How tragic that we humans see each other as the enemy. Think how many wars have been fought between people who, in peace-time, could well have been the best of friends. And think how many people live and work happily together all their lives who then ferociously turn on each other in a time of war.

How do we get so twisted up that we view each other as enemies? How can millions of people through the centuries be hoodwinked over and over again into picking up arms and killing their fellow humans, when they have nothing personally against them? How can we fall so easily for charismatic leaders justifying the invasion of other countries and killing innocent children? And how come bullying is such a problem in schools and the workplace, as though we actually hate each other and love hurting people? Something is tragically wrong.

Yes there is, but Jesus came to change it. How? 1 John 3:8 – “the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work,” because our real enemy is the devil. It’s not each other. And that really struck me while following a slow driver. For mile after mile a whole trail of us were stuck behind him travelling well below the speed limit, and when, at last, the opportunity came to overtake him he immediately swerved out in front of me without signalling, forcing me to take evasive action. Whether he did it on purpose or not, I do not know, but I realized at that point he wasn’t my enemy. The fact that we’re all driving cars on packed roads with few opportunities to overtake isn’t his fault. The reason we’re all stuck in these ridiculous circumstances is because the devil got to us from the very start.

He’s the enemy, because he got us all thinking we could do without God, and look what we’ve got as a result. We’re into endless situations cropping up where we think of and treat each other as the enemy. I watch siblings, for instance, who stir and poke each other to get a reaction and make the other cry, but when faced by a common enemy they join hands in mutual support. It’s insane. They’d die for each other when others oppose them, but when there’s no opposition they fight each other.

But, as Peter writes in 1 Peter 5:8, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” It helps explain the utter insanity and cruelty we inflict on each other. Somehow the devil has made us into enemies, when, in fact, our only enemy is him.

Yes, some Christians say, it’s our civic duty and right to defend family and nation against evil, and what greater sacrifice can one make than giving one’s life for one’s friends? If someone broke into your home with murderous intent, would you not have the right and the responsibility to protect yourself and your family, using whatever means it took to subdue the villain, which might include killing him?

Other Christians, however, challenge that view, quoting several obvious scriptures in reply like, “Do not kill, love your enemies, don’t repay evil with evil, overcome evil with good, and ‘vengeance is mine’ says the Lord.’” And what about Jesus’ statement in John 14:27? “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.” It’s the world that uses war to create peace, not Jesus.

But doesn’t Jesus use war to create peace, too? In Revelation 19:11 he “makes war,” and “out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations,” verse 15. Ah but, other Christians reply, Jesus can kill because he’s God and God can resurrect people back to life again, whereas we can’t. And besides, haven’t these verses been used to justify the Crusades and other monstrous cruelties by Christians?

And on and on the debate goes, scripture versus scripture – but what an awful irony it creates, of Christians fighting each other over whether we should fight, or not. But what’s the answer, when scriptures can be found that support both views?

I don’t know because I have no idea what I might do if someone attacks my home or country. It depends very much on my understanding of Scripture and my relationship with God at the time, I imagine, so how I react now may be very different to how I react in five years time, when my understanding of God has grown. Peter, the disciple of Jesus, for instance, sliced off a man’s ear with his sword in John 18:10, but later in his life, in 1 Peter 1:5, he talks of being shielded by God’s power through faith. He was now totally trusting in God, not his sword anymore. As our understanding of God grows, so will our actions.

What’s helped me in this dilemma is Romans 14, because Christians can have different views, based on their beliefs at the time (verses 3-8), but still be at peace. And isn’t that what this world needs to see? It’s not Christians fighting over whether they should fight, or not, it’s Christians who are living the way of peace with each other (verse 19).

Christians on both sides of World War 2 did what their governments told them to do and they went to war – the result being that millions of Christians killed and maimed each other. But what were those Christians supposed to do instead when Romans 13:1 says, “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities (because) the authorities that exist have been established by God,” and in verse 2, that  rebelling against one’s government is “rebelling against God,” and in verse 8, that “it is necessary (therefore) to submit to the authorities”?

