So those of you who follow me on Facebook or Twitter probably knew that I have been training for a Jiujitsu tournament all January. This past weekend was go time at the Monster Cup here in Charlotte.

Thanks…

I want to first give a big thanks and shout out to Joe Hurst, the tournament organizer, for giving Disciple Dojo a booth from which to sell my artwork…

It was great exposure for me within the martial arts community and helped raise awareness for IJM as well. I only sold less than a dozen prints, but gave out a lot of cards and connected with a number of martial artists from all over the place. One of them, in fact, was UFC veteran and multiple grappling champion, Jeff “The Snowman” Monson. He stopped by and picked up a print of his buddy Pablo Popovitch (my latest charity portrait subject). Jeff was a very nice and soft-spoken guy…which most people wouldn’t assume a heavily-tattooed cage fighter with muscles the size of my head to be! But he was indeed and it was an honor having him stop by and appreciate my artwork…

Remember, all my martial arts portraits are available for sale and proceeds go to supporting Disciple Dojo, as well as charities like IJM!  You can see them and order prints or enlargements HERE.

I also want to thank my roommate, Nick Dusenbury (who also writes EXCELLENT financial counseling advice columns which you should TOTALLY check out!) for taking his Saturday to come sit at my booth and help me sell prints and give out business cards. I honestly owe more to Nick than probably anyone else in my life when it comes to Disciple Dojo surviving this long on my own and I pray that I can one day repay him in full! If you’d like to help me do so, PLEASE consider making a donation or purchasing some resources!

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The competition…

My biggest competition was actually against the scale!

Over the holidays, I was walking around at about 176lbs. My ideal weight is around 165 and my competition weight is 155. That means I had about 3 weeks to drop 20 lbs!

So most of January consisted of salads with chicken and/or egg whites for lunch, and soup, grits, or oatmeal for dinner. Sodas were out and in the week leading up to weigh-ins, so was sugar in general, including sweet tea (which, thanks to Panera’s new addition of Acai tea, wasn’t too horrible!). By Friday morning, I was 156 according to my bathroom scale…

The only problem, which I found out when I got to weigh-ins, was that my bathroom scale is 2 lbs off! I weighed in at 157.8. Thankfully, I brought my sweat gear with me in the car. After peddling on the stationary bike and then running about a mile around the parking lot, followed by sitting in my car with the heat on full blast and a towel on my head in a sauna suit, I finally weighed in at 156.0 on the dot (you’re allowed to be within 1lb of your target weight).

Let me tell you, after cutting weight for a month, NOTHING is better than Momma’s Pancake Breakfast at Cracker Barrel! I had been fantasizing about pancakes and biscuits all week…and I was not disappointed!

The actual matches…

I was competing in two divisions this year. Masters (which is for those 30 years old and up) Blue Belt (in the gi, or Jiujitsu uniform…you know, the pajama looking suits with colored belts!) and Masters Advanced (for those with 3+ years of training) in the no-gi event.

First up was no-gi. Since our division was small, they combined Advanced and Expert. This meant that my opponent would be a black belt!

For those that don’t know, there are 5 belts in adult Brazilian Jiujitsu: White, Blue, Purple, Brown, and Black. Progress between belts is often extremely slow. For instance, though I am a 2nd degree black belt in our general martial arts program at LMA, in our BJJ program, I’m only a blue belt…and I’ve been training for 6 years now! Most BJJ black belts have trained for a MINIMUM of 10 years, and many for much, much longer!

So honestly, I did not expect to win this match…my goal was to survive! And that is exactly what I did! Thanks to my instructor, Derek “TC” Richardson, constantly tapping me out in practice over the past 6 years, and thanks to some on the spot coaching by my friend (and area Black Belt who runs Great Grappling over in nearby Fort Mill, SC) Jeremy “Gerbil” Arel, I ended up going the full round without getting submitted…

Side note: I want to congratulate my instructor and friend, Derek Richardson, on LMA becoming the Renzo Gracie Affiliate school in NC! This is a HUGE honor and I’m thrilled that we are part of the Renzo Gracie family!! If you haven’t already, be sure to read my series of blog posts on my time with Derek and another student, Chase, last Summer getting to go train at RGA in Manhattan for a week. It was the highlight of my 2011 by far!

After my no-gi match, I had to wait around for about 4 hrs before my division in gi was called. This time, I was matched against fellow blue belts (whew!). I hadn’t eaten all day since breakfast, so I was starving and ready to go home by now. My first opponent and I squared off…

I ended up winning with the same move that I got choked unconscious with in a previous tournament (which you can read about and watch HERE! haha!). It was a quick victory and I was glad to have won a match.

However, my next opponent ended up getting past my guard in a scramble and then hunkered down on top of me in North-South position for the entirety of the round, attempting various chokes while his instructor hovered inches away on the mat yelling out instructions in Portuguese. It was an incredibly boring match so I didn’t upload the video of it.

