The whole world has been assured that there is hope - that whatever is holding us back, we have a saviour in Christ. But as we have seen in the past few weeks, there are obstacles we must avoid and hurdles over which we must jump.
In this message I want to look more at how we can overcome these obstacles and also bring into awareness another one of the Devil's favourite tools - the little demon that is Torpidity. In this series I have already brought to your attention the concepts of Self-Worship, Creative Delusion and Comfort Zones, and all three are, along with Torpidity, concepts you would be well advised to remember and avoid.
As regards man's psychology and his clear path to enlightenment, Torpidity should be taken very seriously - it is one of the Devil's most dangerous demons; by Torpidity I mean the apathetic mindset that congeals a man's thinking to the point where he is far from interested in exploring the truth - that is, he is happy living in inert day-to-day routines. When this is happening, the Devil knows he really has got you with one of his strongest grips - and it is going to take a strong alternative force to prise the demonic fingers apart and set you free.
The diminishing of unhelpful desires and unhelpful convictions does two things. In the first place, it helps remove our passions for unbelief by teaching us how to delight in convictions which are distilled from our reasoning. In the second place, it leads us to a better understanding of faith - not blind faith of course, faith in reason, in truth, and then, in God. No man can commit himself fully to God if he does not think reason is a dependable source of belief. That is why those whose belief in God is given not by reason and faith but by blind faith alone are never prepared for an intellectual debate, nor are they prepared for scientific endeavour, nor societal or philosophical changes (usually advancements), nor a better understanding of the world. Some would call them mild-fundamentalists, and they might be right to do so, but it is a temptation that we should try to resist.
I think it is often good to learn about Christianity from those who have found salvation later in life as well as those who have been Christians all their lives - for the former have experience of both belief and unbelief, they have found the right path and usually have a good story to tell. They can best sympathise with your predicament - they have seen and believed in the true wretchedness of man, only to be shown that grace far supersedes cold atheistic sensuality. Lifelong Christians, despite their wisdom and experience, have never worshipped the self in quite the same way. To be sure you are getting the best of both, it is certainly good to learn from all kinds of people with very different experiences; you can never learn too much of the right things.
Our salvation is a free gift - it is up to us to gratefully accept it. Nothing we do is good enough to earn it - and if this sounds like psychological warfare, it is not so - it is enlightening in the most amazing way. You will learn about humility and self-honesty. And every step further that you take towards perfection you will see at the side of the road a sign declaring your pathway to divine enlightenment. You will have taken the pathway to certainty, leaving behind uncertainty - for the real grace of God is that despite our wretchedness our newly discovered certainty cost us nothing - it was given to us because of love. This blessedness was obtained, not by our talents or abilities, but because one day, in one small corner of the universe, we went down on our knees and gave ourselves to God. We submitted to an authority greater than our own. That is how we are blessed. No Christian, if he is being true to his faith, wishes to seem arrogant in his certainty; for this certainty is a blessing; in a sense, realisation that nothing is derived from the self without being given by Christ. And if we choose to reject this, forever creating facades along the way - what gains do we really have? This illusion has usually forced us into an unhelpful corner - the corner of apathy. This apathetic state fed by the demon of Torpidity is - as I will show you - one of the most damaging psychological states of mind; it detaches us from truth like nothing else in the world.
Those who have rejected Christianity should at least fully understand what it is they are rejecting - for I believe in my heart of hearts that no person who has ever lived, past or present, would have anything but delight and awe inside them if they came to understand the Christian faith as God intended. If the many millions, again, past and present, really did experience God imparting the Holy Spirit inside them, what effective denouncement, without trial, can one possibly have?
Many say that God has left us with unsubstantial evidence, but one wonders what type of evidence a man will find sufficient? God has promised the Spirit to those who earnestly seek Him with all their hearts, thus if we see people in their millions who have sought and found, one might ask what more can He do? He has shown us Christ - He became a man so we could have a relationship with Him.
I do not think we could have quite so much awe for a God who revealed Himself with, say, a vision to everyone who demanded proof of His existence. No, His majesty and His glory exist in such a way that it is only possible to know Him if the heart is ready for Him - after all, this is no trivial thing; to receive the Spirit is the biggest part of our earthly existence - nobody (or almost nobody) is likely to receive it simply through some petulant demand of proof. More often sceptics simply claim that it is not the kind of truth for which they are looking; they stridently decree that Christianity is not for them. If the grounds for disbelief cannot be asserted by supposed lack of evidence, they move on to lack of personal experience; or lack of scriptural cogency; or one or more of the other numerous objections which we talked about in many of my columns last year.
