Chapter 9 – Mind Control
Shortly after the standard greetings in his letter to the Romans, Paul proceeds to enlighten his readers as to what is the cause of the human condition. For the last half of the first chapter and the first half of the second chapter, Paul details the root cause to an obvious truth. Something has clearly gone wrong with humankind. This is not how it was supposed to be. The mere fact that all worldviews try to explain what has gone wrong with the world demonstrates that something has indeed gone wrong. All of mankind feels it and knows it. Paul also knows that something has separated man from God and caused all kinds of evil. In his opening words of discussing this topic, Paul says:
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Romans 1:18-32
What is perhaps surprising from this passage is that the diseased condition in which man finds himself was not caused by man’s evil behavior. The evil behavior will come later but it is not the cause of the condition according to Paul. The cause of the human condition was and continues to be the result of futile or distorted thinking. The fact that most psychologists and philosophers in our world have missed is that there are healthy and unhealthy ways of thinking. Wrong thinking will lead to wrong actions. There is an old saying that says, “Sow a thought; reap an action. Sow an action; reap a habit. Sow a habit; reap a character. Sow a character; reap a destiny. But it all begins with a thought.”
The next thing that comes after distorted thinking is a darkened heart. The word Paul uses here for heart is kardia, which is Paul’s normal word for heart. In the ancient world the heart was seen as the center of emotions and motivation. Once thinking is distorted, says Paul, the motivations are corrupted and the deal is already done. What should be the source of light, the human heart, has instead been twisted into darkness. It is not as though the real problem is the actions that are to follow. Actions are merely a symptom of the real disease of distorted thinking.
The next step, according to Paul is that humans fall into a state of self-deception. Once the thinking has become distorted and the heart darkened, humans don’t even realize it. What they believe to be wise thinking is actually foolish. Humans are completely unaware of this folly in their logic and worldview because their hearts have become darkened. What began as a choice, distorted thinking, has now snowballed into self-deception that is beyond the control or awareness of man. Paul demonstrates this same concept in his second letter to Timothy, “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4). Paul tells Timothy that men will first willingly turn their ears away from the truth which leads to distorted thinking and a darkened heart. They will then be deceived by myths because of the condition of their distorted thinking. Once we willingly turn to twisted thinking we will fall for anything. Or as G.K. Chesterton once said, “When men cease to believe in God, rather than believing in nothing, they believe in anything.”
The first action that results from the distortion and darkening of the mental realm is the failure to properly worship God. Paul says that men gave up worshipping the Creator and exchanged it for the lie of worshipping the created. Throughout the history recorded in the Bible, mankind has gotten itself into serious trouble by favoring the creation over the Creator. Eve believed the serpent. The children of Israel built a golden calf. Pagan cultures worshipped all forms of creation. Even in the final book of the Bible, the Revelation, the enemy of Christ is referred to as the beast. Humans were made to worship God and have dominion over His creation as His representatives. We were not made to worship the creation. Distorted thinking is undoubtedly dangerous. One of the great tragedies of the universe, perhaps the greatest, is that the only creature that God made in His image to represent and be like Him, has used his God-given intellectual powers to deny his very creator.
What follows the actions that result from distorted thinking is truly frightening. Paul says three times in the remaining word of this first chapter that God “gave man over.” First God gave man over to sinful desires, then to shameful lusts, and finally a depraved mind. Once we engage in improper thinking, our hearts are darkened and we turn to worshipping anything other than the true God. Next, comes the truly disturbing part when we think of the consequences for the human race. God will turn us over to the things towards which we have turned. He will remove his presence, protection, and grace from our lives. God has given man the responsibility to rule over His creation and to be a proper representative of God. When we blow that responsibility, God gives us over to what we have asked for with our decision to think improperly and act on those thoughts. Once God turns us over to our sinful and fleshly desires, those desires take root and turn into full blown lust. Once we have been turned over to our lusts and act out on them, the result is a confirmed case of a depraved mind.