I don’t mind losing. It’s not my favorite thing, but as long as I do my best and my opponent is genuinely better than me, I don’t have a problem with it. But this loss bugged me because I honestly believe that I could’ve beat my opponent and that once he got a dominant position, he played it safe (and smart!) and just rode out a points victory. Hats off to him and no disrespect intended, but I hope I get to compete against him again in the future because I really do think I can do much better than I did that match.

Our LMA team…

One really cool thing about this tournament was seeing a number of LMA students compete for the first time. There were a few errors by the refs and some bad organizing of divisions, but they all competed like champs and everyone walked away with at least one medal!

Big congrats to Mike, Jose, Darius and Cameron. And thanks to Brooke and Chase for coaching/filming/water-supplying duties!!

I can’t wait to get back to LMA for training this week and continuing to improve as both a martial artist and an instructor. I’m also looking forward to next weekend, when I’ll be in GA visiting my parents–and will also be able to attend a seminar by Jiujitsu icon Gustavo Machado, which is being hosted by my friend Ken Hudson at Americus Martial Arts Academy!

Martial Arts is a never ending journey and I will be a lifelong student, always seeking to improve and help others improve along the way…

…kinda like being a Disciple of Jesus, in fact!

Blessings to all and thanks for the support…and now…I gotta go get something to eat!

JM

Please share your thoughts, questions or feedback in the comments section below! And, again, if you would like to read more from Olatunde on this or similar subjects be sure to check out his book “The Mind of Christ” …which sports an excellent cover designed by yours truly!

JM

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[Continued from PART 1 and PART 2]

Now we come to the core of EVERY deception for God’s children in Satan’s temptations:

“Who is your father? Who are you?”

Satan said this in response to Jesus calling upon His Father, implying that even this is doubtful; that Jesus was merely a man attempting to carry the full burden of sin.  If there is anything Satan wants children of God to doubt the most, it is their identity as God’s children, and God’s identity as their father in heaven!

Yet the first words of the prayer Jesus taught His disciples were “Our Father in Heaven…”  The first thing God said to Jesus at His baptism was “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased…” And this is the very thing Satan questioned during the first two wilderness temptations, “IF you are the Son of God, turn these stones to bread,”  “IF, you are the Son of God, throw yourself down (from the top of the temple.)”

If Satan can get God’s children to doubt who their Father is, and who they are as God’s children, then the very basis of faith and the good news are gone.

If we can not cry out to God as children cry out to their fathers for protection, we are vulnerable to the lies and attacks of Satan, the lion of deception and rebellion.

As God’s children, we must not ignore Satan’s perversions, nor entertain and believe his roaring lies.  We must be like Christ Jesus the Lord, who in His worst hours gave no attention to Satan, focusing only on His Father and His Father’s words.

Unlike in “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” Satan is not necessary to know and believe in God. For when we see him as he truly is–perverse, twisted, wicked–then his essential deception, namely, that he is as worthy of worship as God, is destroyed.

We are to be like Christ and say, “Away from me Satan, for it is written, ‘Worship God, and Him only shall you serve.’”

In fact, the essential message of Revelation (the book in the Bible that portrays Satan’s destiny and defeat more than any other) is this:

WORSHIP CHRIST.  REFUSE TO WORSHIP THE BEAST.

Throughout Revelation the issue of worship is central.  It is the central activity of heaven, as well as the privilege God gives His creatures…and it is the central desire of Satan.

But Satan is the enemy to be resisted.  Resist him, and he will flee from you.  Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.

Satan’s temptations will always have perversions.  And he will always tempt God’s children to doubt they are God’s children.  The closer they get to God, the more directly Satan will attack them.

In “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” Emily was possessed by Satan, so the devil was experienced indirectly through her.

In “The Devil’s Advocate” Kevin Lomax encountered Satan in the disguise of a lawyer, and the subtlety of the Devil was his main weapon.

But the Lord Jesus would not be possessed or deceived easily through Satan’s subtlety.   Thus the Devil must come to him directly.

He will do the same with all who walk closely with Christ.

Yet even then, he will come with seduction, and in the seduction will be a perversion.  Do not ignore Satan’s perversions.

And above all remember that he is subject to God’s children, through Christ Jesus our Lord.

-Olatunde Howard

It came during a celebration of the 47th anniversary of the Palestinian Authority’s Fatah faction. The Mufti, who was appointed by PA Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, made the claim at an official Fatah event marking the founding of the largest faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

The moderator who introduced the Mufti also implied “that the Jews are descendants of apes and pigs,” according to a broadcast on PA TV translated by the  watchdog group Palestinian Media Watch (PMW).

Israel news photo: PA TV courtesy of PMW

[Disclaimer: PMW is seen as a very biased, anti-Palestinian, and borderline-racist organization by most Palestinians with whom I've spoken.]

The video of the speech has been removed by Youtube, citing its call to violence as a violation of terms of service, and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has called for an investigation into the Mufti’s speech with possible legal ramifications.

