CONSULTING THE RED TEAM
A Blunder
My last article was entitled “On Time On Target.” This week’s article is late; because I celebrated my son’s birthday with him.
One of the men at a church I attended was a gifted musician, struggling in his Christian walk. One Sunday, he performed some music with our worship team. He performed admirably and we were proud of him for his obedience to God in serving during worship. The following Monday he was smitten with health problems that lasted over a week. The analysis from many of the parishioners was that the enemy had attacked him for helping with our praise.
Imagine how much credit this way of thinking gives the enemy and consider what it inadvertently says about our God. Were the parishioners saying the enemy was able to smite a struggling believer with a physical illness because he took a step of faith and God stood aside and let it happen?
It seems in my life that when I am walking close with the Lord, things go wrong, but this is based on a heuristic experience. When I am carelessly playing the edges of my Christian walk, I discount adversity as just deserts. When I am walking in obedience, I feel cheated and angry when I am not rewarded. I cannot prove with any statistical accuracy that bad things happen more when I am doing the right thing. I assert that no one could. Theology is the art and science of thinking God’s thoughts after Him. Do not try to get in the enemy’s wheelhouse; simply follow God as He is revealed in His Word.
Learn about the enemy from the Bible. We learn from experience, not simply experience, but evaluated experience. We learn how we respond to temptation and the pressures of life through our experience. We evaluate our experience through Scripture.
God is always good, no matter what. Sin will always cost more than you want to pay and take you further than you wanted to go.
Combat units often have “red teams” in their higher echelon planning sections. Members of these teams study the enemy’s tactics and then play the enemy’s side during the Rehearsal of Concept (ROC) drill. In American military symbology, friendly icons are blue, and enemy icons are red, hence “red” team.
The Bible tells us everything we need to know about the enemy. We should know everything the Word has to say about Satan, sin, and temptation, because we should know everything the Word has to say about anything
The enemy also publishes his own misinformation, to which the biblically illiterate are susceptible. Christians sometimes have a separate canon of Satan-ology, using cliches that might not be provable, biblical, or even truthful. You have undoubtedly heard, “The Devil attacks you when you start living for God.” I suppose this is true, but the enemy attacks us no matter what. He loves to see us miserable. No one bound by sin considers his condition to be pleasant. The enemy will kick you, even when you are down.
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Do not give the devil credit.
Satan could not touch Job because God had shielded him with a “hedge” (Job 1:10). If God so pleases, He can surround us with a hedge. Job was no less holy when God lifted the hedge and allowed adversity into his life. The lesson from the book of Job is that God runs His universe, and He gets to run it (Job 38ff). Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people, but we ought never wonder what the Devil’s next move is going to be. God is in ultimate control of His universe.
“We learn from experience, not just experience, but evaluated experience.”
The devil will distract us with a canon of lore which is hogwash with a varnish of believability. Unbelievers and carnal Christians arrange doctrines around ridiculous sources such as the 2005 film “Constantine.” I have not seen, and would not watch, the movie. Speaking to those who have, I deduce the movie to be nothing but a compendium of embellishments and lies. I hear Constantine 2 is in the works. While the 1995 film Dogma was intended to be a comedy, it oversteps as well, (again my opinion is based on critical reviews and interviews with those who have wasted their time and ten dollars to see it).
This impulse creates unhealthy curiosity in the supernatural and even the occult. It is also in contradiction of Scripture. The Bible warns us not to “Speak evil of dignities” (2 Peter 2:10, Jude 8). Read the Word, but do not try to get into the devil’s ROC drill.
Furthermore, do not carry on conversations with the devil. Jude reminds us that even Michael the Archangel said, “the Lord rebuke you.” Regardless of what televangelists do, if Michael called upon a Higher Power, who are we to confront the devil directly?
Waging spiritual warfare, living a holy life is hard enough without trying to figure what the enemy is up to. The enemy will gladly claim credit, don’t give it to him.