Paul ends this section by showing the true depths to which mankind can sink. Not only will humans be turned over to a depraved mind to commit all types of evil, immoral, and unnatural acts. They will actually approve of others who commit those acts. This is the sure sign of the loss of conscience. What started as distorted thinking has progressed into a total loss of conscience. There is no longer remorse, repentance, or recognition of wrongdoing but it is actually celebrated. The prophet Isaiah proclaimed God’s anger at approving of sin: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isaiah 5:20). This is the lowest to which mankind can sink. Pure evil is the end result when the mind becomes twisted out of shape. The real battle is in the mind, the actions of the body merely go along for the ride.
James describes a similar but slightly less detailed process: “but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (James 1:14-16). James affirms that temptation is the starting point. It all begins in the mind with a mental temptation. James agrees with Paul that once we give Satan permission into our mind, we are “dragged away and enticed.” What starts as a choice quickly moves past our ability to control. James describes this out of control desire as sin, plain and simple. This is the point which Paul describes as God giving us over to our desire. Once that happens, we are sadly on our way to what James says is death. What began as a mere thought has ended in spiritual death.
This is a spiritual topic that is extremely important to helping teens develop a proper biblical worldview and have the tools to live it out. There is a very real spiritual battle going on in the world today and we do our young people a disservice if we don’t make them aware of the realities of the battle at hand.
As we saw above, the cause for the evil humanity can be traced to distorted thinking, but now is the time to ask, “What is the cause for that distorted thinking?” Is there some defect that God put into the human mind that causes us to think unreliably, or does the answer lie somewhere else?
In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul reminds his readers that they are in a spiritual battle. In chapter 6, verses 13-18, Paul implores them to take up the whole armor of God. In using military metaphors to describe the spiritual defenses and weapon, Paul informs the Ephesians, and us, that we are engaged in a serious spiritual battle. This is no day in the park; it is not a game. The lives of all of us and our children’s lives are at stake.
In this passage concerning the spiritual warfare of which we are all a part, Paul makes two things abundantly clear. One is that Satan will attack us with his “flaming arrows.” The other is that the only offensive weapon that Christians have is the Word of God (which was demonstrated by Jesus when He was attacked by Satan in the wilderness).
Satan will certainly attack us in this world, but the important question here is, “What are those flaming arrows?” How will Satan attack us? The truth is that Satan’s weapons against us are precisely at the point at which Paul describes in Romans 1 as the point where humankind has gone astray; it is in the mental realm. Satan attacks us in the mind. His flaming arrows are thoughts, ideas, concepts, and suggestions. We can sum this up with the acronym, T.I.C.S. Satan begins his assault on us with his T.I.C.S.
Young people must know that the terrain on which they are fighting the spiritual battle is in the battlefield of the mind. The battle is not in the physical world. Every action that you and I have ever taken is a result of a preceding mental action and decision. Far too many people, including young people, think that the real spiritual battle is at the point of action rather than in the mental realm. The fact is, that the battle has already been won or lost before it gets to the point of action.
If Satan is going to attack us through the mind then it makes sense that the weapon God has given us is a mental weapon. The sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. A lack of knowledge leads to destruction (Hosea 4:6). Knowledge wins battles. To be accurate, however, that last sentence is not entirely true. Knowledge by itself does not win battles. Knowledge used properly is what wins battles. There are many people that have knowledge of the Word of God but have never figured out how to use it. Only a proper understanding of the Bible’s teaching on how to be successful in the battle for the mind will allow us to overcome Satan’s T.I.C.S.
Anyone who has been a Christian for any length of time knows that Satan will attack us. Peter compares our adversary to a lion looking for someone whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). This seems silly though in light of Jesus’ words recorded by John: “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand (John 10:27-29).” Why would Satan bother prowling around if Jesus’ sheep cannot be snatched from His hand? Perhaps Satan only devours the unsaved. Yet, that would be curious, then, for Peter to write this serious warning to Christians if it did not apply to them. The fact is, these two passages do not contradict each other at all. Satan is prowling looking for victims, including Christian victims, to devour. He cannot snatch us, but we must give him permission to attack us. But, you may ask, who would ever give Satan permission to attack them. Paul already answered that in Romans 1. All people are attacked by Satan’s T.I.C.S. but those who let them burrow into their thought life actually give Satan permission to attack them. This is the beginning of the distorted thinking. It is, then, Satan who starts man down the road of distorted thinking which ends in certain destruction.
