Word Weld

‘Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor-that is the only way out of a “hole.” This process of surrender-this movement full speed astern-is repentance.‘

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Surrender is one of those words that mankind as a whole, and not merely mankind in the modern era, or any era in particular, rejects almost instinctively. Surrender is looked at, and in many cases rightly so, as an act of cowardice. And cowardice is what I would call a universal vice, simply because it is bad even if bad is your aim. What use is cowardice to anyone? If Satan were a coward, he would not be the terrible power that he is. If the evil men and women of our world were cowards, they would be easily found out and rooted out. No, it is Satan’s dogged persistence that allows his evil to continue, and it is the stubborn and single-minded nature of the child abusers and baby killers that makes them such a threat to society. Surrender is therefore viewed in the same way as cowardice, as a universally bad act, even if badness is good to you. This is one of the many reasons why people who are faced with compelling evidence to contradict their worldview or moral position will easily reject it, because it is better to be wrong than to be a coward. Thus, there is a pride component to cowardice, and therefore surrender.

That being said, surrender is, I would submit, not a universal evil. It does have a use for good: the realignment of men who are well and truly wrong. As Lewis said in the above quote, mankind without God is not simply a lost sheep, wandering away from the shepherd, but a wolf. We are the enemies of God.

“For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.”

Romans 8:6-8

“Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”

James 4:4

“He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

John 3:18

The uncomfortable truth is the point that Lewis is making in the above quote. We have become so used to portraying ourselves as victims in the war against evil, or even as good ourselves, that we forget that we are literally on the wrong side. One of the lies of the world in which we live is that humanity as a whole is good. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau is credited with many arguments to that effect. Even the Dutch Holocaust victim Anne Frank, herself a well-known believer, made this statement:

“It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

Anne Frank

It was remarkable for Anne Frank to make that statement, given the fact that she was hunted and ultimately lost her life at the hands of humanity’s overwhelming natural evil. And that is the truth that we all need to hear: not that we are naturally good and that evil invades upon us, but that it is, as Lewis seems to think, quite the opposite.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

Jeremiah 17:9

“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.”

Romans 3:10-19

“Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I will be more direct than Lewis, and harsher, perhaps. We often speak of how we are struggling with sin, or how we are under attack by the Devil, or that we feel evil pressing down on us. Let me be 100% clear:

We are the evil.

We do not struggle with sin, we are sinners. We are not fighting against a darkness inside of us, we are the darkness, and what is fighting against us is the Holy Spirit Himself. We are enemy territory, under attack by God Himself, who is attempting to recapture us from the enemy.

“Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.”

John 8:43-45

Why are we as a culture fascinated with murder, rape, violence, horror, demons, zombies, monsters, ancient evil, and so forth? Because it is our nature. It is not that we struggle with evil, but we are the evil and God struggles with us.

“And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh:“

Genesis 6:3a

That is why it is hard for us to do good, to do right, and why we naturally do not do well. It is true that all men have a conscience, but it is the barest vestige of our former self, the self that existed for a brief time as a child before the knowledge that Adam and Eve stole from the garden enters our minds; and we die, as they did. Thus, we are the monster. We are the demon, and we need to be cast out and defeated, invaded and possessed by goodness. Can evil men do good? Yes, but it is not in our nature, and it does not make us good men. What makes us good is the righteousness that is put upon us, that defeats and overwhelms us when we are overcome by God. And that comes only through surrender. God will not violate our will. He can launch His assaults upon our heart, moving against our will and our intellect, but He cannot breach the inner keep. Not because He lacks the power, but because doing so would destroy us, turning us into mere animals or plants, unable to defy his will and thus being little more than machines. No, the keep must be surrendered for Him to have victory, and for the evil to be finally defeated.

This is why so often the sinner sits in the back of the church, attempting to “hide” from God, all the while sobbing and shaking. He is wrestling with God, and God is at least gaining the mastery. He is at last surrendering. There are some who have embraced their conscience over the years, that infiltrator that God puts into the heart of every man or woman, and when God’s spirit makes landfall they willing fall to their knees and surrender all of the fight. But often the beachhead is pockmarked with mines and tank traps, razor wire and pillboxes. The most intellectual and intelligent, as well as the wealthy and powerful, often have the strongest defenses, but pride will turn even a pauper into a bristling fortress of evil. God will fight for the soul within, but ultimately that soul must submit in order to be saved. C. S. Lewis was of this stripe, for whose soul the Holy Spirit fought a grueling uphill battle, that shook Lewis to his core. In the end, victory was achieved, though once more, through surrender.

