Exploring the Tactics of Deception

Can you imagine a seasoned demon mentoring a novice with the sole aim of leading a human astray? What if this guidance leads to frustrating results - the human turning to Christianity and falling in love with a devout Christian woman? Welcome to our eye-opening discussion on C.S. Lewis' classic, The Screwtape Letters, where we unpack these intriguing scenarios and more. Don't forget to revisit our June 7th episode for a comprehensive introduction to the book.

We get under the skin of the young demon, Wormwood, and his mentor Screwtape, exploring their strategic distractions and manipulations aimed at creating discontent and restlessness in the human's life. We unpack how these tactics can lead us away from God, and remind us of our need to engage in self-reflection and renew our focus on God's guidance. Further, we also discuss the profoundness of giving with a cheerful heart, cautioning against the enemy's attempts to twist our good intentions into resentment and bitterness. 

Lastly, we emphasize the criticality of a personal relationship with God and the role of The Screwtape Letters in reinforcing this. We explore how our expectations can be manipulated, steering us away from God, and the need to guard our hearts from the enemy's deceptions. Stay tuned for our next episode, where we'll be delving into three more topics from The Screwtape Letters, as we wrap up this enlightening series.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

Hi and welcome to the Cheer Up podcast. I am your host, kara R Hunt, and with me is author, speaker and beautiful and lovely Sherry Swalwell. How are you doing this morning, sherry?

Speaker 2: 0:35

I am doing great. How are you?

Speaker 1: 0:38

I am doing good. It's very misty and possibly going to be storming later, but I'm okay with that. I think I've mentioned this in a previous podcast. I'm starting to love storms, believe it or not, almost as much as I like sunny days, which sounds crazy, but I don't know. Would you think it was weird if I say storms tend to quiet my mind?

Speaker 2: 1:07

No, I think I would have to agree with that. It kind of makes me feel like grabbing a hot cup of tea. Yes, I'm either taking a nap well, I can't take a nap and drink tea at the same time but either taking a nap or reading a really great book. I have a lot of great books to read lately, including Lydia's coming out soon. I am so excited I got the sneak peek, because that's what great friends get people.

Speaker 2: 1:35

Yes, I love, love, love this book. It is so good. I can hear Kara in it, like they're a part of Lydia. That are spot on, kara, and I absolutely love it. And it's not the parts where Lydia is afraid. That's all I'm going to say.

Speaker 1: 1:55

Oh, thank you so much, sherry, for doing that, and God has just really blessed our writing careers. So, for those of you who do not know or may just be joining us, both Sherry and I are both authors. I'm a Christian novelist as well as she, and she also writes Christian devotions as well. So that is like our. It's all an extension of our ministry, along with the Cheer Up podcast. So if any of our listeners out there are readers and avid readers, or you know some avid readers, those who love good Christian novels or just looking for some really awesome devotions, then just send them to our website and Sherry will be able to give that information to you at the end of the podcast. So welcome everyone to the Cheer Up podcast. Thank you to all of our listeners. You are a part of Cheer Nation. We love you, we care about you. We are so blessed that you continue to tune in and listen. We are in our third season, can you believe it? And we just allow. We just thank you for allowing us to come into your homes, into your vehicles or wherever you listen to a Cheer Up podcast, and we just want to let you know that we don't take it for granted and it blesses us very much, and we also. If you do not, if you have not subscribed to the podcast or have downloaded it or have liked it on any of the platforms, the Cheer Up podcast is available on all major platforms so you can pull it up and listen to it, and you can even subscribe to get a notification every time a new one is uploaded, which is every Wednesday, so you should be able to have a new one in your inbox. It will let you know when a new one has been uploaded. And also, we are on social media as well. We are on Facebook, twitter, and we're on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram as well. You just have to look me up, look us up under either Sherry Swalwell on Instagram or Kara Hunt. So there's that. Wow, we are wrapping up the Screwtape letters.