From where, however, did Satan get this idea of attacking man through our thought life? Does the Bible give us any clue as to how Satan would know that this avenue would be so effective? It, in fact, does. We find these words from the prophet Isaiah in the fourteenth chapter:
How you have fallen from heaven,
O morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!
You said in your heart,
"I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain.
I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High."
Isaiah 14:12-14
In this passage Isaiah, in speaking against the King of Babylon, compares the King to Satan. In so doing, we learn some valuable information about Satan’s motives. Satan once had an exalted position in heaven but he was cast down to the earth. Why? He did not control his thought life. While in heaven, Satan began to let his thoughts become distorted. He makes five “I will” statements that each display the distorted thinking that he was allowing to take control of his mind. He thinks that he will: ascend to heaven; raise his throne above God; rule as greater than God; be higher than the clouds (Scripture often depicts God ruling from the clouds); and in his own mind, he will be like God. Satan did not control his thought life. His thinking was distorted and he allowed himself to entertain those thoughts. His heart was darkened. The next step was the self-deception of thinking that he could be like God. As a result of the self-deception, Satan began to worship himself, a created being, rather than the living God. Finally, God gave him over to his self-deception which led to Satan thinking that he could somehow overthrow God. This attempted rebellion led to Satan being punished, cast out of heaven, and thrown to earth.
It does not take too much speculation to assume that it wasn’t too long after being cast down to earth that Satan began to ponder what had led to this result. It was those “I will” statements. Satan did not control his thought life. Now God had become his enemy, but he had already discovered that he could not really attack God. So, he went after the thing that was most like God and closest to His heart; mankind. In the Garden of Eden, Satan planted T.I.C.S. in the mind of Eve that led her to a distorted way of thinking. When David saw Bathsheba bathing, it was Satan’s T.I.C.S. that burrowed into his mind and led to the kind of wrong thinking that eventually resulted in the visible action of adultery and murder. Satan is a quick learner. It did not take him long to learn that T.I.C.S. would be his most valuable weapon against man. Once he distorts the thinking of our young people, the rest is relatively easy.
Just as Satan’s schemes led Eve’s thinking astray, so it will do to our children if we let it. Paul wrote, “But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” Satan’s T.I.C.S. will lead us astray from our proper devotion for and worship of Christ. The reality is that every foolish thing we have done in our life goes back to T.I.C.S. on which we have acted. Every sin that has ever been committed goes back to an individual that did not control their thoughts. The real battle is not in the physical realm at the point of action, it is in the mind. Martin Luther once wrote “It is impossible to sin without first thinking wrongly about God.” Luther’s point is that every sin begins with distorted thinking. It we don’t control our thought life, we will be devoured.
This is especially true for young people. It is so easy for young people to get themselves into situations they never thought they would be; situations of rebellion; crime; pregnancy; drugs, etc. All of these situations find their root in the uncontrolled thought life of the young person. As they are attacked and unprepared for the assault on their mind, their minds become blinded. Paul describes this process, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). Distorted thinking becomes a viscous circle because once people give themselves over to Satan’s T.I.C.S., their hearts become darkened or as Paul put it in this passage, their minds become blinded. The person in the condition of having a blinded mind doesn’t know they’re blind. They don’t realize that their thinking has become so convoluted that they can no longer think properly. Because their thinking has become distorted they are prey to further blinding of the mind.
If we are going to fight off Satan’s T.I.C.S., we have a responsibility to control our thought life. To be Christ-like involves the process of learning to control our thought life. The earlier we can teach our children to do this, the better off they will be.
“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22). The last thing we want to do is to neglect the mental activities of our children and allow them to become enemies of God in their mind. Paul that this is the very real condition of those who are not in Christ: “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds as shown by your evil behavior” (Colossians 1:21). We literally become the enemies of God when we don’t control our thought life. Because of the resulting danger that comes with distorted thinking, God is as concerned with our mental sin as our physical sin.
