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14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.
Samuel Bolton, a 17th Century Puritan minister and at one time Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, wrote:
"It is well known that, just as God has communicated many truths to man, so has Satan endeavored to bring in many errors, his hope being to prejudice and weaken the reception of the truth even though he failed to induce men to entertain his lies. Indeed he finds that his best time for selling his wares is when peddlers are most busy, and when, in the busy market, men are buying truth. It is then that he offers his merchandise.
"To make it more vendible he represents it as highly respectable and as spiritual in character as truth itself. For long he has walked as a prince of darkness, but because he has lost hope of deceiving men any longer as such, he now transforms himself as an angel of light. Successful in past ages as a bare-faced deceiver, he put on a mask when men discovered his real character, and thus disguised he carried on his designs for generations. But the mask is now taken off, and he operates as one wearing the very face of truth."†
Bolton saw the devil himself as the main instigator behind destructive doctrinal error. We tend not to think that way any more. Perhaps it's the lingering influence of the Enlightenment, but we tend to think that encounters with the supernatural will always involve very unusual, very sensational experiences. And it works both ways.
On the one hand, we expect that genuine fellowship with the living God must surely involve exciting, out-of-this-world experiences. Surely the regular use of God's Word proclaimed in sermon, pictured in the sacraments, and responded to by faith in prayer is much too ordinary, much too mundane, much too humdrum to actually engage us with the living God! And yet, these the very means that the living God himself promises especially to bless to that very end.
On the other hand, we imagine that encounters with demons will be very rare, and that—if they happen at all—they will be sensational and "supernatural"—as in horror movies. But God says that in fact encounters with demons are very common. If truth be told, "bitter jealousy" or "selfish ambition" or "boast"-ing or teaching that is "false to the truth" is "not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic." It is not only earthly and unspiritual, but it is also literally demonic! Satan is a liar from the beginning and deceit is his chief weapon. He works relentlessly to stir up counterfeit "wisdom"—even in the church!
Wake up! There's a war going on, and "we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Eph. 6:12).
†Samuel Bolton, The True Bounds of Christian Freedom, [1645; Banner of Truth, 1964], p. 13
Click here for background on the author of Are You For Real?: Meditations in the Epistle of James for Secret or Family Worship.
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