But what is the context of Romans 13? Is it about international warfare and giving a government leader the divine right to declare war against another nation, and his people must support him? Is it giving a national leader the authority to decide who is right and who is wrong on the world stage, and to use whatever means he deems necessary to stop what he believes to be evil? But doesn’t Romans 13 also give the leader of the other nation those rights as well, since he too has been “established by God”? So, which of the two leaders should people now obey?

If that is the context of Romans 13 it’s very confusing. But what if the context of Romans 13 is simply about Christians being responsible citizens in their own home countries? If so, then Romans 13 is very comforting, that so long as one’s government is not pushing anything against God, Christians have nothing to fear, “For rulers hold no terror for those who do right,” verse 3. And God has rulers in place who really do try to make their countries a good place to live in, and where that is the case a Christian can happily obey his or her government and live in peace.

“That’s also why you pay taxes,” as The Message continues in verses 6-7 – “so that an orderly way of life can be maintained. Fulfill your obligation as a citizen. Pay your taxes, pay your bills, respect your leaders.” The context of these first few verses in Romans 13 are clear, then, that God works through government to keep order in a country for the benefit of its citizens, and where such a country exists a Christian should definitely and absolutely do what his government tells him to do.

The only exception to that is when a government (or religious leader) is pushing something that God would clearly not approve of, in which case a Christian could not go along with it, because obedience to God has priority over obedience to man (Acts 4:19). Perhaps if more Christians had believed that, they would have resisted killing their fellow Christians in World War 2 as well.

Remembrance Day brings into sharp focus a conundrum, that humans are willing to sacrifice their lives. It doesn’t matter whether you’re Christian or non-Christian, or which side you’re on in a war; the instinct to give up our lives for a cause we believe to be right is shared by all.

We acknowledge that instinct on Remembrance Day as we remember the men and women who gave up their lives to free the world of a brutal evil. But where did such an instinct come from? It flies in the face of Evolution for a start, which talks of creatures and plants doing whatever they must to survive. But all through our history humans have put aside their instinct to survive, and in the prime of their lives they do what Evolution would never support a species doing. Where in Evolution, for instance, does a species give up its life when it’s at the top of its game?

So where did this conundrum of self-sacrifice come from? Well, from God, of course, because it helps us to understand him. We see God best “in the face of Christ,” 2 Corinthians 4:6, and what we see in Christ is God willing to give up his life in his prime too, and for the same reason we are willing to give up our lives – to rid the world of evil.

What Christ did rings a familiar and honourable bell in a human heart, because the most honourable thing a human being can do is give up his life for others, especially in his prime. But it’s in us to do that. It’s instinctive in us to give up our lives to crush evil. And we recognize that instinct every year on Remembrance Day.

Remembrance Day, therefore, shines a light on the amazing phenomenon of a species being willing to give up its life, and it also shines a bright light on God – because we’re not so different, we humans and God, are we? He was willing to rid the world of evil by self-sacrifice, and so are we. It makes it very easy for us to understand God, then, because tucked away inside us is the same heart he has.

No wonder the Christian message “commends” itself, or rings true, “to every man’s conscience,” verse 2, because the sacrificing of a life to rid the world of evil is what we already believe as good and true as well. Remembrance Day isn’t really such a conundrum, then, because self-sacrifice is a desire God has given us to help us understand him.

That’s a quote from 2 Peter 2:3, but no greedy people in our world, thank goodness, and certainly no one daring to exploit us with lies and made up stories to make money.

If only.

Unfortunately, as in Peter’s day, we have our “experts in greed” too, verse 14, who spin their cunning little webs to exploit our human fears and weaknesses (verse 18) with promises of freedom for us but they cannot free themselves (verse 19).  

That’s because greed is a terrible addiction. Enough is never enough, it must have more. It’s a monster that cannot be reined in. So its helpless offspring cannot stop lying and hiding facts when there’s money to be made.   

But Peter has a couple of words for us that hopefully act like a cooling flannel for our fevered brow, the two words being: Think Justice.   

Fortunately, God is a God of justice and he’s fully aware of what the greedy people who exploit us are up to, so through Peter he tells us that “Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping,” verse 3. And if that condemnation doesn’t happen in their lifetime now it is held in store “for the day of judgment,” verse 9. We can rest assured, then, that “They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done,” verse 13. Justice will be done.