The Mufti, however, denies calling for the actual killing of Jews, insisting that he was merely citing a Hadith (traditional Muslim saying which is not part of the Qur’an), and that his speech was edited and misinterpreted.

In response, Turkish Islamic scholar Adnan Oktar blasted the Mufti for his speech and says that it is in no way representative of Islam:

“You can go nowhere by bloodshed. All will inflict affliction upon you if you shed blood; you will simply be on a downward spiral of bloodshed,” he warned. “Pull yourselves together. I address those who advocate murder. Jews are the descendants of prophets — Allah pre-destined them as Jews,” he emphasized. “They live as Jews. The Koran refers to them as the People of the Book… one cannot simply go and kill them.”

The moderator’s attempt to malign the ancestry of Jews, he said, was grossly misplaced, an ignorant misquote of the Koran. “Whoever wages a war against Allah and the Koran, that person turns into an ape or a swine,” he quoted, adding grimly, “Therefore it is haram (unlawful) to say that stones and trees will point to every Jew and you will kill Jews altogether, whether a girl, woman or a child. This is unbecoming for a Muslim to utter… it is wholly in contradiction with the Koran.” [source]

Regardless of the Mufti’s claims of misinterpretation, as one who is supportive of the rights of the Palestinian people to have their own state and one who desires to see Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace, I am saddened that more Palestinian voices (both Muslim and Christian) have not spoken out in as straightforward a manner as Oktar.

If  Palestinians desire to be a free people (as they should) with a recognized government (as they should) and a member of the community of nations (as they should), such rhetoric which plays off of and reflects a deep and longstanding anti-Jewish sentiment MUST be condemned unequivocally and with no attempts to justify or point fingers at the crimes and injustices committed by Israel.

Period.

I don’t know a single Palestinian, personally, who would agree with the Mufti’s words. Yet, unfortunately, speeches like the Mufti’s are what characterize Palestinians in the eyes of most Americans.

Speeches like the Mufti’s drive Islamophobia, particularly in the West.

Speeches like the Mufti’s only give ammunition to Zionists who believe that any and all Palestinian efforts at peace are disingenuous and that Palestinians really just want the destruction of Israel and the Jews.

Speeches like the Mufti’s play into the scenarios envisioned by the John Hagees of the world who believe that war is the only outcome in dealing with Islam and that attempts at peacemaking are the work of the Antichrist.

Speeches like the Mufti’s lead many people to believe that most opposition to Zionism or criticism of Israel is rooted to varying degrees in hatred of the Jewish people (as my friend Dr. Michael Brown suggests in his recent article on this issue).

Thus, anyone on the side of peace MUST categorically condemn such speeches and sentiments without hesitation.

Just as a number of Israeli Jewish voices rise up and condemn the actions of their leaders when they are unjust, there MUST be Palestinian voices (particularly Palestinian Muslim voices!) who renounce the words of their appointed leaders as well.

There can be no peace when people only point fingers at the enemy’s actions.

“You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

-Jesus (Matthew 7:5)

This applies to BOTH sides in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine.

So far, I have asked Palestinian friends and supporters of Palestine to share any response by Palestinians to the Mufti’s speech that they come across. I ask Dojo readers to do the same in the comments section below.

Without strong rebukes by the people, leaders will feel that such rhetoric is acceptable and will play to their base in order to gain political support–thus insuring that the loudest and most dominant voices are those of hatred and fear-mongering.

Palestinians, you are better than the Mufti’s words!

Please show the world that this is true.

JM

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For more posts on Israel/Palestine here at Disciple Dojo, click the “Political/Social issues” category link on the right hand side of this page.

Please share your thoughts, questions or feedback in the comments section below! And, again, if you would like to read more from Olatunde on this or similar subjects be sure to check out his book “The Mind of Christ” …which sports an excellent cover designed by yours truly!

JM

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[Continued from PART 1]

Satan won’t be so beautiful or alluring or attractive or intriguing that his evil won’t somehow come through.

This is true with any and every temptation.  There will be something in the temptation, or the very nature of the temptation itself, which the tempted person knows should be resisted–something that shouldn’t be trusted or yielded to.  But when sin is committed, the evil, or perverted good, KNOWN BY THE PERSON BEING TEMPTED, gets ignored or rationalized.

For example, if a man is tempted to commit adultery, on one hand, the adulteress will seem irresistible.  On the other hand, there will often be something repulsive or untrustworthy about her, either physically or in her personality.  Something will alert the man to her evil, her untrustworthiness.  And something will remind the man of marriage, of what is trustworthy, a picture of tried and true beauty. But of course Satan will try to down play the wife’s beauty of personality and body, while exaggerating the adulteress’s beauty, yet minimizing what is ugly about adultery.

The same is true for the adulterer’s spouse.  She will often know from the beginning that there is something “off” about him, a “red flag” if you will.