In order to reject Christianity with the utmost confidence, a man would have to claim that he had left no stone unturned. The demon of the apathetic mindset (Torpidity) is, of course, far more conniving and far more controlling than any man or woman. Torpidity rules the minds of all those who prefer 'truth' to be based upon personal feelings and convictions. Those controlled by Torpidity often think that they have made enough effort to know God, for most of us have at some point thought about ontological questions, dipped into the Bible, met some religious people, and questioned God's existence through some partially interrelated event.
In truth, unless we are to live as inert beings, we should think of everything concerned with Divine claims and Divine teachings and see if we can find out which are true. Christians believe that they have found the answer in Christ, whereas most atheists, in my experience certainly, do not think they have found the answer in atheism, it is more a settled state of mind. And if a man will search for divine illumination he will find it - so long as he is ready for a change of heart. There is such a big distinction between those who wish to live every day of life absorbing simple and transitory things and those who really do want to know about ultimate truths - and you can usually tell within moments of meeting a person in which camp they reside.
I believe that Christians can help encourage unbelievers by having some sympathy for those who wish it to be true but cannot quite believe it is. Doubt itself is not always the most rational part of a man's mind; in fact, it is very rarely based upon substantial analysis. Doubt, while understandable for most of the time until sound reason intervenes, does cause those whose sensory judgement is predominant to overlook other possibilities, after all, they say, if it were true, it would surely be a lot easier to realise and establish.
We are not being particularly rational when we doubt the existence of things that are inextricably linked to cumulative experience; after all, it is very unlikely that the millions of people who claim to have experienced the Holy Spirit inside of them were lying. A sceptic's best argument would be delusion or illusion, but certainly not lies. Some people object - asking why this is exclusive to Christianity; but it is not always realised that the Christian claims of men and women receiving the Spirit is not found in any of the other major religions - in fact, they all deny a personal relationship with God on earth. Therefore one must ask - are all these people who believe in a personal relationship with Christ doing so out of naivety, impressionability and credulity, or are they, in fact, telling the truth? It is the biggest decision that a man can make, and he is compelled, in his relatively short time on earth, to make it wisely.
But there is one other thing that is stopping him from approaching this question with the clarity that it deserves. Torpidity, when doing its best work, convinces a man that a God - so much more powerful than he, if it turns out that He does exist will surely have some sympathy with the man's way of life. After all, would not a God of Supreme Benevolence and Omniscience and a seemingly capacious heart have more sympathy and more favour with a man who used his mental acuity to logically conclude that God did not exist rather than with a man who became servile through his own credulity, hoping at the end for a divine hand out?
My answer, in an attempt to cover all kinds of people, would be this. God's grace will stretch far beyond that which our imagination permits, but it is not good to take Him for granted (Matthew 7:22, 23) - He does not want us to look at Him as an each way bet, He wants all of us - He wants every part of us so He can shape us into creatures who are a little bit more prepared for Heaven than we were initially.
It is often baffling to see people look upon their eternal destiny with such nonchalance, after all, human principles supersede non-enquiry in most other things, yet many of us seem so relaxed about the meaning of life. Torpidity is very appealing - it concurs with what many post-modernists have to tell us about reality being earthly life, and the supernatural being relegated to superfluity.
The most sublime realisation, the one that is closest to the initial stages of finding God is the one that reveals to us that all earthly satisfactions are merely movements towards something bigger. Those hints of new beginnings - forever changing as they are - are always suggesting, always reaffirming, and always directing our souls to a better place. We were all made for another life, thus if we attempt to cherish pleasures on earth in the wrong way; that is, if we make them self-evident and predominant, we shall lose the beauty and fullness of them - for they only really come as precursors to something bigger and better. Love is never stagnant, it is always revealing things to us, so is parenthood, so are friendships, so are pursuits of valuable things. But pleasures when seen for merely self-evident purposes, promise nothing other than parochialism.
We were created for eternity - it is the most real part of our existence. But the world, the world of which Christ and St Paul told us to be weary is, in fact, the world which is capable of consumption if we are not ready for it. And if a man disregards this fact, instead living in a sea of denial - lionising men and women and exalting earthly pleasures far beyond their deserts - he will be giving up on the world - he will miss its true quintessence; he will overlook its central purpose, which is to bring him nearer to eternal happiness. To become aware of God's plan for you is to step outside of earthly uncertainty altogether; for we enter the province of Divine comfort and discover both the true nature of happiness and, indeed - through a process of leaving it behind - the true nature of unhappiness and its deceit. The stakes are high, eternally high, and we are thus compelled to find out if we are on the right course or not.