In the meantime, however, Peter also tells us that “in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own evil desires,” chapter 3:3. They laugh among themselves at how easily they can play us, like making us cut back while they live in luxury, knowing there’s nothing we can do about it. And for what purpose, pray tell? So “they can follow their own evil desires.” Oh yes, God knows exactly what they’re up to.  

But God also judges with mercy, expressed through Jesus on the cross when he cried out, “Forgive them because they have no idea what they’re doing.” He took into account that even these greed-addicted swindlers have been played too, so any punishment God inflicts on them is in mercy too, to wake them up to the grim realization that they too have been puppets in the hands of an even craftier enemy, who played them just as callously as they played us.  

To some it’s an unbelievably daft idea indoctrinating children on dressing up in costumes to roam around on a cold evening getting junk food from mostly total strangers. I mean, who on earth came up with this nonsense? 

But that’s the eye-opener, because the ones who “came up with this nonsense” didn’t think it was nonsense at all. It was deadly serious. Two thousand years ago the Celts thought the evening of October 31 was the one time in the year when the divide between the physical and spiritual worlds, and between the living and the dead, could be crossed. And that was scary, because they really thought the dead could appear among them as ill-intentioned ghosts. So the Celts wore masks when leaving home after dark to avoid being recognized by the ghosts – and they put out food for the ghosts too, to appease them.     

Weird though that sounds, it took root in England and Ireland where putting out food to appease the spirits on October 31 continued. But then some bright sparks got the sneaky idea of dressing up in creepy costumes to get people to give the goodies to them instead. It was called “mumming” back then. “Trick or treating” today.

Enough history is known, then, that the customs of our modern Halloween mimic quite shamelessly the pagan oddities of the past. Criticism by Christians is hardly valid, though, since the Christian church also took pagan customs and made them into Christian traditions that still exist today as well. 

So a lot of people through the last 2,000 years have made Halloween, in all its evolving forms, names and traditions, into a special time – first as a pagan festival, then a Christian one, and now as a bit of “harmless fun.” 

But it wasn’t a bit of harmless fun to the Celts who started it, and maybe it isn’t now either, because I just finished reading an article about the need to ease young children into Halloween because it can be, quote, “scary,” so “be on the lookout for fears and anxieties.” Oh, brilliant, let’s scare the children. I sometimes wonder if we parents have vital bits missing in our brains. 

But that’s not to bash us parents too much, because those pesky Celts really caught people’s imagination about spirits with evil intent. And history, both secular and biblical, is on their side too – that evil and evil spirits are real. Could it mean, then, that those Celts got it right, that there really are evil spirits that can enter our world? 

In that case, Halloween isn’t so much nonsense after all – if it takes us back to what those Celts did, which was treat evil seriously and take determined steps to protect themselves from it. 

The quote above from Matthew 6:13 was stirred by things I’ve been excruciatingly tempted to write in furious and sarcastic reaction to some of the ruinous ideologies being spun and enforced by those in power and by those claiming to be in the know. 

But who am I to write about such things? I’m no expert. And how is getting myself all twisted up in a negative, emotional knot going to benefit anybody, including myself? It became obvious, then, to say to God, “Lead me not into that temptation,” or “Please don’t let me go that route, because I could make a horrible mess of things if I do.”  

I can see why Jesus coupled “lead us not” with “deliver us from the evil one,” because temptation is the devil’s weapon of choice in messing us up. He used it on Adam and Eve, and again on Jesus – tempting Jesus to feel the need to prove he was the Son of God by magically turning rocks into loaves of bread, by flinging himself off the highest point of the temple wall to be saved by angels, and by grabbing the chance to create a new world order, a great reset that would solve all the world’s problems right away. All excruciatingly tempting. 

I feel a pang of sympathy, therefore, for those in rulership and influential positions today, because they face enormous temptations too, having learned from the pandemic how much power they’ve got. They can shut down entire nations’ economies, and through fear and intimidation create compliance to their most draconian decrees. And the wealth they accumulated too, by forcing people to buy online rather than local businesses, and by claiming we’ll only be safe if everyone is injected, the profits from which have been (and still are) astounding.