(Disclaimer: I’m speaking here of someone who loves his spouse deeply, yet is tempted, rather than every adultery temptation in general. There are some who feel they’ve “married the wrong person,” and that the one they are committing adultery with is the one they should have been with in the first place.  I’m not speaking of this, because Satan would use a different temptation altogether, namely a downplaying of commitment until death.  Satan would down play the fact that the adulterous relationship will lose its “fire” and go through the same trials as the unsatisfying marriage is going through in the adulterous situation.  He’ll down play why the marriage happened in the first place, namely the fire of being in love that was there in the beginning.  He will cause the adulterer and adulteress to forget that there used to be fire in the failed marriage, or with the disappointing husband or wife.  They used to be “hot for each other.”  He’ll make it seem like it was a mistake from the very beginning, and that there was never any fire.  There are many scenarios leading to adultery, and I’m not dealing with them all here.  I’m only dealing with the hidden perversion in one specific type of adulterous situation.)

I cannot emphasize this enough!  With EVERY temptation, there is a perversion–an IGNORED perversion–which will bring condemnation ONLY AFTER THE SIN IS COMMITED!

“I knew it!”
“I saw it in his eyes!”
“I heard it in her voice.”
“I should have left when the phone rang!”

The sinful experience WILL NOT BE PERFECT!  As alluring as the adulterer or adulteress is, there will be something unattractive about him or her THAT WILL BE IGNORED!!!

BUT WE MUSN’T IGNORE THE PERVERSIONS OF SATAN AND SIN!  These give a genuine motivation to resist.

That’s the first point.  Now the second…

Look at the dialogue from the movie in the previous post.

Gibson portrays Satan tempting Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane on the night he was betrayed.  The scriptures do not say this, but it seems an accurate depiction of the spirit of that night, especially since Satan entered Judas only a short while before (Luke 22:3).

However, we do have scripture in which Jesus is directly tempted by the Devil (Matthew 4:1, Mark 1:13, Luke 4:2).  Now I once heard a minister say that all of this temptation took place in the Lord’s mind.  I find no evidence of that in the passages themselves.  The minister seemed to be attempting to make the Lord’s temptations like ours.  Of course they are like ours in that Jesus was tempted as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15).  But remember, we are to be imitators of Christ, conformed to his image and likeness.  He is the norm–the standard–not us.  He was filled with and led by the Spirit for the specific purpose of being tested by Satan.  This temptation was unveiled.  It wasn’t through a person or situation that Jesus was tempted, but directly by Satan.

This is what we see in the Passion, and I believe it’s accurate.  Not only this, but I believe that we will, and should be, able to detect Satan directly based upon spiritual perception.

It’s clear that throughout his life Jesus had a spiritual perspective on life.  He called death for God’s people “sleep.” In fact, He was consistently misunderstood by his apostles and others because he spoke spiritually when they were thinking in purely physical terms.

For example, when talking about Lazarus who had just died, Jesus said he was going to “wake Lazarus up.”  His disciples thought it was good for Lazarus to sleep if he was sick so that he could get better.  Then Jesus told them “plainly”:  “Lazarus is dead.”  This reveals a spiritual truth:  From God’s perspective, His people don’t “die,” they “sleep.”

Or the time when Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will rebuild it,” He was talking about his body, which the disciples didn’t understand until after He rose from the dead.

Or again, when Jesus told His followers to “eat my flesh and drink my blood,” He said that His words were “spirit and life.”  Yet He lost many followers who were “offended” by what seemed to be a call to cannibalism.

I say all of this to illustrate the spiritual perspective Jesus had.  He lived so fully in the Spirit that he could directly encounter and resist the devil.  This doesn’t mean the devil didn’t act through others, as he did with Judas.  It just means that Satan couldn’t fool Jesus.  Jesus could “see” Satan behind things so clearly that He could resist him directly.

And how did Jesus resist?

In “The Passion” we don’t see Jesus responding to or addressing what the Devil is saying.  Rather, Jesus addresses God the Father according to scripture.

And look at how the devil addresses Jesus:

Do you really believe that one man can bear the full burden of sin?

Here we see the devil’s subtlety.  Just as he began his discourse with Eve by asking a question with a false assumption, he does the same thing in the Passion.  Note the wording: “really,” “one man,” “full burden.”

“Really” implies doubt even on the Lord’s part. ”One man” and “full burden” implies that it’s too much for Jesus.

Yet the Lord resists by focusing on God as His refuge and the source of His strength, the object of His trust.  This “quenches the fiery dart” of doubt, because Jesus does not focus on Himself or His own strength.  He doesn’t even answer Satan’s question, or address Satan!

No one man can carry this burden, I tell you. It is far too heavy. Saving their souls is too costly. No-one. Ever. No. Never.

Again, as Satan did with Eve, so he does with Christ in the movie.  He goes from indirect to direct.  He answers his own question, “No one man can carry this burden…”  He attempts to get Jesus to focus on Himself, on His own personal strength as a man, a mortal.  His words are then powerfully emphatic: “No one.  Ever.  No.  Never.”

Now, I like words.  So I must admit, I “like” how Satan said that.