Speaker 1: 4:23

For those of you who are just now joining us, we are talking about the book the Screwtape Letters by author CS Lewis. Last name spelled L-E-W-I-S, and it is a classic novel written back in 1940s. I'm pretty sure it's 1941, but just in case I'm wrong, I'm just going to say the 1940s. It's not a huge book. It's just 31 letters and the letters are not long at all. It's just letters from Uncle Screwtape, which of course his name is in the title, the Screwtape Letters.

Speaker 1: 4:57

But it's letters from Uncle Screwtape, who is a demon, to his nephew Wormwood, who is also a demon. He's just a newer demon and trying to learn the ways of demonhood, I guess would be a perfect way to say that. And his uncle miles away from his nephew. No, you can stay. Screwtape is tutoring him in that and right now I think we're going to cover letters. There's only there's 31 letters in the book, letters that Screwtape is writing to nephew, and today we're in this episode. We're going to cover letters 25, 26, and 27. And but for those of you who are like the Screwtape, letters, cs Lewis, what are you guys talking about? Demons, what.

Speaker 1: 5:42

So if you go back to the very we've been talking about this book all summer and the topics that it covers, so if you really want to know more about it and everything that it's about, please go back to our June 7th episode and it's like an introduction to why we're talking about the Screwtape letters, the topic of demons and what the Bible has to say about them, and it just kind of gives you a good foundation as you continue to listen to the episodes that we hear on the Screwtape letters. Okay, so in these, the next three letters, 25, 26, and 27,. For those of you who tuned in last week, you know that Wormwood has been assigned the human that he has been assigned to. He's a young novice demon under tutelage of his nephew excuse me, of his uncle's Screwtape, and he's been assigned as human, a man who appears to be in his threes and he has not been doing a good job as far as a young tempter is concerned. He and his uncle's Screwtape is writing is now writing his letters in more of a rant, because he has let his human that he has been assigned to not only become a Christian but fall in love with a Christian woman who is like I think he describes it in letters like years beyond him in spirituality A Christian woman who is very, very devout, who's very, very willing for faith, and not only her but her whole entire household.

Speaker 1: 7:25

So the uncle is really disappointed in the nephew at this point about how he's let it happen. And of course he's like, after he's ranted and raved and called or would a whole bunch of names and his stupidity and everything else, he's like, okay, well, this is the deal, Like it's already done. He's already met this girl, he's in love with her, he loves her family, and they keep, you know, they're just going to keep trying to poison him with the truth, you know, and everything else. So we got to do everything that we have to do to put a stop to that right and everything. So he first he said, okay, first we're going to introduce, try to distract him with politics and politics and distraction. We're just, you know, religion, we're just going to try to distract him. So he focused less on what they have to say and more on what's going on in the world around him. Now politics and I forgot to mention this in the last episode politics in the time that this book was written is very important because there was a world war about to start and this young man is in England and they're about to be involved in this war. So he's I get him all distracted with all the mumblings and rowings of war and everything like that and we're going to do all of that. So Wormwood attempted to do that and he of course he failed. And so he's like, okay, well, let's try another tactic, young nephew, and he says let's start by having him think that everything is just the same old thing, To where nothing is new, nothing is progressing, nothing is getting better, and he becomes very discontent with his life, which will lead to him being discontent in his faith, and then he would become restless and that's where we want him. Young Timter is pretty much what he's telling his nephew and that's what he's saying. And he also says the horror of the same old thing is one of the most valuable passions we have produced in the human heart.

Speaker 1: 10:02

This is the uncle demon talking to the nephew demon and he says God loves platitudes of a proposed course of action. He wants man, so far as I can see, to has very simple questions. He wants them to ask questions like is it righteous, Is it prudent, Is it possible? Now, if we can keep man asking, is it an incoordance with the general movement of our time? Is it progressive or is it reactionary? Is this the way that history is going?

Speaker 1: 10:31

Then they will neglect the relevant questions. And the questions they do ask are, of course, unanswerable, For they do not know the future, and what the future will be depends very largely on just those choices which they now invoke the future to help them to make. As a result, while their minds are buzzing in this vacuum, we have the better chance to slip in and bend them to the action we, the demons, have decided on. So, basically, what he is saying here is, instead of having them to react, God will want them to act when they see things going on that keeps going on and everything else.

