Romans 8:1-2 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” This episode talks about why we judge each other and even brings in one of the Screwtape Letters from C. S. Lewis. If you haven't read that book, you should! Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
No Condemnation
Romans 8:1-2 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”
Here we are talking about condemnation again. I think God keeps talking to us about it because we keep judging others. We look at something someone else is doing and we think about how wrong they are for doing it. Or worse, we talk to someone else about how wrong they are for doing it. I was at a retreat once and the priest was talking about how awful the sin of gossip is, Especially in a church. He was talking about how it is like a sickness and once people at church start gossiping it spreads like a virus and things are never the same. We can look at a situation, and so easily judge it. Unless you are directly involved in the situation, you don’t have all the facts. Even if you are directly involved you don’t have all the facts because you don’t know what the other person is thinking or feeling. I wonder why we judge others so easily. When I was wondering this I feel as though the Holy Spirit reminded me of a book I read several years ago. It is titled Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis. If you have not read this book, you honestly should make it one of the next books you read. It was truly eye opening into the mind of the enemy.
The premise of the Screwtape Letters is a series of Letters from an Uncle, Screwtape, to his nephew Wormwood. Wormwood is a junior demon and his uncle is a high level demon. The nephew writes to his uncle about his “patient” i.e. the man who’s soul he is trying to win for the devil and the book is comprised of his uncle’s replies. It can be a bit confusing because when they talk about the enemy in this letter they are talking about God. When they talk about the father below they are talking about satan. The book discloses tactics the enemy uses to win our souls for Satan. I said earlier it was eye opening but when I really thing about it the word the comes to mind is sobering. We don’t think twice about spreading a little gossip. Sometimes it even feels good to be the one to get to share something about someone else that no-one else knew. What’s the harm, right? This letter right here, it talks about the harm. Listen carefully as it can be hard to follow just listening to it. If you can follow along in the show notes, that is ever better. I will also put a link to the website where I got the text so you re-read it later. I also shortened it by one paragraph to make it a bit shorter. (Click Here for Article) Here is the letter.
II
MY DEAR WORMWOOD,
I note with grave displeasure that your patient has become a Christian. Do not indulge the hope that you will escape the usual penalties; indeed, in your better moments, I trust you would hardly even wish to do so. In the meantime we must make the best of the situation.
There is no need to despair; hundreds of these adult converts have been reclaimed after a brief sojourn in the Enemy's camp and are now with us. All the habits of the patient, both mental and bodily, are still in our favour.
One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do mean the Church as we see her spread but through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans. All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate. When he goes inside, he sees the local grocer with rather in oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad, and in very small print. When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbours. Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like "the body of Christ" and the actual faces in the next pew. It matters very little, of course, what kind of people that next pew really contains. You may know one of them to be a great warrior on the Enemy's side. No matter. Your patient, thanks to Our Father below, is a fool. Provided that any of those neighbours sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous. At his present stage, you see, he has an idea of "Christians" in his mind which he supposes to be spiritual but which, in fact, is largely pictorial. His mind is full of togas and sandals and armour and bare legs and the mere fact that the other people in church wear modern clothes is a real-though of course an unconscious-difficulty to him. Never let it come to the surface; never let him ask what he expected them to look like. Keep everything hazy in his mind now, and you will have all eternity wherein to amuse yourself by producing in him the peculiar kind of clarity which Hell affords.
I have been writing hitherto on the assumption that the people in the next pew afford no rational ground for disappointment. Of course if they do-if the patient knows that the woman with the absurd hat is a fanatical bridge-player or the man with squeaky boots a miser and an extortioner-then your task is so much the easier. All you then have to do is to keep out of his mind the question "If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?" You may ask whether it is possible to keep such an obvious thought from occurring even to a human mind. It is, Wormwood, it is! Handle him properly and it simply won't come into his head. He has not been anything long enough with the Enemy to have any real humility yet. What he says, even on his knees, about his own sinfulness is all parrot talk. At bottom, he still believes he has run up a very favourable credit-balance in the Enemy's ledger by allowing himself to be converted, and thinks that he is showing great humility and condescension in going to church with these "smug", commonplace neighbours at all. Keep him in that state of mind as long as you can.
Your affectionate uncle SCREWTAPE
Don’t you see, the enemy wants us to keep gossiping. He wants to keep us focused on anything except for our Heavenly Father. If you are in church, thinking about the dress the person in front you is wearing then you are taking your eyes off the Lord. The line that really got me was the one question the uncle said to never let the patient ask,
"If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?" Let’s not make the enemy happy. Let’s not do his work for him. From now on, every time you want to gossip about someone ask yourself that question. If I am Christian, with all my flaws, why do I doubt they are with all their flaws. There verse above says, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” It does not say there is now no condemnation because we are all perfect people who never sin. We are not saved because of anything we did. We are saved because Jesus gave His life for us.
I know this episode is long already, but I want to end with the daily devotional from the book “Jesus Calling” about this very topic. The woman who wrote this book felt these messages were for our Lord, and this is one I think we should all hear.
“My children make a pastime of judging one another – and themselves. But I am the only capable judge, and I have acquitted you through my own blood. Your acquittal came at the price of my unparalleled sacrifice. That is why I am highly offended when I hear my children judge one another or indulge in self-hatred. If you live close to me and absorb my word, the Holy Spirit will guide and correct you as needed. There is no condemnation for those who belong to Me.”
Dear heavenly Father I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord we are so sorry we judge. We don't want to do anything that offends you. Help us repent Lord. Help us to turn away from gossiping and to do it no more. Lord you gave the ultimate sacrifice so our sins could be forgiven. The least we could do is accept that grace and not engage in gossip or self hatred. You are our creator, you made us in your likeness and image, how could we hate anything you created? You are so amazing God. We are so grateful and we know there is nothing we could do to compare to your great sacrifice. We promise to try and stop judging others and ourselves. We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus holy name Amen.
Thank you for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow. Have a blessed day