let us not loose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away,yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”IICor. 4:16
Strategy Matrix
Area of Life
/ Devil’s Advice / God’s Way / Questions, Observations and StrategiesTime and eternity / Tortured fear and stupid confidence are both desirable states of mind. / Cast all your anxieties on Him
Every day has its own worries
We live in time, but God has destined us for eternity / Matt 6:25
Get them away from the eternal and the present (concentrate on the past and future) but it is far better to have them live in the future, the past is dangerous / Attend to eternity or present
Meditating or bearing his cross / For God all days II Pe 3:8
Give thanks in all circumstances Php 4:11
Think of unrealities / Future: now planing for tomorrow’s duty / Prov 19:2 (many are the plans )
Future: least like eternity
(vision of imminent hell or heaven which he will not live to see. Bring him to perpetual pursuit of rainbows end offering up the present, piling up disappointment and impatience
Past: frozen ( no longer flows) can lead to gratitude.
Present :lit up with eternal rays / Be honest kind and happy NOW / Future: Commit to the Lord
Past Psalm 40:5
Anxiety: cast on Him I, Pe 5:7
Hope: In Him Ti 4:10; Rom12:12
Complacency, no happiness / When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad consider:
God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore a man cannot discover anything about the future. / Ecc 7:14
“Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” James 4:7 Paulo&Adriana ©
“For the present is the point in which time touches eternity.”
What do we see if we look rightly at our world?
We see, CS Lewis says, an “astonishing cataract of bears, babies and bananas: this immoderate deluge of atoms, orchids, oranges, cancers, canaries, fleas, gases tornadoes and toads.”
What sort of attitude is appropriate for a human being confronting this situation?
We are, Lewis writes to in the same context, to offer nature “neither worship nor contempt.”
The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure and merriment He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathor a soccer match have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.
Aim at Heaven and you will get earth “thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.
The Screwdisk E-Mail - Subject: These so-called "Last Days"
Dear Scumbucket, my beloved little jellybean,
My, you are working hard these days, aren't you? My pride at your accomplishments is only equalled by my delight in nibbling on your still-increasing bewilderment as our demands on you grow. You have learned much, my little subordinate, but ah -- you have so very much yet to learn.
Let us consider the subject of your latest communique, for example. You express a great deal of alarm at the fact that one of your subjects, not particularly religious before, has suddenly become quite taken with the notion of the Apocalypse -- specifically, the Christian version as taken from the writings of John of Patmos. He has, I understand, begun reading the Book of Revelation assiduously, and is not only reading everything he can get his hands on that is available from the popular or "inspirational" press on the subject, but is also listening to various preachers and ministers in the media who focus on this subject almost exclusively.
My opinion of the situation? Wonderful. Delightful. Couldn't be better. Are you shocked by such a statement? Good. It's about time that I shake up some of the silly assumptions that clutter your pointed head.
First off -- rather than concentrating so much on the dangers (which I will admit are genuine), let's examine the opportunities provided by the situation.
(Even before that -- If your subject is reading Revelation to the point of distraction, are you at least making sure that he doesn't *read anything else* in the Scriptures? I mean, going back into Isaiah or Daniel or some of the more obscure prophetic writings would be acceptable, I suppose, since such reading will either feed into his bafflement about Revelation or, contrariwise and more usefully, into his belief that he actually *understands* Revelation -- but keep him *out of the Gospels* at all costs. I would even rather have him read Paul's epistles -- we've had considerable success in warping men's thinking by using some of Paul's stronger pronouncements. If your subject lacks a real grounding in Scripture, specifically the Gospels, and is kept from gaining even a toehold therein, the subsequent steps will become easier.)
The overall point is to give the subject fear *about* God without instilling what is called (ah, how easy it is to corrupt language!)
the "Fear *of* God." The latter is a formidable spiritual trait, the former is a lever that makes it child's play to dislodge the most
well-entrenched boulder from the mountainside of the Church and send it crashing to the abyss below.
How is this done? Look again. We have arranged things in such a way that there are any number of ways to interpret the writings found in the Book of Revelation. Every age has found some way to map its own situation onto it, but none has been a true fit. The myriad possible interpretations which your subject is now trying to digest can result in a number of desirable outcomes. He may throw up his hands in despair and decide that the whole subject is malarkey, with clear benefit to us. He may, from the experience of one or two true minor insights, be led to believe that he knows *exactly* what the entire scenario is, and expend all his energy trying to convince everyone in sight of the validity of his findings. How comically delightful it is to see the simple message of the Gospel obscured beyond recognition by complex timelines, calculations, and fervent appeals for *action* -- as if human action had anything to do with it, as if our inevitable resurgence could be quelled by some sort of human mobilization, as if something *other* than simple surrender of the self to the will of God were required...