Speaker 1: 11:15

Instead of asking questions like is it righteous, Is it prudent, Is it possible, how do I react to this? Get them to say, well, is it in line with the current culture, Is it in line with the general movement, Is it in line with what history has to say about it? And just keep them thinking in that way, Keep their mind in a vacuum so that they can slip in and bend the action of that person to their will. What do you think about that, Sherry?

Speaker 2: 11:45

I completely understand and agree with what you're saying and it makes me think as I'm sitting here listening to you. We are a society and I know that I'm comparing it to 1941. I'm sure back then they had a lot of distractions also and, if they can, if distraction was one of the main ploys even back then, before the discovery or before the invention of home computers see for social media before cell phones and smartphones.

Speaker 2: 12:17

imagine how much more we have to be on guard and on watch. And it's so important that we take that time at the beginning of the day to fill up with God and to arm ourselves with God and then put those rest periods of time in our schedule, because otherwise we're just going to be in such a hurried, frantic state of mind that we're going to be given over to whatever it is, that we're going to be more susceptible to just being led instead of leading. That's what I'm trying to say. There we go.

Speaker 1: 13:00

Oh, absolutely, and that's a really good phrase being led instead of leading, right Falling into that distraction that we talked about in more detail in last week's episode, and you're being led by the tempter instead of you doing the leading. And so that is a very, very, very good point, as Chris and I, as believers, we want to be doing the leading, we don't want to be led. Fortunately, right now, we are not under the threat of war, but can you just imagine if we were all the things that would be going through our minds and how the enemy could use that to get us so distracted and not focused and just thinking, oh my goodness, it's just not going to get any better. It's the same old thing. War after war after war, it becomes tiring, and what he's saying is that we want to get them tired and restless of all of this so that we can swim in and we can just completely pull them even down further. So you're right, we have to start our days right. We have to start it with prayer and worship and keep our focus on what's really, really important in the long run.

Speaker 1: 14:26

And another one of the tactics that he uses is unselfishness and because pretty much what Uncle Skuteype is telling his nephew Wormwood is let's also insert unselfishness into your patients, right? And this is Uncle Skuteype pretty much talking to Wormwood. Because Wormwood, even though a lot of people think they're unselfish, they're really not. They're insecure and they put on unselfishness to hide weaknesses and their people see them and like, oh, they're so selfless. They always doing stuff for other people and everything else. And Skuteype is pretty much saying that's hogwash. We get them to act like they're unselfish but in the end they're very, very upset and we can use that nephew Wormwood to our advantage.

Speaker 1: 15:30

So, with this war going on and people making preparations, let him go out of his way to help people and everything else, but at the same time that's going to be discontent because he's going to be I'm doing all this stuff for other people.

Speaker 1: 15:46

What are people doing for me? Or I did this for that person and they couldn't even check on my mom. Or I did this for that person and then they couldn't even come to see if I was all right after this happened in our neighborhood with the potential war coming on, and so he's like unselfishness is actually a tool that we use young nephew Wormwood to our advantage, because they're really just hiding a weakness. They're pretending to be something that they're really not. But even if they are the true unselfish type of person, it's very easy for us to use that and manipulate that, as they see how much, because they know everything, they've done for everybody else, but they're like well, couldn't that person do this with small favor for me? What do you think about that type of temptation, sherry? Do you think Uncle Spooldap is right?

Speaker 2: 16:38

I love how you explained that, because I really wasn't sure where all that was going, and that makes complete and total sense. So, even when you take something that is technically from the Bible, we're supposed to not think of ourselves but think of others. We're supposed to be selfless not unselfish, but selfless and I love that description that you nailed it.