This was the point Jesus was making in His Sermon on the Mount recorded in the Gospel of Matthew. In verses 13-16 of chapter 5, Jesus reminds Israel that their God-given purpose was to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. He then assures them in vv. 17-20 that He has not come to abolish the Law rather He has come to fulfill and further explain it. If anything, Jesus takes the Law to a more difficult level as He explains that the real intent of the law is to apply to the mental level, not just the physical action level. No longer should they limit the meaning of “do not murder” to the physical. Jesus expands it and says that they should not even hate their brother, because murder and hate stem from the same attitude of the heart. In the same vein, “do not commit adultery” is expanded to include the mental activity of lust. The assumption of Jesus’ original hearers would have been that this new mental interpretation of the Commandments applied to the other eight as well.
The reality that most young people are confused about this truth is demonstrated clearly in the survey of local Christian youth to which we have referred throughout this book. An average score of 4.9 out of 5.0 agreed that “Satan is most likely to tempt me in my mind rather than through the physical world.” Kids understand that Satan will attack their mind but don’t see the real danger of that as evidenced by their 4.1 average score agreement that thinking about sin is better in God’s eyes than doing sin. What they fail to see is that thinking about sin is doing sin according to Jesus.
When helping young people to follow Christ we must make sure that at least as much time is spent converting the mind as converting the soul. This is difficult for many parents because it is easy to fall into the trap of pragmatic parenting. The temptation is to do what works for the moment, and that usually is limited to their actions. If we can get them to stop doing whatever we don’t want them to and “act right,” then we tend to be satisfied. Too often, the dark closet of their mind is left unexplored and unconquered. This can be extremely dangerous for their spiritual development because everyone, including perhaps themselves, will be convinced that they have been converted by the message of the Gospel. If the mind has not been truly transformed, though, the victory will be illusory and temporary. They will think that they have been converted and been swept clean but their minds have not been converted. A conversion that does not involve a transformation of the mind is a conversion that has not gone far enough. The danger is that the T.I.C.S. that had distorted their mind before their supposed conversion “will return to the house. . . [and find] the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first” (Matthew 12:43-45). The conversion of the mind is every bit as important as a converted soul, it only takes more time. As Augustine said, “It only takes a minute to convert the soul, but a lifetime to convert the mind.”
The fact is that anyone who would suppose to follow Christ and be His disciple must be prepared for spiritual battle; “Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled” (1 Peter 1:13). The battle must be fought in the right place; this is a huge aspect of proper preparation. The real spiritual battle is fought in the thought life not at the level of actions.
The average football team begins a drive for a touchdown on its own 20-yard line, a full 80-yards away from a score. Most defenses, even the bad ones, will keep a team out of the endzone from this distance. Imagine, though, how a team would do if they allowed the opposing offense to begin each drive on the 1-yard line, just one yard away from a score. Even the best of defenses fail more often than they succeed in these goal-line-stands. The defense may be able to make a valiant goal-line-stand occasionally and keep the team out of the endzone, but more often than not the offense will score a touchdown.
So it is with the mental spiritual battle. We must make sure that we are not passing the message on to our children that sin depends on whether we act out or not. To attempt to fight the spiritual battle at the level of action is to give Satan the ball on the 1-yard line and hope for a good goal-line-stand. The battle must be fought where it begins, in the thought life. Any physical sin signifies a spiritual battle that was already fought and lost in the mind. Satan loves us to physically act out on our sinful thoughts, but he still wins if we simply entertain and enjoy his T.I.C.S. and don’t control our thought life.
This is why Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 10:5 to “take every thought captive.” God doesn’t program our minds with instinct like He does animals. He gives us the free will to think and to choose. We can either control our thought life or leave it open to Satan’s T.I.C.S. To truly take every thought captive we have to carefully examine each thought and measure it according to the Word of God. The fact is that Satan’s T.I.C.S. will come. We can’t keep thoughts from coming; having an evil thought pass through the mind does not make us evil or mean we have sinned. As the old proverb says, though, “you can’t keep the birds from flying overhead but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.” We can’t control the attacks on the thought life but we do make the decision to examine and disregard those thoughts or let them stay around in our head and consider them valid.
We have to examine every thought as it measures up to the Word of God because Satan’s T.I.C.S. sound just like our own voice. It sounds rational and reasonable. If it didn’t sound rational, or didn’t sound like us we would know to disregard it right away. Satan’s T.I.C.S. are subtle. We don’t intend to think in an evil manner intentionally, but if we do not examine every thought against the propriety of God’s Word, we will quickly get into trouble. The fact is that right intentions will lead to wrong outcomes without proper instructions. The most well-intentioned line of thinking will go astray if not kept in line with God’s Word.
