The “Desert Father” Abba Anthony (251-356 AD) said, “A time is coming when men will go mad [crazy], and when they see someone who is not mad they will attack him saying, ‘You are mad, you are not like us.’”
Certainly, the world seems to have become increasingly crazy in many ways. Yet, we are not the ones who are “mad”. Public institutions of learning have been ridding themselves of the knowledge of God for years, embracing foolishness (“The fool says in his heart there is no God”, Psalm 14:1) and appealing to much pseudo-science to justify the godlessness.
The world is caught up in “cunningly devised fables” (2 Peter 1:16) and “foolishness” masquerading as “wisdom” (Romans 1:22). It is difficult to get clarity when the world, the flesh, and the devil fight the truth of the Bible every single day.
We are in a spiritual battle. As Martin Luther taught in his classic and powerful hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”, we are up against tremendous evil. It’s very important to know that! Luther wrote this powerful instructional hymn for the illiterate peasants of his day in the year 1578. Read through all four verses, and you will see how well he lays out the essential doctrines of Christianity.
From the very first verse, Luther teaches about the devil:
“…For still our ancient foe, doth seek to work us woe;
his craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate,
on earth is not his equal.”
And in the third verse, he teaches further about our war against spiritual evil:
“And though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us.
The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
his rage we can endure for lo his doom is sure.
One little word shall fell him.”
Then he crescendos in the fourth verse with key victory-giving spiritual realities:
“That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them abideth.
The Spirit and the gifts are ours, through him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill, God’s truth abideth still.
His Kingdom is forever!”
That “little word”, the key to defeating evil, is of course Jesus, – the name that is “above every other name”, to which “every knee shall bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Philippians 2:9,10)! In His name, we can slay the “devils” that fill this world, the spirits that plague us, and that make people “mad” – spirits dealing hatred and envy and bitterness and anger and rejection and guilt and shame and fear. We can call them out and tell them off!
Luther wrote his great hymn of the faith many years before the historical period known as the Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason. The Age of Reason was a period of atheist/agnostic ascendency and rationalizing. It led in part to denials by modern Christians of supernatural spiritual reality and later to church compromise with evolution. But the fact is, as Luther teaches, we are in a wrestling match with spiritual evil - as the Bible famously says in Ephesians 6:10-18, including verse 12, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places”.
- Mark Cadwallader, Board Chairman of Creation Moments
Image: Porträt des Martin Luther, Workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, PD, Wikimedia Commons. + A Mighty Fortress is Our God manuscript, Johann Walter (copyist) / Germanisches Nationalmuseum (scan), CC0, Wikimedia Commons.