Speaker 1: 17:04

Yeah, and he's like, and that's exactly what he's talking about. And as I was reading through the letters and everything else and I'm like you know what, I never thought of it like that. You know, and you know, but in a way, it's a tool that can be so easily manipulated, you know, by someone excuse me, by the enemy so easily, so, so, so easily. And the reason I say that is because I have been blessed enough to know a lot of selfless people, you know and there's a lot of selfless people right, and who I have just been in awe of. How many times they have gone out of their way to do something for someone else, even if they were tired, even if they have been busy all day, even if they had tons of turmoil going on in chaos and crises going on in their own life, how they would still be there for others. You know, and but later I would hear, you know, years, even years, after all this was done, and they weren't saying it in a mean way, but they were just like, you know, all I wanted them to do was this, and they couldn't even do that After I was there for them and their family when their husband died, and you know I was there to watch the kids and you know, and everything else, and you know they get hurt by that. They're not mad, they're just hurt Because the enemy can take that, make it in where it almost seems like those people took advantage of that person, right, and it's.

Speaker 1: 19:05

And so, like I said, they're not angry, they're just more hurt. Like, wow, did they forget? You know how? I said everything aside, in the middle of everything I was going through to help them. You know, did they forget that? Like, did it mean nothing to them? So it ended up being a hurt.

Speaker 1: 19:23

And what does the enemy do with hurt? He can twist a candy sherry, oh yeah. He can turn that into bitterness, he can turn that into anger, he can turn that into resentment, you know. And then that person you helped is like, hey, how are you? And then you're like looking at them differently, right, because the enemy has been tempting you with. Can you believe it? Can you believe it? You dropped everything.

Speaker 1: 19:52

You were there for them. When they couldn't even lift their head up, you were there. You were there when they needed someone to watch their kids. You were there. When they needed someone to take them somewhere, you were there when they needed food, you went into your own pockets. Even though it hurts, make sure that the kids have food to eat.

Speaker 1: 20:10

And now look at this. They can't even do this for you, and the longer you nurse those little, tempting little places they come in, they can't help but turn into bitterness, anger and resentment. They can't help it. And the one thing we have to say it goes back to what you said earlier we have to really just take those things to God and, like Lord, please don't let this take root. Do not let it take root. I do not want this to be a stumbling block in the gift of service that you have given me, to be there for others. Because how easy would it be? Like I'm not helping anybody else anymore, right? You're all a bunch of ungrateful little snot, you know, and I'm just not going to do it. How easy would it be to do that? Right? And it'd be even easier once you let bitterness and resentment set in. What did you want to add to that, sherry?

Speaker 2: 21:08

Oh, I completely agree with you on that. I think that if we need to check our motives to begin with, if our motives are to keep score, then we shouldn't be doing it. There's a verse in the Bible, which I don't know exactly which one it is, but basically it's saying if you're not doing it with the right heart, don't bother doing it, Because God doesn't want you to do something grudgingly.

Speaker 2: 21:32

He wants a cheerful giver. So if you're not giving cheerfully, then you might as well not give. So we need to check our hearts first and foremost, and if we're not doing it with an attitude of not keeping score, then don't bother to do it. My prayer partner, annie you guys have met her. She is amazing at this. Like she has such a gift for giving, like her spiritual gift is giving, and she gives because she wants to, not because she has to, and there are never, ever, any strings attached, and that is the example that we're supposed to follow. We should never have strings attached to our giving.

Speaker 2: 22:09

My sister is another great one. It's funny because she will buy our kids school clothes, or she'll buy our kids stuff or whatever, and I will get mad because I'll be like and this is back when our kids were younger, so I'm not throwing my children under the bus by any means they were just young and so they would be messy and so their clothes would be on the floor, they wouldn't take as good of care of them as I would want them to, and I would get really angry and my sister would remind me. She's like Sherry, those are a gift. They can do with it whatever they want to. Once it was given to them, it is now theirs. They don't have any, you know, they don't answer to anybody for them except for themselves. And I thought, wow, what a really great lesson and what a really great reminder for me. But but yeah, so if you're not going to give in the right way, then don't give it all, because Satan will use that until twist it and he'll he'll turn it into something terrible.