We have some of these so-called Christians running around in such a state that you might think they wanted to *postpone* the Second Coming. The irony of it all is just too, too delicious to miss, and I certainly wouldn't want you to be deprived of its savor.
You see the strategy here, don't you? Keep his attention glued to the external signs, not the internal reality. The internal reality, of
course, is that each and every one of these beings is only one heartbeat away from their own personal Apocalypse at each and every moment, and it is *this* reality that your subject must never ever ever be given even a moment to contemplate. Let him worry about world governments, shady conspiracies, and implantable microchips, as previous generations worried about Nero or Justinian. Let him spend hours in libraries poring over obscure texts (we've led quite a few souls into the waiting clutches of Mr. Crowley himself in this way). Let him worry about the imposition of the Antichrist's government in Jerusalem, and meanwhile completely overlook the extent of His power over his own soul.
Now then -- let me also address the unspoken questions in your post. Let me assure you, the ultimate outcome is far from decided. You are a spirit, and have a spirit's view of Time -- look from one expanse to the other, what do you see? You see the struggle, of course, between our minions and those of the Enemy, stretching out across the ages and continents. Do you see any end to it? Of course not, only the eternal turmoil along the fractal battle line, the battle line that courses, infinitely divisible, through the soul of each sentient being. For there to be an Apocalypse, there would have to be some dimension of Existence beyond what we spirits see and experience, something known to the Enemy alone--
And of course, we know that is impossible, right? Right?
More on this later. There is business to attend to here.
Steadfastly, your doting uncle, Screwdisk
he Screwdisk E-Mail (cl) c: 1996 by WS Mendler. Unlimited permission to replicate this material is granted, provided this paragraph is included and the text unedited.
BreakPoint Commentary - August 18, 1998
"How Much is One Man's Life Worth?"
Saving Private Ryan
By Charles W. Colson
The Boston Globe calls it "the war movie to end all war movies." Others are saying it's Steven Spielberg's masterwork. One critic says it "leaves no doubt that [Spielberg] is film's premier image-maker of the last quarter-century."
The film is "Saving Private Ryan", and what makes it so good is its brutally honest treatment of profound moral questions--questions that lead us to consider the infinite debt of gratitude each of us owes for his very life, a concept that is stunningly consistent with a Christian worldview.
The film opens with a harrowingly realistic reenactment of the D-Day invasion of Normandy. We see the action through the eyes of Capt. John Miller, played by Tom Hanks. Following D-Day, Hanks learns that he is to lead a search party to find a certain Private Ryan, whose three brothers have just been killed in action. The last living son is to be sent home to his grieving mother.
But no sooner do Miller and his party begin their search for Ryan behind German lines than a startling Pandora's box of moral questions is opened: Why are all these men risking their lives to save one man? Don't they have mothers, too? Are they just pawns in some cynical PR maneuver by the Pentagon?
As first one, and then another of the soldiers in the rescue party is killed, the questioning intensifies. After all, just how much is one man's life worth?
The answer comes in a stunning scene at the end of the film. It's now 50 years later and Private Ryan is visiting the graves of the men who saved him, who literally gave their lives for his. "I lived my life the best I could," he says to their gravestones. "I hope in your eyes I've earned what you've done for me."
But we can see that he has gnawing doubts. Obviously distraught, Ryan turns to his wife: "Tell me I've led a good life," he implores. "Tell me I'm a good man." "You are," she answers him.
But the answers are not convincing. And how could they be? Behind Ryan's question is the inescapable reality that however good you are and however much you've accomplished in your life, you can never, ever repay such a debt. It's a stunning moment, because we, too, think of our debt to the 18-year-old kids who jumped off those landing boats into a hail of bullets.
How do we repay a debt like that? We have to admit with humility that we cannot: We can only express our gratitude. In fact, columnist George Will has called the film "a summons to gratitude" for the generation that died so we might live.
The parallel to the Gospel here is powerful. GodHimself gave His Son's life, that we might live. How does one repay Him for such a gift? Spielberg may not have intended to raise the parallel, but when you portray reality as effectively as he has,
the Gospel isn't hard to find.
So, when your friends start talking about "Saving Private Ryan", bring that final scene to their attention. And ask them that question: "Just how much is one man's life worth?" Tell them an answer: "It's worth the Son of God sacrificed on
the cross for us."
(c) 1998 Prison Fellowship Ministries