It reminds me of how I heard a minister describe the verse in I John 1:5, where according to the emphasis in the original Greek it would read, “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness.  No.  No darkness. At all!”  In Scripture, words are repeated for emphasis.  We use “very” or progressions like “good, better, best, bad, worse, worst” for emphasis.  What Satan says in this scene of the Passion reminds me of this, and struck me with power.

1 Peter 5:8 compares the Devil to a roaring lion, one who inspires “fear, doubt, and disbelief” (to borrow the words of Morpheus!).  A lion’s roar paralyzes the prey, expressing his supreme confidence as predator.  This is what Satan does.  He plants the seeds of fear, doubt, and disbelief, then “roars” with certainty, lies, and enmity.  Or as the Borg would say:  “Resistance is futile.”

If the seeds of temptations and accusations are entertained and believed, then Satan will roar, declaring his lie with such convincing confidence that resistance does in fact seem futile.

[To be continued...]

Please share your thoughts, questions or feedback in the comments section below! And, again, if you would like to read more from Olatunde on this or similar subjects be sure to check out his book “The Mind of Christ” …which sports an excellent cover designed by yours truly!

JM

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In “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” we never actually “saw” Satan, because he took possession of a young innocent girl.  We were told in the movie that this possession was necessary for the world to believe in God. But we saw that this was in no way the case, because God does not need the devil to reveal Himself.   In “The Devil’s Advocate” we saw Satan masked as a lawyer, tempting a young lawyer with subtlety.  What we learned from this movie is that we never see the devil coming if we are not trusting in the Spirit of Truth to protect us from self-deception.

But in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” we finally see Satan unveiled.  And Satan’s depiction in this movie captures essential characteristics of his unmasked personality and expression.

There are two powerful lessons I took away from the depiction of Satan in the Passion:

 1.  The way to escape temptation is to not ignore the perversions of Satan.

2.   The closer we get to the knowledge and likeness of Christ, the more direct the temptations from Satan will be. 

Think back to the words of Satan and the words of Christ at the beginning of the movie:

Satan: Do you really believe that one man can bear the full burden of sin?

Jesus: Shelter Me, O, Lord. I trust in you. In you I take refuge.

Satan: No one man can carry this burden, I tell you. It is far too heavy.
Saving their souls is too costly. No-one. Ever. No. Never.

Jesus: Father, Y-you can do all things. If it is possible, let this chalice pass from me… But let your will be done, not mine.

Satan: Who is your father? Who are you?

In this scene Satan is a cloaked androgynous figure. A woman with her head completely shaved, yet with the voice of a man.  There is something alluring about the figure–alluring in a weird yet intriguing way.  There is something clearly “off” or “not right” about this figure.  This is exactly what Director Mel Gibson intended:

When asked why he portrayed Satan—an androgynous, almost beautiful being played by Rosalinda Celentano—the way he did, Gibson replied: “I believe the Devil is real, but I don’t believe he shows up too often with horns and smoke and a forked tail. The devil is smarter than that. Evil is alluring, attractive. It looks almost normal, almost good—but not quite.

“That’s what I tried to do with the Devil in the film. The actor’s face is symmetric, beautiful in a certain sense, but not completely. For example, we shaved her eyebrows. Then we shot her almost in slow motion so you don’t see her blink—that’s not normal. We dubbed in a man’s voice in Gethsemane even though the actor is a woman … That’s what evil is about, taking something that’s good and twisting it a little bit.”

But what about the ugly baby?

“Again,” said Gibson, “it’s evil distorting what’s good. What is more tender and beautiful than a mother and a child? So the Devil takes that and distorts it just a little bit. Instead of a normal mother and child you have an androgynous figure holding a 40-year-old ‘baby’ with hair on his back. It is weird, it is shocking, it’s almost too much—just like turning Jesus over to continue scourging him on his chest is shocking and almost too much, which is the exact moment when this appearance of the Devil and the baby takes place.”

http://www.sanctepater.com/2010/02/satan-in-passion-of-christ.html

What Gibson says is dead on. 

The very nature of evil gives us enough to resist it.

Again, listen to Gibson’s words:

“It looks almost normal, almost good–but not quite.” “…beautiful in a certain sense, but not completely.” “That’s what evil is about, taking something that’s good and twisting it a little bit.”

In a sense, viewers can’t take our eyes off of Satan in the Gethsemane scene and the flogging scene, as he/she slowly moves across the scene (holding the weird/grotesque baby!).  But viewers also know we are seeing something or someone that is evil…untrustworthy…repulsive.  The blend of intrigue and repulsiveness is otherworldly really, something outside of our understanding of reality….something like God (in the sense of being beyond category), but a perversion of Him.

This is necessary for Satan!

He cannot be perfectly beautiful, because this is what he was when God made him, “full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.”  (See Ezekiel 28:11-19.  And while some see this passage as a depiction the King of Tyre which was only later applied to Satan, the point remains.)  In other words, Satan can’t let his temptations be completely good because goodness is from God, and he won’t let God to be glorified as God.

