Here’s a preview of Grace Theology Press’ latest book, Saving the Saved: An Exposition of 1 Peter by Dr. Dave Anderson. This is the first part of a chapter in the book entitled “War of the Worlds.” Saving the Saved is already available on Amazon.
WAR OF THE WORLDS
1 Peter 2:11-12
Introduction
There seems to be a new fascination with the concept of life on other planets, and especially intelligent life that invades planet earth. Ever since Orson Welles spoof about Martians invading the earth that literally fooled so many radio listeners back in 1932 and caused a temporary panic, people have been fascinated with the prospect of contact with intelligent life forms from other parts of the universe. The original classic film called War of the Worlds was remade this century with Tom Cruise as its star. Academy Award winner Jodie Foster played the central role in a movie called Contact, which utilizes SETI, the mega million-dollar project searching the skies 24/7 for an intelligent message from outer space. SETI stands for Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence.
Sound pretty far-fetched? Well, even the rather levelheaded astronomers are getting hyped up about life on other planets. Rarely does a year go by that another planet has not been discovered, some of which these astronomers think could support intelligent life. Three of these planets were discovered by Geoffrey Marcy and Paul Butler of San Francisco State University.[1] Both of these planets are a mere 200 trillion miles away (34 light years). But these astronomers are convinced these planets could have liquid water, a prerequisite for life as we know it. Man, in a search to understand himself and his origins, is on desperate mission to prove there is life on and from other planets.
But why spend all this money to do it? The Scriptures tell us there is life from other planets. The Bible says this planet was invaded by aliens long before mankind was even created. But not only in ancient past, but the earth is also being visited in the present by these alien beings. Who are they? Where they come from? The Scriptures tell us they are angels, real people of superior intelligence to human beings, who can materialize and dematerialize, and beings with the mode of travel we as yet do not understand. In fact, a classmate of mine from Rice University wrote a book called UFOs: What on Earth is Happening? in which he posits fallen angels as the very best explanation for the varied characteristics of UFOs as reported by witnesses. Whether he is right about his UFO interpretation or not, I couldn’t say, but I can say on the authority of God’s Word that there are alien beings in this world, and these beings are out to take over the earth from mankind in an effort to prevent the Son of Man from returning in the sky to set up His promised kingdom on earth and reign for a thousand years. Yes, we might call this “The War of the Worlds.” Satan, the god of this world, is on a collision course with Jesus Christ, who will bring us a new atmosphere and a new earth, a whole new world.
When we leave 1 Peter 2:10, God is ready to send us on a mission into this world. He pictures a war with us as soldiers ready, willing (Psalm 110:4-5), and able to fight against the soldiers of Satan, the original fallen angel cast down to this earth. Sound far-fetched? Don’t be fooled, my friend. Remember, one of Satan’s greatest tactics is to make us believe he doesn’t exist. “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.” Our enemy, the devil, knows this. Therefore, he is doing his best to destroy our lives. How does the devil go about trying to destroy our lives? What can we do to stop him? These are the questions we want to answer in this lesson.
Transition: the verses on which we focus in this lesson are transitional. They’re taking us away from the idea of saving our lives through personal sanctification to saving our lives through personal submission. Whereas in the first section of the body the focus was on our character, now Peter turns to our conduct. These verses actually introduce this section about our conduct much like a topic sentence at the beginning of a paragraph. The two verses really are one sentence; verse 11 tells us what not to do, while verse 12 tells us what we should do. So, we have the “Avoidance of Bad Conduct” in verse 11 and “Adhering to Good Conduct” in verse 12.
I. Avoidance of Bad Conduct (2:11)
Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, . . .
Peter has been talking about our holy character within ourselves and the church. Now he turns to our conduct and its effect on unbelievers. He calls his readers “sojourners” or “aliens,” paroikous, in the original. The world has been invaded by aliens, only we Christians are the aliens. Our trusty Greek dictionary (BDAG) says this term for aliens “speaks of the Christian’s earthy life far from his heavenly home.”
Here Peter pictures us as those that have been transferred from death into life, as those that no longer belong to this world, as aliens in this world, people whose home is far away. It is as though we had made a trip to Mars, but our real home was on earth. Perhaps there are things on Mars that would awaken a whole set of unhealthy lusts in our lives, lusts which could expose us to deadly germs that might destroy our lives. Our captain might warn us and remind us that we are but aliens on the foreign planet of Mars. He would tell us not to get too attached, that sooner than we might think we will be going home to the world where we really belong. That’s the way Peter views the Christian in this world. He says we must be careful about getting too attached to this world. He even suggests that lusting after this world and some of its pleasures can be harmful to our spiritual health. .
