There's been a lot of discussion in the newspapers and on television about evil over the past couple of months, hasn't there?
Here's an extract from a letter published in the Times a few weeks ago.
I have to concede that there's some truth in that, isn't there? The attack on the World Trade Center was indeed a human act, committed by real people, who have no excuse for their actions.
That attack was an extreme act of evil, but every day we come across a whole spectrum of evil acts committed by evil people who similarly have no excuse for their actions. But if we are committed to fighting against evil our starting point shouldn't be just to point our fingers at the evil "out there". We first need to deal with the evil closer to home; we need to look "in here", within our own hearts.
We read about this right at the beginning of the Bible in Genesis chapter 6. There we find this distressing verdict: The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. [Gen 6:5]
The truth is that every human being - and everyone of us - has an inbuilt moral compass that points invariably to bad rather than good. As the apostle Paul puts it I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. [Rom 7:21]
This is what theologians call original sin, the teaching that by nature our hearts turn away from God, away from good and towards what is bad. Why do we find it hard to forgive someone but easy to hold a grudge? Why do we find it hard to be faithful but easy to be unfaithful? Why do we find it hard to praise our colleagues but easy to slag them off? Why do we find it hard to give to the poor and so much easier to ignore them?
Perhaps you might be objecting that these things are not really evil - in particular, perhaps you're thinking, "but I know I'm not evil". But it's just a matter of degree isn't it? Jesus himself makes this point well; he says, you have heard that it was said, "Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment." But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. God does not distinguish between bad and evil, between anger and murder, and neither should we. Whenever we turn from God's ways we reveal our evil nature.
Many people find this truth unpalatable. Most humanists believe the opposite. They believe that people are actually fundamentally good, they just need the right environment to discover that goodness. But if that's the case, how can we ever explain the appalling mess that we find our world in?
For me - and this is a subject which will soon be of more than theoretical interest - the clinching proof of people's innate badness is in the development of children.
Does a toddler need to be taught to be selfish? No, it knows all about that already. Does a child need to be taught how to be naughty? Of course not. Sadly they already know all too well.
Who knows the toddler ten commandments? Here they are:
I can't resist another naughty child story, allegedly true.
From the cradle onwards our inner moral compasses point invariably to the bad rather than the good. If we want to learn to fight evil we need to start with what lies in our own hearts, but the evil is so deeply ingrained into us that what we really need to do is to throw away our old evil hearts and to start all over again.
And the amazing truth is that that is exactly what we are able to do when we become Christians! In the Old Testament God makes a promise to his people: I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. [Ezek 36:26]
In the New Testament we find this extraordinary statement If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! [2 Cor 5:17]
This is the first gift God gives us in the fight against evil: recreation; a new heart.
When I bought our home computer it came with the Microsoft operating system Windows 98 pre-installed. Well, for the first few months this thing had terrible problems: random errors kept popping up, sometimes we couldn't shut it down, and sometimes it would shut itself down most inconveniently.
In the end I got fed up with this: I wiped the old installation out completely and reinstalled Windows and all the software from scratch. Since then we've had no problems with it at all.
This is what God offers us: an operating system reinstall. When we make Jesus our Lord God is able to recreate us.
As we allow God to recreate us we will find our moral compasses pointing not to bad, but to good instead. This is a lifetime's work, and a constant struggle. But each time we come to him and say sorry God can do this work of recreating us: wiping out our old evil hearts, and reinstalling in each of us a new good heart.
So, that's the first front on which we must fight against evil: we must fight the evil within ourselves, and the resource that God gives us is new creation: he equips us with a new heart.
But is human wickedness a sufficient explanation for all the evil we see around us? Or do we need to go beyond mere human wickedness to explain the terrifying depth of evil in our world.
Unlike the letter writer I quoted from at the start, I think that we have to. Even leaving aside the evil of September the 11th: we see all over the world evil regimes, brutal dictators, oppression, torture, genocide, violence, murder, rape, terrorism, sexual and physical abuse of children, neglect, injustice. And that's just the big picture, the headlines as it were. Never mind the fraud, the deceit, the corruption, the hatred, the emotional and physical pain we inflict on one another in so many ways in day to day life.
Evil is happening all around us, all the time.