The only way Satan can receive the worship that God receives is to be like God, that is, as something “other worldly,” but with his own twist–namely, evil.

He must get humanity to call evil good and good evil.  The subtle distortion or perversion of good is Satan’s trademark.  Like in ”The Devil’s Advocate,” there must be enough evil in the temptation for the tempted TO KNOW AND CHOOSE THE EVIL!  Satan cannot accuse unless this is so.

This is the “way out” mentioned in I Corinthians 10:13…

“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.” 

Satan won’t be so beautiful or alluring or attractive or intriguing that his evil won’t somehow come through.

This is true with any and every temptation.  There will be something in the temptation, or the very nature of the temptation itself, which the tempted person knows should be resisted–something that shouldn’t be trusted or yielded to.  But when sin is committed, the evil, or perverted good, KNOWN BY THE PERSON BEING TEMPTED, gets ignored or rationalized.

[to be continued...]

This conversation started as an email discussion Olatunde and I were having about the reality of the spiritual and what some of the best depictions of spiritual realities are in Hollywood.

Please share your thoughts, questions or feedback in the comments section below! And if you would like to read more from Olatunde on this or similar subjects be sure to check out his book “The Mind of Christ” …which sports an excellent cover designed by yours truly!

JM

———————

The 3 things the film “The Devil’s Advocate” gets right when it comes to portraying satan. Continued from PART 2…
3.  “They never see me coming!” - The third essential truth about Satan depicted so well in Devil’s Advocate is when Satan/Milton tells Lomax that people never see him coming.

As we saw in the previous dialogues, there is a masterful blend of deception, temptation, and accusation that we never see coming.  Satan never revealed his role in all of Kevin’s previous successes when he approaches Kevin about joining his firm.  Instead, he shows Kevin the life of  prestige and power (aka. 1John 2: 15-17—the lusts of the flesh [women in the elevator, his "sister" played by Connie Nielsen], the lusts of the eyes [the law office in all of it's splendor], the pride of life [“I’m a lawyer, I win, that’s what I do!).

Milton revealed liars as witnesses, as well as the guilty people Kevin would go on to defend.  After these revelations from Milton there would be moments of decision with Kevin…with always enough of a pause for Kevin to consult his conscience.  The viewer has to watch the movie carefully for these moments of pause in which Milton gives Kevin the choice to make decisions:

• The scene where Milton tells Kevin to take care of Mary Ann
• The train scene about defeat,
• The moment in court where Kevin decides to allow a liar to take the stand.

The key scene of transition into Satanic decisions for Kevin is the bathroom scene.  If you remember, the devil comes into the bathroom as a very unassuming reporter and says, “You can’t win them all,” and winks the same flashy wink Kevin does.

The guise of an unassuming reporter corrected a view I had of Satan.

I used to think Satan would be flashy.

I thought that because of his pride, he would want all eyes on him as he entered the room…like supermodels in movies who enter in slow motion with their hair blowing in the wind and body swaying rhythmically.

Or like rappers in videos who enter scenes in slow motion with a woman on each arm, gold around their necks and in their mouths, and money floating in the air.

Or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company coming into a business meeting (in slow motion) and all who surround the table becoming silent in reverence.

What I’ve come to see is that he offers some people this, if it will cause them to follow him.  But, as the movie shows (quite wisely), he desires to be like God, who is not always flashy.

Satan takes pride in being the power behind the scenes, as God is behind all of life, even if it means being mostly invisible.

He is prideful, but comes across as humble.

He is a liar, but a very convincing liar.

In the end, of course, and when it comes down to it, he very much wants direct worship and praise, as we see in the temptation of the Lord Jesus.  In fact, Satan was willing to give all that he had for the worship of Jesus, which shows the value of worship to Satan.

But he wants it like God receives it.

He wants to be the King Eternal Immortal Invisible.  The key to his invisibility is self centered assumptions and imaginations.

This is how he has gotten me in the past, and how I have resisted him in the past as well.  It usually starts with my mind being unfocused, with mental laziness, in moments where I am not deliberately setting my mind on a spiritual goal being accomplished at the moment.  I start to imagine myself in some scenario where I am revered by men and adored by women.

A WORSHIP LEADER! Here I am, in my mind, singing beautiful praises to God, and all hands are raised in adoration to God!

But I feel beneath the surface of my fantasy self-glory.  I know it is there.

But the idea of imagining myself as a worship leader makes it easy for the devil to deceive and tempt me.  Then I feel guilty.  “I should be focused on God, but I know I really want the admiration of men and women.“  Now there is a dilemma.

On one hand, I want to be respected for my ability.  On the other I want humility.  In none of this does the devil help me.  He only condemns me hopelessly.  When the devil defeats me, I only feel guilty, and spiritually shoot myself in the head (as Kevin does literally in the climactic scene of the film).  I try over and over to “die to myself,” but to no avail.