Satan’s T.I.C.S. come one small step at a time as well. Very few teens would be tempted with an idea to commit fornication or get high as a first thought. They come one small thought at a time. When each successive thought is not immediately examined and kept or discarded based on its agreement with scriptural principles, distorted thoughts are allowed to rattle around in our head. Soon they come to be viewed as valid thoughts and the mind is now ready for the next step. Suddenly a teen find themselves in a mess that they never thought they would be in. It happened one small thought at a time.
Most parents go to incredible lengths to protect their children from harm. We ensure that our houses are safe places for everyone. We really live in a society that has gone nuts with this. We protect ourselves from any conceivable type of toxin or virus. We have antibacterial wipes and soaps, and even anti-bacterial hand lotion in case we can’t get somewhere to wash our hands. We lock our doors at night to ensure that no one will break in and harm us or our children. Yet, we are not nearly as discerning when it comes to what goes into the minds of our children. I am constantly shocked by the things that Christian parents allow to influence the minds of their children. This includes TV, movies, books, peer influences, etc. It is as though some parents assume that it doesn’t matter what their kid’s minds are exposed to. They won’t let them eat without washing their hands but won’t think twice about allowing their child to watch Saw II or listen to the local pop-music radio station.
The standard of the early ante-Nicene church was quite different. They held, for instance, that is was unequivocally wrong for a Christian to attend or even approve of gladiator games because they involved murder. Their stance was that if a Christian went to an event like that, then they were condoning murder, and if they were condoning it, then they were participating in it. They felt that there was no difference in guilt between those that arranged and promoted the gladiator murders and the Christian who watched them. How much different would our thinking be if we held to that same standard when it comes to what we let into the minds of our children and, indeed, our own minds?
We must watch what is going into our minds and be careful to examine every thought, to take them captive. This may seem like a lot of work but let me ask you one question. What is more difficult and time-consuming, to take every thought captive and examine it for its worth, or to clean up the mess of an uncontrolled thought life? Put another way, is it easier to teach kids at a young age to examine their thought life or to attempt to help them clean up their lives after years of an uncontrolled mental realm?
In his letter to the Romans Paul writes, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2). In other words, the person who would be Christ-like must fight with different weapons than does those who follow the way of the world (2 Corinthians 10:4). The person who has learned to transform and control their mind will be able to test what God’s will is. The person whose thinking has been corrupted by Satan’s T.I.C.S. will not be capable of discerning or following God’s will. An uncontrolled thought life will lead to an uncontrolled eternity.
In all of his writing about the importance of the mental aspect of the spiritual battle, Paul does not leave us without guidelines to be successful in this battle. The most complete of these is found in Philippians 4:8. Paul says: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Right here Paul has given us the standard about which thoughts to reject and which to hold to. He lists eight separate criterion for examining thoughts. Is the thought, (1) true; (2); noble; (3) right; (4) pure; (5) lovely; (6) admirable; (7) excellent; (8) praiseworthy?
Every thought that goes through our minds should be examined according to the biblical definitions of these concepts. If a thought violates any of these eight standards then it must be rejected. That is an important detail to comprehend. It is not good enough if a thought meets only one or even two of the criterion that Paul gives us here. It is very easy for a thought to sink into our mind that is true. For instance, it may be true that someone in your teen’s youth group is annoying and not the coolest kid in the world. Even though this thought is true, it should be rejected because it does not meet the other eight criterions. This is a strict standard but one that will serve young people well if they live by it.
Conclusion
I am convinced that this concept of mind control is true through every aspect of our lives. This morning the television in my room was on and at the top of the hour a program came on about people dealing with anxiety and depression. One of the expert doctors on there said something that exhilarated me. He said that anxiety is caused by internal thoughts, not external events. It is our interpretation of events, he said, that cause anxiety. He went on to say that if people could learn to control their thoughts and re-train their thinking, they could eliminate most anxiety from their lives. Did you get that? My point is not specifically about anxiety or depression. The thing is that even in the secular realm, people recognize that the real battle is in the mind.