The Bible is emphatic in its answer to this question. There are real, powerful forces of evil, and there is a real and powerful person of evil: the devil. We find the devil at work in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, and the last book in the Bible, Revelation, and again and again in between.
When the devil appears, it is not as some vague, impersonal force of evil, but he is personal: speaking, tempting, destroying.
Of course, our benchmark in all Christian belief - Jesus himself - clearly believed in the devil and demonic powers. Jesus himself was tempted by the devil; he cast out demons from people; and he gave his disciples the authority to do the same.
What is the devil's aim? His aim is to destroy; to keep us from God. If you have become a follower of Christ you can now expect to experience the devil's attentions more than you have ever done before. Now you have become his sworn enemy.
What are the devil's tactics? Well, his most common and subtle methods are to deceive us, to cast doubt, and to tempt us. We see all of these at work in the account of Adam and Eve right at the start of the Bible, at the dawn of creation. It's instructive to look at it.
The setting for the story of Adam and Eve is the Garden of Eden. You probably know it. In Genesis chapter 2 God speaks to Adam and Eve and gives them three things: some permission, a prohibition and a penalty.
The Permission he gave them was this: You are free to eat from any tree in the garden. Notice that the permission is wide ranging and free, because that's what God is like; he doesn't seek to restrict our freedoms arbitrarily. You are free to eat from any tree in the garden
But there was one single Prohibition, You must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and God gave a Penalty to go with it, a clear statement of the consequences: for when you eat of it you will surely die. This is a warning to Adam and Eve, a clear statement of the consequences, just like you might say to a child: you can play anywhere in the garden, but don't go near the road or you might get hurt. So far so good.
So, in chapter 3 of Genesis along comes the devil, Satan, represented here as a serpent, the most cunning of creatures, as it says. What he says to Adam and Eve is this, Did God really say you must not eat of any tree in the garden?
Do you see his tactic? The devil has completely ignored the permission, the amazing gift of God, and he has fixed on the one single prohibition which he has exaggerated out of all proportion. In fact, He has totally mangled the truth: he has portrayed God not as a generous giver, but as grudging legalist. God did not say this!
The devil is the original spin doctor! What he is doing is seeking to cast doubt into Eve's mind: Did God really say..?, Is God really good..?
I assure you that the devil is doing exactly the same thing today. Our God has given us the most wonderful, incredible gifts and blessings, and amazing freedoms, but Satan comes to us and tries to keep us from God by convincing us that he is killjoy and a spoilsport. Being foolish people we sometimes find ourselves agreeing with him.
In addition to ignoring the permissions of God and exaggerating the prohibitions, the devil's trump card is to go on to deny the penalty.
We see that in Genesis a few sentences later. You will not surely die, he says to Eve, flatly contradicting what God has said to her. He is saying to her, it won't do you any harm; just give it a try. How familiar is that to you? But this is the biggest lie of all, for Adam and Eve's disobedience ruined the whole of creation from that day onwards.
Adam and Eve's disobedience destroyed their relationship with God, and their relationship with each other as well. Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the serpent, and the serpent doesn't have a leg to stand on. Our disobedience will destroy our relationship with God as well. So we see the devil's tactics in deceiving, in casting doubt, and tempting. And he's still doing just the same today.
So that's the second front we need to fight evil on. We need to resist the devils lies; we need to reject his influence over us. What has God done to help us?
Well, the Bible says that if we are Christians then God has "rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us in to the kingdom of the Son he loves".
If you have become a Christian then you have undergone an incredible transformation! Before, it says, you were in the dominion of darkness - ruled by Satan, subject to sin, slavery and destruction - but now, afterwards, you have been transferred to the kingdom of light. If we come to Christ, Jesus is our ruler and we have forgiveness, freedom, life and salvation. It's a complete transformation.
On the 16th of April 1986 a remarkable transfer took place. I became a Christian. I made that transfer from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of light.
On the 3rd of July this year another remarkable transfer took place. The England international centre-back Sol Campbell transferred from Tottenham Hotspurs football club to their North London arch-rivals Arsenal.
Now, it just so happens that Arsenal and Spurs are playing this Saturday, and Sol has been pronounced fit to play in the match.
