Screwtape Letter #20 – Discussion Guide is article #42 in the series: Screwtape Letters. Click button to view titles for entire series
Letter #20
More bad news
– for Wormwood.
My dear Wormwood,
I note with great displeasure that the Enemy has, for the time being, put a forcible end to your direct attacks on the patient’s chastity. You ought to have known that He always does in the end, … I suppose you’ve tried persuading him that chastity is unhealthy?
I haven’t yet got a report from you on young women in the neighbourhood. … which he should be encouraged to fall in love with if ‘falling in love’ is the best we can manage.
20.1) It seems that all parties have now figured out that the attacks won’t continue – that The Enemy will put an end to them at some point – at least that what Screwtape tell Wormwood. But is that what really happened? Have the attacks really stopped – or is it just the impact? What’s the difference? What’s the importance of us (the patients) realizing this?
Have the attacks really stopped?
If you were the patient - how would you feel now?
1Co 10:12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
1Co 10:12 Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. 13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
Is it important to know if we're 'safe'
If a man only thinks he stands, he is in no danger of falling. It is not possible that any one should fall, if he only thinks he stands.
In a rough and ready way, of course, this question is decided for us by spirits far deeper down in the Lowerarchy than you and I. It is the business of these great masters to produce in every age a general misdirection of what may be called sexual ‘taste’. … It is all a fake, of course; … What follows you can easily forecast!
20.2) Since the attacks aren’t going to stop – a discussion on their background is forthcoming.
It’s all fake, of course. There’s a simple little one word question that might help to make this more obvious: “why?”
Jesus says we should be like children. Here are just 3 examples:
Mt 11:25 At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. 26 Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.”
Mt 18:2 He called a little child and had him stand among them. 3 And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Mt 19:14 Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” 15 When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there.
Children love to ask questions. According to an article is Science News a couple years ago (//www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091113083254.htm) they also want not just answers, but explanations. What would happen if we asked “why” more often – and kept asking until we got a good explanation?
The first time in the Bible someone asked 'why'
Ge 4:6 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”
The first time Jesus asked 'why'
Do Not Worry
Mt 6:25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ?
Mt 6:28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
The first time in the Gospels someone other than Jesus asked 'why'
The Calling of Matthew
Mt 9:9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
Mt 9:10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
Mt 9:12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
That is the general strategy of the moment. But inside the framework you will still find it possible to encourage your patient’s desires in one of two directions. … In the face, it is the visible animality, or sulkiness, or craft, or cruelty which he likes, and in the body, something quite different from what he ordinarily calls Beauty, something he may even, in a sane hour, describe as ugliness, but which, by our art, can be made to play on the raw nerve of his private obsession.
The real use of the infernal Venus is, no doubt, as prostitute or mistress. But if your man is a Christian, and if he has been well trained in nonsense about irresistible and all-excusing ‘Love’, he can often be induced to marry her. … And, by the way, they are not only efficient, but delightful; the unhappiness produced is of a very lasting and exquisite kind,
Your affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE
20.3) Screwtape continues to go on planning for more attacks – even though “The Enemy” has put a forcible stop to them.
It seems that Screwtape doesn’t even believe himself that “The Enemy” has put an end to the attacks, as he said at the beginning. In any case – they will continue. Is this wasting time – or is there still an opportunity? Looking at famous people in the news who “should” have known better – what can we learn?
How about picking a fallen preacher to look at?
Can we learn something from Hosea?
1. Hosea’s Wife and Children
Hos 1:2 When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD.”
2. Israel Punished and Restored
3. Hosea’s Reconciliation With His Wife
4. The Charge Against Israel
5. Judgment Against Israel
6. Israel Unrepentant
7. <untitled>
8. Israel to Reap the Whirlwind
9. Punishment for Israel
10. <untitled>
11. God’s Love for Israel
12. Israel’s Sin
13. The LORD’S Anger Against Israel
Hos 13:4 “But I am the LORD your God,
who brought you out of Egypt.
You shall acknowledge no God but me,
no Savior except me.
Hos 13:5 I cared for you in the desert,
in the land of burning heat.
Hos 13:6 When I fed them, they were satisfied;
when they were satisfied, they became proud;
then they forgot me.
Hos 13:7 So I will come upon them like a lion,
like a leopard I will lurk by the path.
Hos 13:8 Like a bear robbed of her cubs,
I will attack them and rip them open.
Like a lion I will devour them;
a wild animal will tear them apart.
14. Repentance to Bring Blessing
Vocabulary:
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