Speaker 1: 23:07

Well, he'll use it anyway, because you may even go into it with a good heart and you may not even need a favor or want them to do something or anything until much, much later. And they may be like, oh, so sorry, too busy, can't do it Right, and it's best. When that happened, especially like, oh Lord, that is so disappointing, but that's okay, take that, because I don't want the enemy to use it, right as just. We just have to just just get again, just hand that over over to God, because it is so easy to think that people have taken advantage of you or they've taken you for granted or you know, and things like that. So always go into it with a with a cheerful heart Is that what the King James version, I think, says? Or joyful, but I think it's cheerful. Go into it with a cheerful heart and be at peace. Try your best to be at peace with the fact that if you need them one day and they can help you, great. But if you need them one day and they can't, great. God is good either way, and there'll be no bitterness, resentment or anger on either side. Right, you know, you're just like Lord.

Speaker 1: 24:23

I'm going into this and I, I'm human. I have these feelings, but rather you know only you know the future. Well, I need a favor from him in the future. I have no idea. But if they're not able to deliver on that, help me to not be bitter about it, because I want to go into this with a clean, cheerful heart that, no matter what happens, I'm doing what you have instructed me to do and for no other reason than that, and I'm going to be glad about it, regardless of how it is.

Speaker 1: 24:53

Protect my heart, you know, as I go into this situation and a lot of times we do need that, you know God to just intervene and protect our hearts and situations, because sometimes we kind of go into it and it's like we kind of know that they're not going to be really appreciative of it maybe, let alone grateful, and they may even be entitled.

Speaker 1: 25:18

Right, oh, you ought to do this for me. You're my big sister, you're my aunt, You're my cousin, you're my niece, you're my daughter. Right, you ought to be able to do this for me, and they don't know and or don't care at the cost. It comes from you that you have to do and a sacrifice is you have to make in order to accommodate them, and that is why, like Sherry said, going into a relationship, what a cheerful heart is key, because you may never get a thank you, you may never get an acknowledgement as a matter of fact, as soon as you've dropped everything and you went to their aid. They may forget it by the next day because I feel like you owe it to them in some way, and so if you have a tender heart as God, to protect it so that it doesn't turn into something much bigger later, that makes sense, sherry.

Speaker 2: 26:17

Oh, that is such wise advice, such wise advice.

Speaker 1: 26:23

And in letter 27, he, screwtape, once again, is ranting at his nephew Wormwood because, as the patients love for his new Christian girlfriend goes and this is a Christian girlfriend from screwtape's previous letters you guys can go back and listen to the previous episode to where he this is the worst kind of girl that his demon nephew could have let this man fall in love with, because she's on fire. Not only is she on fire, she comes from a good family who's also on fire for the Lord, and they are strong in their faith, so much so that even guests, when they leave, feel changed, you know, and everything else. And so he's ranting again at Wormwood for this huge mistake, this colossal mistake that he has made. And screwtape in this letter now he's saying that the patient's love for the girl has continued to grow stronger and as war efforts loom, the man's prayers have shifted from his normal daily bread prayers to attentive appeals directly to God for guidance.

Speaker 1: 27:33

And Uncle Screwtape is very mad about this. He's like before he met this girl he was just, you know, father God, help me this, they help me that, they help me with this, help us with that. He was like there were daily bread prayers. He's like now he's like seeking out to God. He's appealing directly to God for guidance. He's saying, lord, the war is on our doorstep, it's coming. It's no longer a rumor, it's no longer a thought, it's no longer a conspiracy theory. It is here they have landed. Basically, war is here. I need your help, we need your guidance. Where do we go? What do we do? How do we handle this? Should we flee? Should we stay? How should we prepare, you know? So he's started saying prayers like this just, you know, seeking, reaching out for God, and Screwtape is like warm wood.

Speaker 1: 28:28

You, whatever he goes into his rant how could you have let this happen? How could you have let this happen? He went from just his daily prayer, prayers to where he's seeking God now, seeking his face, you know, and everything else. He's asking him for guidance, and you know, and things like that. So he's like okay, now we have got to find a way to use to turn this against him, because we don't want him seeking God, we don't want him going closer to God and seeking his guidance. No, we want him to be confused in all the chaos. Can you see the enemy doing that, sherry? Isn't it something just like the enemy would do? Oh, absolutely, absolutely it is, and that is something, as we wrap this episode up, that we need to be very careful of. It's almost as if the closer you get I can't say almost, as if I believe it's scriptural correct me if I'm wrong, sherry that the closer we get to the Lord, the more the enemy increases his attack.