Imagine if this week his former manager Glenn Hoddle rings him up and says, Hey Sol, how about putting a couple in Arsenal's net for me for old times sake?. He's going to say, Get lost Glenn, I'm under new management now and you've got no right to tell me what to do any more. Or words to that effect.
In the same way, a Christian is under new management. We're playing for a different team. Therefore, we have complete freedom to tell the devil to shove off. He has no more authority over us than Glenn Hoddle has over Sol Campbell. Jesus had no trouble dealing with the devil because Jesus knew exactly who his boss was. Likewise, as Christians we know who our boss is, and it isn't the devil. Once, we would have been quite happy to do what he suggested, but now we live to please God.
[Incidentally, let's hope Glenn is as successful at Tottenham as he was with England.]
So, that's the second front on which we must resist evil. We must resist the tactics of the devil who seeks to deceive us, to cast doubt and to tempt us. Again God provides the wherewithal: he has transferred us to the other side, out of the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of light. The devil no longer has any authority over us, and he no longer has anything to say that could possibly interest us.
The third front on which we must resist evil is by fighting against the devil's more direct attacks, which he implements through his vast forces of evil.
Sometimes he might put us under direct attack from evil. People in prominent ministries, who are really succeeding in pushing back the devil's frontiers will sometimes come under more direct attack. There's a whole book about this in the Bible: the book of Job. Satan took away Job's health, his possessions, his money, his house and even his family, but still Job kept his faith in God. Just as when we pray we find that "coincidences happen", as Archbishop Temple said, so as we try to do God's will we will find that evil happens to us more and more. Perhaps that's been your experience too as you try to follow God - now you're the devil's sworn enemy.
The New Testament also talks about another form of attack: direct demonic possession of people and places. Genuine demonic possession would appear to be very rare, but it is another frightening weapon the devil has in his arsenal.
So, how can we resist the devil on this third front? What has God equipped us with for the battle? Well, you'll be relieved to hear that he has not left us to fend for ourselves. He has given us spiritual armour to wear.
I'll read to you about it from the book of Ephesians. When I get to the bit about the armour then you can imagine putting it on, like the armour of a Roman soldier. [Eph 6:10-18]
God gives us a fantastic armoury to protect us in our fight against evil. For our defense we have the belt of truth to counter the devil's lies. We have the breastplate of righteousness to protect us from the devil's temptations: it protects our heart, our very relationship with God. We have the shield of faith as defense against the devil's worst attacks, and the helmet of salvation, the certain knowledge that we belong to God. This is the armour God gives us to protect us against the devil, we just need to put it on, as the writer urges us.
But it's not just about protection. It's clear that Christians are soldiers in a war, and soldiers need weaponry too. We can and must fight against the devil, with God's help. The two weapons that God gives us are the Bible and prayer.
We are told to take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. This is the scriptures, the Bible. As we understand and apply it in our lives with the spirit's help the devil's work is undone.
When Jesus was tempted by the devil, each time he replied from the Bible: "It is written...", and that was the end of the matter. The devil will flee from someone who knows and believes the Bible, because the Bible is Truth.
The other weapon in our fight against evil is prayer. The last section I read to you says, pray in the Spirit on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints [that is, Christians]".
Referring to prayer an old hymn puts it like this, "Satan trembles when he sees the weakest Christian on his knees."
God's word and prayer, when faithfully applied in our lives cannot fail to thwart the devil's work.
So, to conclude. I hope it's clear that the Christian finds him or herself in a spiritual war. There are three fronts on which we will find evil coming at us, and we need to resist on each one. But in each case God has given us whatever we need to win.
The final thing to know is that the devil is defeated enemy. This is the ultimate truth in our fight against evil: on the cross of Jesus evil was decisively defeated, once and for all. The Bible says that one day soon God will eradicate every evil from the earth: all pain and suffering will be gone; the destroyer will be destroyed. It's the last days for the devil.
He talks a good fight, but ultimately he is powerless against us if only we will resist him. The Bible says submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. [James 4:7]
So we must take care: Let's be aware of the devils tactics against us, but let's not live in fear, because God has given us everything we need to fight evil wherever we face it, and ultimately the victory.
As the great Christian writer C.S.Lewis famously said, there are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors, and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.
Let's not go to either extreme.