Peter tells us to abstain from these earthly lusts. “Abstain”—apechō—means (BDAG) to be distant from (far from a house, a city, the land). It is the idea of just staying a healthy distance away from fleshly lusts. With Joseph in mind, perhaps, Paul says to “flee fornication” (1 Corinthians 6:18). The Corinthians had labor unions or guilds. Part of being a member was to go with other members down to the local temple for some R&R. However, part of that program was to engage in temple prostitution. The Christians knew that was wrong but felt pressure to be with the group at the temple. Somehow, they had it in their minds they could sit in the corner and play chess while others close by were engaging in fornication. Paul says you’re nuts. Let the one who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall (1 Corinthians 10:12). Get too close to the fire and you will get burned. The safest policy is to stay completely away from the fire. We pray for God not to lead us into temptation, but then we tempt/test God ourselves by flirting with the temptation or getting too close.
Every home is different. I used to commute from Houston to Dallas once a week to work on my dissertation. I stayed at the home of some very strange people. What is so strange about them? They actually stock Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream. That’s right. I said stock. That’s an impossibility in my house. My children have inherited my genes. And I’m convinced that a certain strain of the genetic code could be labeled, “Blue Bell Bytes.” That’s Bytes, no pun intended. This is binomial language in the genetic code for a Blue Bell eater. It’s programmed into us by God. We can’t help it, really. Here’s how it works. One Wednesday night I was in Dallas. I’d been there two days. When I got back from the library around 9:30 PM, my hostess told me she had been to the store and got my three favorite types of Bluebell: Homemade Vanilla, Cookies and Cream, and Pralines and Cream. I said, “But, Jimmie, I’m leaving in the morning . . . I can never eat all that tonight.” She said, “Oh well, it will be there for you when you get back later in the summer.” So, I went to my room with great intentions. But a person programmed with Blue Bell Bytes (not bits) can only resist so long. I believe the record (which I hold, of course) is forty-eight minutes. So, at midnight, I ate the Homemade Vanilla. At one o’clock the Cookies and Cream. Do I need to explain what happened at two in the morning?
At our house we have discovered the only way to overcome the Blue Bell lust: just not have any in the house. If it’s in the house, it will be eaten. That’s the way it is with lots of lusts. “Abstain” means to get away, keep a safe distance, don’t go near it. What are these lusts? The text calls them “fleshly” lusts. The word for fleshly (sarkikōn) is used not just of the body, but also our sinful nature. Galatians 5:16ff speaks of the lust of “the flesh,” which includes things like anger and jealousy, sins of the psyche, not sins of the body. To be controlled by our lusts is to experience death even though we live, like the young widow who chooses to live for pleasure instead of remarrying (1 Timothy 5:6). This is the death of Romans 7:24 and 8:6—the depression there comes from the agony of defeat, the discouragement of being a slave to our sinful nature: an addict.
Now Peter mentions “war” (strateuontai). It’s the picture of two opposing armies. Our lusts are portrayed as a detachment of soldiers set out to destroy us. The word translated “soul” (psychēs) is the same one that is used in 1:9 and Matthew 16:25-26. This is not a reference to that which goes to heaven or hell when we die, but rather it refers to our lives, our time on earth (see 1:17 in reference to the “time” of our “sojourning” on this earth). Fleshly lusts can destroy our lives, cause them to be lost forever, to not count for eternity, to miss the very purpose for which we were created. You say, “How can this happen?” It usually comes from the development of a stronghold, or what we might call an addiction. There are lots of addictions that can destroy our lives. But how do they develop? A little at a time.
Bob had a hip replacement two years ago. It had totally collapsed to the point he could not walk. From a fall on the ski slopes or in the shower? No. He had osteonecrosis in his hip from drinking. Bob grew up in a Christian home but strayed from his faith in college. He married a girl that did not believe in any form of religion. Over time Bob began drinking to cope with the pain in his marriage. It only got worse when his older daughter chose a homosexual lifestyle. Because of his hip problem and the warning from the doctors that the same thing would happen to his other hip if he didn’t stop his drinking, he abstained for a couple of years and lost a bunch of weight on a keto diet. But when his daughter announced her engagement to a lesbian and set a wedding date, Bob went back to drinking. If you ask him why, he will say because of the pain over his daughter. Now drinking has a firm stronghold in his life that actually has the potential to rob him of much of his life (his time on earth) either in actuality or quality. But it just began a little at a time.