Think of how tempting it must be, then, for those in government, media, and corporations to believe they have the power of gods. And to realize they can bully, lie, deceive and be hypocrites to their heart’s content, and amazingly get away with it. And if people resist, well that just plays into the hands of those seeking to set up a police state to control our every movement. 

Imagine what having that kind of power, therefore, might tempt people into doing, that’s not only dangerous for us but for them too, taking into account Jesus saying “it’s easier to gallop a camel through a needle’s eye than for the rich to enter God’s kingdom” (Matthew 19:24) – and especially when the rich justify their quest for power and money with moral sounding platitudes.

But in this world it looks like the rich and powerful have got it made. Allowing themselves to be led by temptation, however, is dancing to the devil’s tune. He has them by the nose. And what strength do they have to resist? Do they even want to resist? Which is troubling because King David wrote in Psalm 37:35-36, “I (too) have seen a wicked and ruthless man flourishing like a green tree in its native soil, but he soon passed away and was no more; though I looked for him, he could not be found.” One day no one will know these ruthless profiteers of today even existed.  

So I have to ask God to not let me fall for the temptation of hating them, because my hate won’t do them any good, or me. What they need, just as desperately as I need it, is the power to see temptation and resist it, because in “resisting the devil he will flee from you,” James 4:7.   

The title above is based on Jesus’ comment in Matthew 18:6 that “if anyone causes one of these little children who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” Mess with kids, Jesus said, and you’re better off dead. 

Strong words by Jesus to a group of adults who wanted to know “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He answered by calling “a little child” to stand before them, and in verse 4 he said, “whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

And there in Jesus’ words we have the best picture of the world he’s  creating, supplied for us in beautiful clarity in children. And it all boils down to humility, a quality Jesus himself had (Philippians 2:6-8), and a quality he also created in children. A child, for instance, isn’t the least bit interested in being important or great. But growing up in this world a child faces a gauntlet of stupid adults who think making a name for oneself, focusing attention on oneself, and inflicting one’s own image of self on others, are the ultimate goals of human existence. 

And unfortunately, that translates into these self-obsessed adults influencing children to become the same way. Which is very dangerous ground, because in Jesus’ own words, “if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,” he deserves a concrete noose round his neck so he sinks to the bottom of the sea and drowns. 

Two points for adults to take note of, then: the first being, that children naturally believe in Jesus. Jesus built that into them, as any parent soon discovers when teaching a child about Jesus. My one huge embarrassment as a Dad was holding our six year old son back from leaping over the pews in response to an altar call at a church. Running to Jesus was no problem for him, but for some weird reason it was for me (I hear echoes of Matthew 19:13-14).  

The second thing Jesus warned about was causing a child “to sin” – the sin in context being the adult obsession with being important and great. It was a sin so serious to Jesus that in verse 3 he said, “unless you (adults) change and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Note the word, “never.” In other words, you don’t have a future, chum, if you don’t get rid of your obsession with yourself, and especially when it’s causing children to pick up that obsession too. 

An example today would be the adult obsession with gender identity, and getting children, including toddlers, all wrapped in it as well. Kids couldn’t care less about their gender identity, but adults have made them think it’s hugely important. So now kids are being focused on themselves and what they identify as, and they’re being taught that everyone else should indulge them too. No wonder they get to thinking they’re the centre of the universe, the exact “sin” Jesus warned adults not to inflict on children in Matthew 18. 

In Matthew 19:14 Jesus said, “the kingdom of heaven belongs to children.” So, to paraphrase the seriousness of Jesus in both Matthew 18 and 19, it would be, “Don’t mess with children” – or better put, “Don’t you dare try to pervert the lovely, trusting, innocent, humble nature of children with your twisted, demonic adult nonsense.”

After much deliberation the dreaded moment comes when a jury is asked for its verdict: “Guilty, or not guilty?” – and then the highly charged pause awaiting the answer. 

And after much deliberation in John 3:1-18, the moment comes when Jesus also makes his verdict. His concluding remarks are made in verse 18, a simple statement that “whoever believes is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” A sentence will be pronounced, then, based on whether a person believes in Jesus being the Son of God, or not. 

