The brilliant political strategist Karl Rove once said that the best way to destroy a candidate was not by attacking their weakness, but their strength.
In other words, if an adulterer who claims he’s a straight shooter is running for president, don’t attack his adultery. Convince people he’s not a straight shooter.
People vote for a candidate because of their core strength. Undermine that and they have no reason to vote for you.
So let’s take that thought and apply it to Satan, Christianity, and you (almost sounds like a children’s book, doesn’t it?).
Satan attacks our Christianity – not at its weakest point, but at its strongest. He doesn’t waste his time trying to turn you off Christianity by one of those poppy little one-sentencers (“Where did Cain get his wife?”).
He knows the greatness of Christianity as well as anyone, because it’s got the one thing the other religions don’t.
What is that?
I’m going to use this parade of buzzwords deliberately, and you’ll see why in a second.
Satan reserves his most violent attacks for one thing — God’s one-sentence, faith-alone, eternal, instantaneous and complete forgiveness.
Let’s take those, one by one, and see if you haven’t heard Satan’s answer to all of them.
God’s one sentence forgiveness:
GOD: If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9.
SATAN: That’s it? You honestly believe that’s all it takes to save you? Does simply believing actually get you anything in real life? Do you think that believing you’ll win the lottery will make it happen? What a fool. Life doesn’t work that way, and God created life. You’re smarter than this.
Faith-Alone Forgiveness:
GOD: By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Satan: You have to work to get everything else good in life. You honestly believe that the very best possible thing (eternal life) is any different? You’re smarter than this.
Eternal Forgiveness:
GOD: I will never again remember their sins. Hebrews 10:17
SATAN: God doesn’t forget your lie on Tuesday, much less that terrible one last year. Remember, he’s got a perfect memory, he’s God! And he’s perfectly holy and righteous, don’t you believe that? If you believe that, how could his holiness just forget your sin? It wouldn’t be consistent with his holy character. You’re smarter than this.
Instantaneous Forgiveness:
GOD, to the thief on the cross: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43)
SATAN: Is today actually enough after all of your horrible yesterdays? You really think God will give you everything for eternity when you’ve given him nothing over your 70 years? Maybe if you’d started earlier, but salvation is a process, and you’re trying to take a shortcut. Billy Graham, yes, he’s in heaven. But look at what he’s done for God. You’ve only done everything for yourself, and now that you’re on your deathbed, you suddenly have a change of heart. Ha. God sees through your selfish heart. You’re smarter than this.
Complete Forgiveness:
GOD: You will cast all our sins into the depth of the sea. – Micah 7:19.
SATAN: The Holy God is too repulsed to forget everything. Humans can’t even tolerate your sin, and they’re sinners! Don’t you think God has a little higher standard? You’re smarter than this.
There you have it.
Every single Satanic counterattack is fueled by “really?”, which is a form of the “has God indeed said?” that got the original sin thing going in the garden.
And every single one has “you’re smarter than this” attached, because the wisdom of the world that the Bible attacks isn’t about science or any of those things the fundamentalists talk about — it’s the “wisdom” that says Christ isn’t God, and thus, forgiveness doesn’t belong to him alone and in his way, alone.
This is how Satan attacks us – by turning the best of Christianity – the literal Good News — into the newspaper from hell.
Martin Luther famously said of his dark years, “When I looked for Christ, it seemed to me I saw the devil.”
So the devil hasn’t just gotten us thinking wrong about Christ, he’s actually gotten us unwittingly worshipping a god that looks like Satan.
So you’re, um, kind of worshipping Satan. It’s a two-fer for him.
Here’s the tie-in with depression.
Christians often feel caught between the sense of guilt that comes with believing the first part of Christianity (that we’re a sinner in need of a savior) while doubting the second part (that our savior has completely forgiven us).
It’s cognitive dissonance over, of all things, our salvation. I have cognitive dissonance when I have to choose between an Oreo or the brief spike in inflammation. And that sucks. But what about cognitive dissonance over my salvation?
Cognitive dissonance is a famous risk factor for depression, and this state – caught between believing one part of Christianity but doubting the other – is the most extreme dissonance a Christian can ever experience.
Satan won’t try to convince Christians that God isn’t real. He knows the Spirit is in you, and that Jesus promised he’d never lose one of his sheep.
But he can make you question whether you’re one of his sheep, and he does this by referring to the parts of Scripture which lays out the bad news about you before delivering the good news about what Christ has done for you.
Satan can’t take away your salvation, but he can take the joy from that salvation, and he’s happy to do that because without a deep sense of feeling loved by God, it is difficult to truly love others.
We can love them in our actions, yes, but without feelings behind them, others will see a cold religion that’s motivated by religious obligation and not the heart of Christ. And if they can’t see the heart of Christ, how will they see him, because it’s Christ’s heart that wins people.
Thus, our love for others – which is the core of how others will be drawn to Christ – is driven by our feeling of being loved, and if Satan can get us stuck on that, he will pull us down to the dark place where he roams.
This might be called a place of “spiritual depression,” and I’ve made it clear I believe the vast majority of Christians who struggle with depression do so – not because of spiritual defect or theological misunderstanding – but because of brain disorders.
But for some people, depression sits more in thoughts than the chemicals contributing to those thoughts.
And for many, chemical depression and theological misunderstanding often walk together, because the chemicals that help produce our pessimism fuel our thoughts about God, so no wonder we start to imagine a cold God who doesn’t love us.
But he does.
“I will not abandon you as orphans – I will come to you,” Jesus says in John 14, before saying, “My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them.”
Don’t you see? In John, Jesus promises to bring you to his home, and make a home with you. Whichever it is right now, you are home with him.
And it is all because of the best part of Christianity — the one-sentence, faith-alone, eternal, instantaneous and complete forgiveness.
Or another way of saying it: the only too-good-to-be-true claim in life that actually is true. The one “scam” you can trust.
The one Nigerian prince email with a true Prince on the other end of it.
Christian Heinze is editor of The Weary Christian.