Joe was a committed Christian and married a committed Christian. When interviewing for a job after college, he looked for one where he would not have to travel. He’d had a problem with pornography during high school and the old demons returned in earnest when he was alone, so he didn’t want to travel. All went well for about ten years. Then as his responsibility with his company increased, they needed for him to travel. It all began in China. He went to a massage parlor. Once . . . twice . . . three times. Then they asked him if he would like the full treatment. You can imagine what that was. A couple of years later the stronghold in his life developed to the point that he would find girls in every city he traveled to through the internet. He didn’t have to go to them. They came to him and were not prostitutes. One of them decided to be his travel companion. She actually went with him on business trips. Of course, she expected him to eventually leave his wife and children and marry her.
Finally, Joe’s wife caught on. He repented, but when he tried to break the stronghold, he felt a demonic power pulling him back in. Truly it was a war for control of his life. Everything he had dreamed for his family and career was about to go up in smoke. One night his wife called me and asked me to come over to their home. Why? “Because someone or something is trying to kill Joe.” I rushed over to their house even though they were not in my church. I heard him screaming on the second floor. I went up and found him writhing around on the floor. But his head was stationary as though someone was standing on his neck. Sensing he was demonically oppressed or possessed, I resisted the demonic forces in the name of Jesus, and they left during one blood-curdling scream from Joe. Then he passed out.
I went back the next day to check on Joe. I asked if he remembered anything from the night before. He said, “Yes, when you drove up, I heard them say, ‘The preacher’s coming.’ Then I remember them yell as they left. And that’s all I remember.” That was ten years ago. I have tracked the family since, and Joe has remained victorious, primarily through support groups. He knows his enemy, and he knows how a stronghold develops: a little at a time.
Both these cases illustrate something the late M. Scott Peck called “ego boundaries.”[2] He explains that we come into the world feeling pretty much at one with the universe. We have no sense of an ego boundary. With this oneness with the universe goes a sense of omnipotence. My three-year-old grandson asked me the other day (as he pranced around with in his Superman outfit) if I wanted to see his home. Of course, I did. He said, “It’s Krypton, and it’s very cold.” He didn’t come out of character for five minutes. As far as he was concerned, he was Superman.
However, as we approach the teen-age years our ego boundary begins to close. When it has fully formed, we have a sense of uniqueness—there never has been or ever will be someone exactly like us. That’s good. We need this to become a mature adult. But with the awareness of our uniqueness comes a profound sense of loneliness. We long for the days when we felt one with the universe and less impotent. Peck says when we find someone we’d like to share our life with, our respective ego boundaries open up and we merge—something he calls cathexis. We call it falling in love. And with this merging of the ego boundaries comes a sense of omnipotence. It doesn’t matter that I’m 75 and you’re 25. Our love can overcome all obstacles; it can bust all barriers. Peck says the merging lasts about two years, on average. Then we decathect. He says that is a good thing because if we stayed in the cathexis state no one would pay the bills. Cathexis is cloud nine, the elixir of life, a most sought after drug. In Robin Norwood’s book Women Who Love Too Much,[3] she says many people are just in love with love, meaning they are in love with the state of cathexis. When that wears off, they start searching for another partner with whom they can cathect and recapture that cloud nine feeling. It is very much like a drug, which brings me around to why I am discussing all this.
There are other things besides love that can open up our ego boundaries. Like drugs. When people drink, they often say their inhibitions are down. That is another way of saying their ego boundary has opened up. They will say things and do things they would never do in a sober state. Other types of drugs can do the same thing. Sexual orgasm can do it. Unfortunately, with our ego boundaries opened or down, we are open also to all sorts of influences that can build strongholds in our lives. That’s what Joe ran into in China. During the “full treatment” his ego boundary opened up and demonic forces came in. We don’t know all the spiritual damage that can happen with our ego boundaries opened. Paul speaks of the danger of becoming one with a harlot (1 Corinthians 6:15-20), arguing from the base that sexual intercourse is more than just a physical act. It can affect our spirits. In Malachi 2:14-16 the author warns about the danger of divorcing the wife of one’s youth to marry the daughter of a foreign god. Twice he says, “Take heed to your spirit.” The merging of the flesh can have a spiritual impact.
Well, we have gone from the relatively harmless (Blue Bell ice cream) to the utterly destructive (demonic oppression or possession) to illustrate the need to avoid bad conduct. But that’s just half the story in these verses. We also need to adhere to good conduct.
[1] https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2000/08/07_planets.html, accessed 6/25/2019.
[2] M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), 84-97.
[3] Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much (New York: Pocket Books, 1985).
Serving Him with you until He comes for us,
Fred Chay, PhD
Managing Editor, Grace Theology Press
