Seeing myself in the Pharisees – Part 2

It had been several months since my first traumatic encounter of seeing myself in the Pharisees – long enough for the shock and acute pain to have subsided, but not to have disappeared entirely.  The seeds were still there and, with certain timely watering, had begun to sprout.  It seemed as if God had carefully placed these seeds and was periodically watering them to ensure their growth.  This watering didn’t happen all at once, of course; it wasn’t a deluge to drown and overwhelm the seeds but a gentle rain – periodically, systematically, in small amounts over time. 

The Lord was gracious enough to bring several situations into my life where I began to see more of these Pharisees in myself as I saw the hypocritical nature of my own heart.  At various times and using various people and circumstances, God revealed to me how I was quick to judge people when I was not much different, how I was quick to view my own “spiritual” actions as evidences of godliness, rather than gauging the thoughts and intents of my heart, how I looked whitewashed on the outside but was full of rottenness inside.  And God continued to send His rain and the sunshine of His word to ensure that these carefully places seeds would not lie dormant, but would continue to sprout and grow. 

As I became more aware of the Pharisaical nature of my own heart, the Tempter was quick to try to steal this seed away and I felt the blow of His accusations full against me. “How could you ever be used to serve the Lord when you’re a fraud?” “How can you think about going overseas to tell people about a God who you really don’t know or love?” “You’ll get there and fail and make a mess of the work.”  “You’d be better off writing your letter of resignation to your mission board and doing something else.”

The scary thing about these temptations is just how crafty the old Serpent is – he almost had me convinced.  I knew I could do something else; there are things that I like doing (computers, photography, videography, etc.) and that, with enough hard work and some training, I might even make a living off of.  Maybe I really would be better off to stop playing this game of charades and leave the spiritual work to the truly spiritual people.

Then Satan became really bold, placing thoughts that I never would have dreamed would ever enter my mind of how I could end this “charade.”  These are thoughts that, though I know it’s no sin to be tempted with, I am ashamed to even admit that they entered my mind – things that I knew would put a definite and final end to these spiritual plans and demonstrate to the world that this life of mine what not really what others believed and what I portrayed it to be.

In the end, it was probably the brashness of these suggestions from Satan that pushed me the other way.  I knew that these actions were unthinkable for a child of God, but I also realized that they were not beyond my capability to commit.  The reality of the thoughts flooding my mind convinced me of that.  As I began to struggle with why I was even having these thoughts, I again came under the influence of Ted Dekker, this time through a different medium. 

During my sister-in-law’s spring break from college, she came down to visit with us and wanted to watch the movie Thr3e, based on the novel by Dekker.  Well, since a movie is a great way to relax, we went and rented it; but, as I am coming to learn about Dekker, he never lets your mind relax, even when you’re “relaxing” with a book or movie.  In Thr3e, Kevin, a seminary student is confronted with himself as he writes a paper on the nature of evil.  He is shown just how deeply capable of evil he is despite his knowledge of what is good and right.  The strong finish came when Jennifer, the detective who helped to solve the case, was talking with Kevin’s seminary professor about the struggle against evil within us:

Professor: “It’s a battle we all have to struggle with.  It’s a battle we’re powerless to win on our own.”

Jennifer: “You mean, we need the power of a Samantha (the character representing the “good side” of a person)?”

Professor: “We need the power of God.”

Although it didn’t hit me right away, as I thought about the movie later, I realized how true this exchange was.  It isn’t enough just to have a strong sense of good or right in your life to overcome the evil sin nature that is within us – that can only be overcome by a supernatural power, that is the power of God which comes not simply through being His child but to yielding control to him rather than attempting to live a “good” life in my own power.

This got me to thinking even more about the Pharisees.  They had all the goodness anyone could desire, yet, because they were devoid of the control of God in their lives, were overcome by evil and were responsible for killing God’s Messiah.  And if the Pharisees could do such a thing, I now had no doubt that so could I.  It was this thought that led me to search out the Pharisees even more and would lead me to a book that shed a bright light into the dark corners of my soul…

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