Keeping our own mind focused on Godly things is a full-time and difficult job. The thought of teaching someone else to do it can be nearly overwhelming. I believe that it can be done, though. God will give us the strength and will complete the work He has begun. As we saw above, Paul gave us eight standards by which we can judge our thoughts and stay focused. Much of the mental battle comes down to our knowledge of the Word of God. We have already spent considerable time talking about the importance of the knowledge of God, so it is not necessary to go into any great detail here. I will, however, suggest seven ways that we can keep our thoughts focused on the standard of God’s Word.
First, we have to read it and understand it. Our minds will never be more holy than our knowledge of the Scripture will allow. We cannot know and apply what we do not read. We have the perfect ruler with which to measure all of life. Why not use it?
Second, memorize it. This means different things for different people but the more we know the Word without having to open the book the better off we will be. Reading the Bible is invaluable, but it is not always available to us when Satan’s T.I.C.S. attack. When tempted by Satan in the desert, Jesus did not apparently have a scroll with Him that he needed to open. He knew the Word of God.
Third, we must use it. Jesus didn’t just know God’s Word and leave it at that. He used it. He used it to defend His own mind and protect Himself from Satan’s T.I.C.S. Often we know God’s Word but decide the world’s way seems more attractive at the time. The Bible does us no good if we do not utilize its life-giving words.
Fourth, we need to watch and pray. Prayer is an indispensable portion of protecting our mind. It helps to enlighten the Scripture and steel our mind against Satan’s schemes. Prayer is far more effective, though, when used to ask God to protect our thoughts before any attacks come rather than asking Him to clean them up after our minds have already been infiltrated. Prayer needs to be an inoculation more an antibiotic.
Fifth, substitute one thought for another. We don’t get rid of evil or inappropriate thoughts by focusing on getting rid of them. We must substitute evil with good (Romans 12:21). We simply cannot stop thinking about something if that is all we focus on. For example, don’t think about red fire trucks. Seriously, stop it. Don’t think about red fire trucks. So, how did you do? Have you stopped thinking about red fire trucks? Chances are, you did not. I have found that asking God to keep my thoughts pure and focusing on holy thinking has been vastly more effective than constantly praying to keep me from thinking about the very thing I don’t want to think about.
Sixth, be honest. We need to be honest with ourselves when it comes to what we’re thinking about and the reality of obtaining it. Often times, Satan’s T.I.C.S. are more rooted in our ridiculous desires or hang-ups than they are in the actual truth. An honest assessment of the facts and truth of the situation will quite regularly help clear things up.
Seventh, teach young people to confess their thoughts to one another rather than just actions. Many Christians know that they should confess their sins to one another, but limit it to their actions. This is not effective because, as we have already seen, the actions are just the symptoms. The thoughts are the cause. We need to make a practice of honestly examining and confessing our distorted thinking to one another. Remember, every sinful action signifies a spiritual battle in the mind that was fought and lost.
Chapter 10 – Coming With the Clouds
From the very beginning, the early church was dealing with false teachers, false teachings, inventive, and creative methods of interpreting the Scriptures. This could not have been much of a surprise to the members of the early church community, as the writers of the New Testament had repeatedly warned them about the very real danger of false teachers. Peter went so far as to say that false teachers would be among them that would teach destructive heresies (2 Peter 2:1).
By the mid-second century, a false teacher named Montanus began what he called the New Prophecy movement. Montanus, a native of Phrygia, declared that he was the sole spokesperson for the Holy Spirit. He convinced his followers that Christ had promised a spokesperson for the Holy Spirit and he was it. This was the beginning of a new era. Montanus claimed that he was the lyre (WHAT IS A LYRE) of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, said Montanus, would play his new tunes for humanity through his instrument in Montanus.
Montanus convinced his followers that the end of the world was at hand. He told them that a universal war that would destroy the earth was inevitable; Christ’s thousand year reign was near and would soon begin. To this point this was probably a rather novel interpretation of Scripture, particularly the book of the Revelation.