It is not very difficult to see men and women who have become subsumed by Torpidity - they have taken joy from their dispensed responsibilities, they have relegated, with equanimity, the role of certainty to a mere sub-division of life. Creative Delusion has tricked them into taking pleasure in their own false-certainty - it has caused them to take pride in their dismissal of religion, after all, they say, 'Why would we want to be referred to as sheep?' But sheep of course, within their own context of farming, need to be led by a farmer. Whatever context we are thinking of, one is going to need guidance of some kind. And what rewards can be derived from this state of unknowing? What pleasures of comfort can one have who knows nothing about the purpose of his thoughts, his body and his soul - whose wretched state is reflected in almost everything he does? A change is going to have to be made - even the birds must change their habits to accord with the changing seasons.
Torpidity, when it is most evident, is really a dreadful state; it teaches men to be happy with uncertainty. You would not feel so happy with any other kind of uncertainty in your life - illness must be eradicated, so too doubt, anxiety and economic problems. And very often those who are not torpid, those who have found the certainty of Christ, are very obviously in a glorious state of fulfilment. And if you want to know which side you belong to, look no further than the heterogeneous nature of atheism to give you the best indication; for you will see unreasonable thinkers which, far from compounding atheistic viewpoints, almost always strengthen the Christians' case quite considerably - for how could such unreasonable analysis lead to any ultimate truth, particularly when it is so dependent upon personal wishes and desires?
But look for Christ and you will find Him, even through your biggest doubt - He will reveal Himself to you even at times when you do not wish Him to. The Christian faith, far from leading 'sheep' down dark and futile pathways, leads them to the truth. If we are to be referred to as sheep, it is only because all of us, by ourselves, are incapable of finding the right path. But what exactly is this right path of which I speak? It is the realisation of two things; the fallen and dependable state of man and the salvation of man through the blood of Christ. And if a man cannot see the truth of the first through the second, he should, with enough self-analysis, be able to see the truth of the second through the first.
In self-analysis, a man will pay no higher regard to anything other than his true nature; that is, he will realise that it is no indifference to failure, or sin, or vanity, or pride - he is afraid of the self in a quite peculiar way. The same indignation felt at, say, being stolen from, or being insulted, or losing a lover will, as regards his psychology, be more or less the same indignation felt at an illusory threat to his eternal nature, or an imaginary cessation of his inner-hunger, or a fleeting shift in his inner-purpose.
He knows that if he is not going to see eternity with God then both the present goodness and the present badness will be swept away at the end. Goodness itself will be taken into eternity, but it is not, and never was, really his. That is part of the realisation of spiritual growth, that many of the things within us are already part of eternity - the grace, and charity, and kindness that are prominent in savoury moments and tangential in horrible moments, are really the parts of us which can lead us to eternity. It is a peculiar philosophy to examine the self and see the true nature of this duality - to see the soul so resistant to badness except when badness seems most welcome in the most egregious earthly situations; to see the soul so embracing of grace and charity except in this moment when the cost is too great; to see one who is so mindful of futile things but so unmindful of divine things.
This is the inner battle which will, if left, lead a man to despair - for nothing in the self can, by itself, hope to demarcate the distinction between sensitivity and insensitivity; each part of the analysis requires a central point to either gravitate towards or recede from. Nothing of any value achieves value all by itself only by comparison to other things or by Divine demarcation. If we look closely enough, we can see the Devil at work; that is, such a strange reversal of states - from glory to perdition - must be more spiritually obscure, abstract, recondite and mysterious than most of us can imagine; in fact, it is perhaps only fully understood in creation by the angels and demons.
This apathy that we have been discussing, it must be removed; in fact it is even better to be at one extreme than in the inert state of indifference (see the letter to the Church in Laodicea - Revelation 3:14-22 - in which the term 'lukewarm' is used); for men who are controlled by Torpidity are, of course, living in a world of pretence, forever trying to stand still despite the strong tide of emotions pulling them first to one extreme then to the other. There is no earthly satisfaction in this state; all the time, in atheistic circles, men are pretending to be temporal beings when they are, in truth, eternal beings. They have been led to believe that it is good to be extravagant, powerful, acquisitive, and full of pride, when deep down they know as well as the next man that these things, superficially rewarding on the outside, are in fact far inferior to the delight of grace, charity, humility, kindness, solicitude, and generosity.
The man who looks deep within his own soul knows its true state and thus, knows the true state of his neighbour. I have tried to show in this message how vital it is that we guard against Torpidity and how easily it can set in if we become complacent and lose focus. Thankfully, in Christ, we have a perfect sympathiser, who will continue to bless us even through times when we flirt with complacency. It is much to ask that we stay focused at all times, although eternally rewarding if we can do so.