Speaker 1: 29:35

I should say with an S. And so now he's just went from Lord, give me this, lord, do this for me, lord, do that for me, lord, do this for my girlfriend to help me, lord, help us. What do we do? Because that breeds more of an intimate relationship, more of like a friendship right With the savior, and screwtapes Like, wait, what? No, no, we can't have this, you know, we just can't.

Speaker 1: 30:06

And so again he just tears into his nephew Wormwood and he's like okay, so now this is what we're going to do. We're going to get him distracted. We don't want him reaching out to God like that, we don't want him becoming closer to God. So we just need, you need to increase your efforts to do so, and again, right now, currently we do not have, you know, war at our doorstep, meaning, as far as we, as far as I know, we don't have anyone here on American soil with troops, american foreign troops that's the best way to put it, you know, like headed to our towns. As you know, apparently it's the case with this young human that the devil young demon Wormwood was assigned to. That will be a very, very scary thing, wouldn't it be, sherry?

Speaker 2: 30:59

Something I do not want to even think about, to be honest.

Speaker 1: 31:03

I know, right, it's even scary and but as Christians and believers, it brings us to our knees. Right, we're like Lord, help us. What do we do? Do we fight back? Do we go willingly, like if they try to capture us? You know what do we do, but all those things, if we keep our focus on God, he will lead us to the right things to do, and I'm going to let you go ahead after that, sherry.

Speaker 2: 31:33

I yep. It just really all goes back to John 1633. These things I have spoken to you that in me you may have peace In the world. You will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. I used to hate verses like that, to be honest with you. I used to be like nope, god, I don't want to think about that. You tell me that you give me peace, but how can I have peace when you also tell me I'm going to have tribulation?

Speaker 2: 32:00

But the closer that we get to God and the more that we realize that he really truly is in charge of everything and that he has our lives in his, the palm of his hand, he has our days numbered, and by that I don't mean that as a bad omen, but I mean it as a, as a soothing blanket. He knows when we're going to die, and I used to worry about death too, not because I didn't know where I was going, but I didn't want the whole idea of the dying process. But the Bible assures us that he's going to be from our last breath here on earth to our first breath in heaven. He's going to be with us the entire time. He's not going to leave us or forsake us. He's certainly not going to leave us during the dying process and while we're not dying and we don't have war right now and I'm not trying to make the end of the episode negative I I guess they really want to try to make it positive that God is with us, that we will have triple glacial, but we can still have peace and we can still have good cheer because God is in charge of everything. Satan has a lot of temper tantrums and he gives a lot of um, he blows a lot of smoke, but God is still in control, god is still in charge and while he gives us free will and that's a topic for another day God is still in control and we can have peace and hope and joy with that.

Speaker 2: 33:23

If you need prayer, if you need encouragement, head over to the cheer up podcast at gmailcom and send us an email. We would love to pray with you, we would love to talk with you, we would love to just share life with you. If you want to share life as a community, head over to our Facebook group cheer up podcast on Facebook. Go over to Kara's website and she will show you all kinds of fun things over there, kara R Han, k-a-r-a-r-h-u-n-t dot com, and if you want to learn how to grow your relationship with God every day, if you want 365 days of encouragement and ways to deepen your relationship with God, head over to my website, sherryswallwellcom, and you can join the Jesus in the everyday membership.

Speaker 2: 34:11

It's my way of creating something to help you build that relationship, that personal relationship with God. It's a way for you to see Him in your everyday and it's just something that I'm very passionate about, because our relationship with God and growing deeper with Him is everything it really truly is. We are so glad that you were here. Come back next week. We're going to talk about three more topics of the Screwtape letters and we only have two weeks left before we wrap it all up, so I hope you'll join us and I hope that you have enjoyed this whole series this summer. Have a great week and we will talk to you next week.