However, I am victorious when I focus on the truth–God’s word being truth.

When I focus on the word of God given to Samuel, “He who honors me I will honor, but he who despises me will be lightly esteemed,” or the words of wisdom from the proverbs, “Let another man praise you, but not your own mouth, someone else, but not your own lips,” I see the truth:  that God wants me to have favor in his sight and in the sight of godly people.

I see what true humility is according to scripture.  It is honoring God supremely, honoring people impartially, and being the best me I can be for God’s glory.  In other words, to sing beautifully for God’s glory will bring me a certain amount of glory.  As long as I am not seeking the glory that only belongs to God, I am fine.

The devil’s deception is that he will give me glory–but more glory than I am worthy of.  And he would give this through godly service, so that I would never see him coming!

Of course he wouldn’t tempt me to walk down the street (in slow motion!) with a woman on both arms and gold around my neck.  I would see that!

But imagining myself a godly minister would make it easy for my enemy to deceive me.

The solution to this deception?  Focus on God and others,  and not myself.  Also, I should be honest with myself and God concerning my desire to be great, just as James and John came to Jesus wanting to sit on his left and right hand in the kingdom.  Jesus did not rebuke them for this, but showed them how to achieve greatness.

In other words, we go to God for greatness, instead of seeking to make ourselves great!

Self exaltation leads to self-deception, making us vulnerable to Satan.  This was poignantly illustrated with Kevin’s dealings with Milton throughout the film. And after watching it, I gained a clearer appreciation for why Peter would say, “Be self-controlled, be watchful, for your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” (I Peter 5:8)

If we fail to maintain honest awareness through the Spirit of truth who is truth, we will never see the deceiver coming.

Olatunde Howard

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Stay tuned next week for Olatunde’s continued look at Satan’s depictions in H0llywood. Next up, the weird, androgynous Satan who appears in “The Passion of the Christ”!

Please share your thoughts, questions or feedback in the comments section below! And if you would like to read more from Olatunde on this or similar subjects be sure to check out his book “The Mind of Christ” …which sports an excellent cover designed by yours truly!

JM

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The 3 things the film “The Devil’s Advocate” gets right when it comes to portraying satan. Continued from PART 1…

 
2.  The Devil is subtle! – The reason he could argue so effectively in his accusation during the final scene was the subtlety of his temptations– two temptations in particular.

There was the temptation where Satan tells the successful young attorney to go home to his suffering wife Mary Ann (played by Charlize Theron) because she needed him, and that the case they were working on could wait.

Satan is actually telling him the right thing to do…but with the wrong motivation.

He is playing on Kevin’s vanity. Here’s how the scene played out:

John Milton: It’s your wife, man. She’s sick, she needs you… she’s got to come first. Ah, wait a minute, wait a minute. You mean the possibility of leaving this case has never even entered you mind?

Kevin Lomax: You know what scares me? I quit the case, she gets better… and I hate her for it. I don’t want to resent her, John, I’ve got a winner here. I’ve got to nail this… down, do it fast, and put it behind me. Just get it done. Then – then. – put all my energy into her.

John Milton: [pauses, looks at Kevin, then gives the final line] I stand corrected.

Words don’t do justice to how powerfully this scene depicts the insidious subtlety of Satan’s actions!  [Rewatch the scene if you haven't seen it in a while!] Notice these words from Satan: “Wait a minute. You mean the possibility of leaving this case never even entered your mind?”

This is an accusation. Here the devil is removing all responsibility from himself and placing it all on Kevin’s vanity, as if amazed!

The truth is Satan knew Kevin was vain, and purposely played on his vanity as well as the distraction of his vanity in relation to loving his wife, as we will see later.

We usually think of the devil telling us to sin, and of course he does. Yet even when he does, he’ll hide the evil in something good, or justifiable. But more than telling us to do something bad, he suggests doing something good with bad motivations, assumptions, or reasons.

Notice, for instance, in Genesis chapter 3, Satan never actually said, “Disobey God,” to Eve.

He suggested that God’s goodness may be in question, and that He may not mean what He says. He directly contradicts God, saying that she “would not surely die” if the ate the forbidden fruit. But he insinuates that God may want her to rebel against the command as her first act of independence, making herself like God by an act that is independent like His actions are.

And in the temptation of Jesus, depicted in Matthew 4, Mark 1, and Luke 4, Satan offered Jesus the world that Jesus came to receive, if only Jesus would worship Him. In other words, everything Satan tempted Jesus to do was in some way good:

• supernaturally satisfy His hunger as The Son of God
• prove God’s favor by letting the angels rescue Him when he falls from the temple
• receive the world that Adam gave to Satan, which is what Jesus came to do.

There is a scene in the movie, “The Green Mile” that illustrates the insidiousness of Satan in the way I am talking about. In that film, a killer named Wild Bill uses the love of two sisters to kill them. He tells each of them that if they scream, he will kill the other. Thus, by their love for each other, he killed them both. The devil can actually use our love for God (or our idea of this love) to deceive us. He can use our good intentions as the very source of his deceptions.