The charismatic leader told his followers to abstain from marriage and separate from their spouses if they were already married. The community instituted strange practices of certain fasts, feasts and consuming unique combinations of food. Many other strict rules were undertaken as a way of preparing for the Millennium. Convinced they were living in the so-called last days, Montanus’ followers often left their jobs, some sold their homes, and they prepared for Christ’s final return. As time passed, the group readjusted the signs and kept pushing off the return of Christ by a few years. Following his death, two women, Maxmilla and Prisca took over the movement. The movement sputtered on in Phrygia for another century or so before finally fading away. The original group had been so focused on their false teaching of the imminent and dateable return of Christ that they never really planned for the future for themselves or for the world. In the end, they died out and had little to no impact on the world around them.
Since that time, various groups have popped up claiming that the signs of Christ’s return were immanent. At nearly every turn of the century since the Montanist movement, religious groups have whipped up hysteria about the coming of Christ. In 1941, the Watchtower, the official magazine of the Jehovah’s Witnesses began predicting that Armageddon would take place within a matter of months. By 1944, the Armageddon hysteria had reached a fever pitch for the Witnesses. According to Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, former member, “So firmly did Jehovah's Witnesses believe this to be true that there were those who, in 1944, refused to get their teeth filled, postponing all care of their bodies until God saw to their regeneration in His New World. (One zealous Witness I knew carried a supply of cloves to alleviate the pain of an aching molar which she did not wish to have treated by her dentist, since the time was so short till Jehovah would provide a new and perfect one. To this day, I associate the fragrance of cloves with the imminence of disaster.)”
A similar but even more pronounced situation occurred in the 1960’s and 1970’s when the Watchtower began to again predict the end of the world. This time, they said, the end would come in 1975. Witnesses began to sell their homes and give away their possessions en masse. They gave away canned goods to neighbors because they wouldn’t need them anymore. Many witnesses quit their jobs so that in the closing months they could spend all of their time witnessing and preaching about the coming of Christ. No thought or attention was given to the future because there was no earthly future according to their interpretation of the Scriptures. Some witnesses were so devastated by the failed prophecy that many left the movement and still others turned to suicide.
There is a reason why a majority of people in the United States identify themselves as Christian and yet, have little cultural influence. A large part of this is, believe it or not, related to the way that Christians interpret the book of Revelation. Let me preface this by stating that I am not implying that a differing interpretation of the Revelation or the end-times constitutes a heresy or a cult. There are, however, certain similarities between the heretical beliefs of the Montanists and Jehovah’s Witnesses concerning their interpretation of the end times and the end times expectations of large portions of Christendom today.
There have been many different ways of interpreting Revelation throughout the ages and there continue to be many today. We will not take the time here to consider all of the different interpretive camps of the end times and Revelation. For the purposes of this chapter we will look at two primary groups. The first interpretive group is the futurists. Futurists are the most popular and influential group in American evangelicalism today. This view has been championed of late by the Left Behind series that is heavy on excitement but light on good biblical exegesis. The futurists teach that the book of Revelation describes a time yet to come and predicts the end of the world. They believe that the Revelation and other passages in the Bible predict a coming tribulation for mankind and a rapture of the church. After that time, Christ will rule in His Kingdom on earth for a literal period of one thousand years. The futurists break down into those that teach pre-tribulation rapture of the church; mid-tribulation of the church; and post-tribulation of the church.
The second interpretation that we will consider is the partial-preterist view. Preterism teaches that the book of Revelation was a prophecy of the first century destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the Old Covenant times when it was written. Partial-preterism is similar to classic preterism except that it interprets the final portions of the book of Revelation yet to be fulfilled while claiming that most of the book has to do with the first century. This view proclaims that the Kingdom of God was fully instituted at the day of Pentecost and that the thousand years is a symbolic number, indicating that God’s Kingdom rule would be complete.
So what does all of this have to do with the worldview of Christian young people? Believe it or not, it has a lot to do with it. As stated before in this work, what we believe effects how we act. Because our culture has been so dominated by futurist thinking in the last one hundred years, the futurist worldview has seeped into many parts of the modern Christian mindset. How one views the end times has a major impact as to how they behave and plan now.
The prevailing belief that biblical signs are unmistakably pointing towards an at-any-moment-now return have had huge negative effects on the biblical worldview of much of Christendom and our young people. Because this is such a prevalent view in America, those who have not given the subjects of the end times and Revelation much thought probably tend to fall into the futurist worldview of the end times
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