“I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.“

C. S. Lewis

Excuse Me

The hardest thing a human being can do is to endure admit defeat. We resist it, to the bitter end. Sometimes our efforts are laughable, such as when your child tries to blame the stolen cookies on a sibling who was asleep and an infant. We can shake our heads and say to one another, “See how human nature is?” And in a child it can be laughable, but as that child’s parent, it is your job to make sure they don’t find it ironically amusing, as you do. Because someday that child will be just like you, and just like me: making excuses for how wrong we are, yet being no less wrong. Now that some of my children are becoming teenagers, I have tried to fight this battle even more, and it is a hard battle. Unable to come up with a moral argument or justification for what they have done wrong, children will cover up their wrongness with false despair or even unbridled rage. They will use just about anything as a justification.

The rebel, left to himself, will grow more rebellious, and more able to rebel. He starts by blaming the dog for his missing homework, but then graduates to blaming his parents for the way he is. Then, he goes to school and to the workplaces, and learns new words and terms to help him excuse his wrongness. The result is the same, but he becomes better at making it seem like he isn’t so very wrong.

“If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse.”

Job 9:20

The rich young ruler was exposed very clearly by Scripture when it recorded:

“But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?”

Luke 10:29

Cain also, though he had murdered his own brother in cold blood, and undeniably so, justified himself with his question: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Was he responsible, after all, for his brother’s health and well-being? But justification cannot come from the one committing the crime. It must come from without. God knew what Cain had done, but He told Cain that there was an unlikely witness, one that only God would hear.

“And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.”

Genesis 4:10

Cain could call on no one to justify him, for the very blood of his brother witnessed against him. I have caught my children, figuratively, with the hammer in their very hand, and broken vase at their feet, claiming they had nothing to do with it. And it is easy to see in our children because they are not so clever. But we as adults are much more clever. Think of the great lengths we as men go to in order to absolve ourselves of our guilt, unwilling to admit that our wives or children were right. And are we better served for it? Are we better men for being wrong but refusing to admit our errors? Are we somehow right, when we have merely convinced everyone else that we are not wrong? It is only a testament to our wickedness that we are able to live with ourselves, to lie to ourselves so thoroughly and continue on, knowing the truth even if it is never spoken. I do this often.. Confess, as John puts it, and what better phrase is there?

Full Reverse

“This process of surrender-this movement full speed astern-is repentance.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“It is better to crawl in the right direction, than to go at any pace down the wrong path.”

from “Worthy”

The solution is obvious. It’s time to swallow our pride. Eat crow. Fess up. Come clean. Face the music. Repent, as John the Baptist puts it, and Christ Himself, and what better phrase is there? And if you want my advice, I’ll tell you the same thing I tell my kids (and myself): Do it fast. Just spit it out. The sooner the words “I’m sorry,” “I was wrong,” or “I did it” pass your lips, the easier it will be. The longer you delay, the more resilient your pride and stubbornness become, and the more excuses your mind will fill up with. Don’t give yourself time to dig in, or the rebellion will become much stronger and more difficult for the Spirit to overcome.

“That’s ridiculous and overdramatic,” the reader may say. “Treating yourself as the enemy isn’t the answer.”

But we are the enemy, up until the moment that we surrender our will to God. The unrepentant heart cannot be reconciled to God. There are numerous places in the Bible where this is demonstrated, but one my favorites is:

“I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”

Luke 13:3

I remember when I was in college I was looking for a job over the summer, and I drove out to go to drop off a resume at a business. I was living in Pensacola, and I traveled for some time west on Interstate 10 until I realized that I had missed my exit. I sought to turn around, but what I did not realize is that at the point I realized I was going the wrong way, there were no more exits until I got to Alabama. I ended up traveling another 10 miles and was well inside Alabama before I found a place to turn around.

How far do we have to go in the wrong direction before we turn around, and what is gained by going further the wrong way? Again, I go back to Lewis, who traveled in atheism and disbelief for years before eventually surrendering to God. How much he wrestled and struggled against what he knew in his heart to be true, and how much agony he went through before finally ending his rebellion. Do we really enjoy our misery so much? Or do we simply lie to ourselves?

Fortunately, the decision is up to us. God is ready with open arms for us to turn to Him, and leaves it up to us. In the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus tells us that the father was waiting patiently for his wayward son to come home, and it was the son’s choice of when to come back. At first, he never planned to come home, but in time, the hardship and anguish that he endured eventually caused him to realize how wrong he was, and he turned around. He did an about-face. But had he “come to himself” sooner, the father would have been no less or more ready for him. Similarly, Christ is waiting for us to surrender. His terms of surrender are in our favor: surrender to Me, and gain everything. Our rebellion preserves our pride, but nothing else.

“To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath.”

Romans 2:7-9

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”

Revelation 3:20

As unrepentant human beings, we can expect to fail. We can expect our evil nature to have dominion unless we actively surrender, unless we stop resisting God. And as Christians who have accepted Christ’s forgiveness of sins, we can still let the evil nature we were born with back in, and harm our testimony or our ministry. We need to learn how to come to terms with being wrong, and be able to quickly turn around, repent, and be surrendered to God, knowing that He will never deny us if we come to Him in humility and sincerity. We must learn the art of surrender.

“All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

John 6:37

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

I John 1:9