For example, I knew a woman who sincerely loved the Lord and who wanted desperately to serve him. By prayer and devotion to God, she came to see through the Spirit’s conviction that she was very self-absorbed, a trait the devil had been preying upon in her life. She realized that life was not all about her.

So what did she do? She attempted to help someone she felt less deserving than her, someone who didn’t really appreciate the sacrifice of what she was doing. But she was bothered by this very much, and it caused great conflict in her heart. Looking at her situation from the outside, and how she portrayed the heroism of her role in the undeserving girl’s life, it was clear that she was being prideful in her lesson on humility!

In other words, she was still very self-absorbed in her act of service to the friend in need, and thus she was being deceived by the subtly of the enemy! She didn’t see the temptation because it was hidden in a good act, the very act of serving the seemingly unworthy girl.

What she did to correct this was similar to Kevin shooting himself in the head at the end of the movie. She admitted her guilt, but tried to kill her self-absorbed “self” instead of trusting that Jesus died in her place because she was so self-absorbed.

You see, the act of trusting in Christ is the first selfless act a person can do, and this act silences the accusations of Satan!

The other subtle temptation in The Devil’s Advocate is where Satan actually tells Kevin to accept defeat, because he, the devil himself (though speaking as the attorney John Milton) has also had to accept defeats. It happens at the climax of the movie, where his identity as Satan is revealed:

Kevin Lomax: What are you?

John Milton: Aww, I have so many names.

Kevin Lomax: Satan?

John Milton: Call me Dad.

Kevin Lomax: Mary Anne, she knew it. She knew it, so you destroyed her.

John Milton: You blaming me for Mary Anne? Oh, I hope you’re kidding. Come on, Mary Anne in New York? You could have saved her anytime you wanted. All she wanted was love. Hey, you were too…busy. Face it, you started lookin’ to better-deal her the minute you got here.

Kevin Lomax: You don’t know that, you don’t know what we had.

John Milton: Hey, I’m on your side!

Kevin Lomax: You’re a liar! [starts to leave]

John Milton: Wait, Kevin, there’s nothing out there for you. Don’t be such a… chump– stop deluding yourself! I told you to take care of your wife. I told you the world would understand. What did you do? [imitates Kevin's voice] “You know what scares me, John? I leave the case, she gets better– then I hate her for it.” Remember?

Kevin Lomax: It was a test! Your test!

John Milton: Who told you to pull out all the stops on Mr. Gettys?

Kevin Lomax: You set me up!

John Milton: And Moyez, the direction you took. Popes, Swamis, snake handlers—all feeding from the same trough. Whose ideas were those?

Kevin Lomax: It’s entrapment! You set me up!

John Milton: And Cullen! Knowing he was guilty! Seeing those pictures! What did you do? You put that lying b*tch on the stand [laughs]

Kevin Lomax: You PLAYED me!

John Milton: What did I say to you? WHAT WERE MY WORDS TO YOU? Maybe it was your time to lose. You didn’t think so.

Kevin Lomax: Lose? I don’t lose– I win! I win! I’m a lawyer, that’s my job, that’s what I do!

John Milton: I rest my case. Vanity is definitely my favorite sin. Self-love, the all-natural opiate. It’s not like you didn’t care for Mary Ann, Kevin. You were just a little more involved with someone else: yourself.

After being the tempter, Satan becomes the accuser. Throughout the movie he made suggestions with sinful assumptions, yet left the decisions ultimately up to Kevin. Throughout, Milton made suggestions of adultery through situations with other women and Kevin. He never told Kevin to commit adultery. He simply presented the opportunities. Milton also gave Kevin successes through supernatural intuitions, which were in connection to Kevin’s decisions to go to the bathroom and listen in on the jury.

Do you see the pattern, or cooperation between Kevin and Satan? Satan presents situations and assumptions, indirectly, but Kevin makes the decisions based upon these assumptions and situations from Satan.

Satan’s direct suggestions to Kevin are for Kevin to do the right thing–take care of Mary Ann, accept defeat– but with Kevin’s vanity in mind the whole time.

Through indirect suggestions, assumptions and situations that led to sin, and through direct statements to Kevin to do the right thing, Satan removes all responsibility for Kevin’s activities, and can thus accuse Kevin successfully!

[To be continued...]

Please share your thoughts, questions or feedback in the comments section below! And if you would like to read more from Olatunde on this or similar subjects be sure to check out his book “The Mind of Christ” …which sports an excellent cover designed by yours truly!

JM

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If someone were to ask me, I’d have to say that one of the best the best depictions of the devil I’ve seen in film is “The Devil’s Advocate.”   Of course “best” assumes a standard, and that standard is Scripture along with our experience as Christians.  The Scripture reveals him, and our experience confirms what it reveals. Given this basic premise, I believe Devil’s Advocate succeeds in an accurate depiction of Satan in three main ways:

[to be continued]