With that understood, Jesus bangs his gavel in verse 19 and says, “This is the verdict.” And what follows is an explanation as to why people do, or do not, believe in him being the Son of God. Which is good to know, because it’s like a heads-up for all of us as to what this life of ours actually boils down to. It’s a simple point: do we believe Jesus is the Son of God? And is that important? Well, yes, when God sent his Son into our world to show us how we can live forever (verse 16). 

But he also sent his Son into our world to explain why living forever doesn’t mean much to people. Jesus tells us why in verse 19: “This is the verdict,” he says; it’s because “Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” So it’s in us to prefer doing evil things.

Which leaves us in a horrible predicament, because, verse 20, “Everyone who does evil hates the light.” It’s horrible because we can’t stop hating light, just like cockroaches cannot stop themselves scurrying into the darkness at any sign of light either. But why do people hate light so much? It’s “For fear their deeds will be exposed.” The pandemic, for instance, visibly exposed the money-grubbing greed of pharmaceutical companies, and the censoring of anyone who dared to expose them. And they couldn’t stop themselves doing it. Evil had become second nature to them. It had become who they were. Such is Jesus’ verdict. 

There’s more to Jesus’ verdict, though, because in verse 21 he says, “whoever lives by the truth comes into the light,” so living by truth also exposes motives and actions, but with a huge difference, because they’re “being done through God.” God can be seen in them. They are living proof God exists, because his motives and actions have become second nature to them.  

And what is their motive? Paul explains in Ephesians 5:8, that If we “live as children of light” what drives us, verse 10, is “figuring out what pleases Christ.” And why do we do that? Because we believe he’s the Son of God.  

One simple statement from Eve would have spared us thousands of years of misery and madness. If only she’d said, “Not my will, but God’s will be done.”

And think what would have happened if politicians and leaders all through the ages had said that. So when they were tempted into thinking “you can be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5), they said, “No, I don’t want to be a god like God. God is God and his will be done.” 

I could have spared myself a lot of misery and frustration too, if I’d thought, “Not my will, but God’s will be done,” when faced with the incompetence, hypocrisy, bullying and theatrical posturing of so many world leaders. Because Scripture tells me “the authorities that exist have been established by God,” Romans 13:1. So they’re God’s business, not mine, and he will sort them out. As Jesus told Pilate in John 19:11, “You’d have no power over me at all, if it wasn’t given to you from above.”    

But why, then, does God allow evil people to hold office? Genesis fills us in on that one. Offered the chance to know good and evil, we took it. We chose to know evil. And we soon got a taste of it too, as to what it does, how it operates, and the awful things it makes us do to each other. And here we are now, learning exactly the same things about evil. But that’s what we chose. No wonder, then, we end up with leaders who happily sacrifice their people for their own ego driven fantasies. That’s evil for you. That’s what it does.

And there’s nothing we can do about it either. Violent protests, wars, and assassinations may get rid of evil leaders, but there are plenty more to take their place. It never ends. The same old cycle over and over again. And how frustrating when a leader has already done untold damage to his people and his nation, and he still has several more years in office to go. But that’s evil for you; no matter how awful some leaders are they somehow remain in office, like Hitler who survived at least forty two plots to kill him.     

So what are we supposed to learn from all this? Well, God offered an answer to that in the book of Job. God made a deal with Job, that if Job could stop evil “then I God will admit to you that your own right hand can save you,” Job 40:14 (starting in verse 6).     

There’s the challenge, and what leader has succeeded in meeting it? None, because no human leader has a snowball’s chance in hell of stopping evil. That’s God’s point. It’s beyond our human capacity. But leaders keep on promising to “bring in change,” “build back better,” and make their nation great again, and sometimes there is a period of hope and change, but power so often corrupts.  

What hope have any of us got, therefore, especially as the lunacy gets worse, of a nice, normal life without the fear and frustration of another madman dragging us into war or bankruptcy? 

Well, when Jesus was nearing the end of his rope he left us with a way to cope and a way to hope. It was his simple statement to God, “Not my will, but your will be done.” He accepted that, for now, evil must have its way with us humans, because that was God’s will. God “subjected this creation to futility,” Romans 8:20, but “in the hope that” one day we’ll be free of evil forever (verse 21). 

And that’s what got Jesus through the most trying time of his life. And now it’s his will to see us through too. So rather than resort to what I’d like to do about these leaders – let his will be done, not mine.