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ARTICLE
TITLE:
Cheerfulness that Mocks the Devil
DATE: November 15
AUTHOR: Chaplain Mike
AUTHOR
INFORMATION:
Chaplain Mike works with a hospice organization in central Indiana. He has been
in pastoral ministry since 1978, serving in churches in Maryland, Vermont,
Illinois, and Indiana before moving into chaplaincy work. He is married to a
wonderful gifted wife, Gail, and they have four children and three
grandchildren. He thinks baseball is the greatest game ever invented, suffers
annually as a Chicago Cubs fan, and is looking forward to putting on a cap
again this spring to coach his grandson's Little League team. He loves a wide
variety of music, spends way too much money on books, is happy to live in a
place where there are four seasons, and is a "true believer" in Apple
computers, having used them since 1988. Luther is his favorite theologian, Bach
his favorite composer, James Taylor his favorite singer-songwriter, Chicago his
favorite city, and hiking his favorite form of exercise. He would love to do
more with photography and dreams of having a place in the mountains of Arizona
someday. His heart has been captured by the grace of God in Jesus Christ and
considers himself a post-evangelical disciple seeking a Jesus-shaped life and
hoping to help the church do the same. He is forever grateful to his friend,
Michael Spencer, for giving him an opportunity to write for Internet Monk.
Chaplain Mike works with a hospice organization in central Indiana. He has been
in pastoral ministry since 1978, serving in churches in Maryland, Vermont,
Illinois, and Indiana before moving into chaplaincy work. He is married to a
wonderful gifted wife, Gail, and they have four children and three
grandchildren. He thinks baseball is the greatest game ever invented, suffers
annually as a Chicago Cubs fan, and is looking forward to putting on a cap
again this spring to coach his grandson's Little League team. He loves a wide
variety of music, spends way too much money on books, is happy to live in a
place where there are four seasons, and is a "true believer" in Apple
computers, having used them since 1988. Luther is his favorite theologian, Bach
his favorite composer, James Taylor his favorite singer-songwriter, Chicago his
favorite city, and hiking his favorite form of exercise. He would love to do
more with photography and dreams of having a place in the mountains of Arizona
someday. His heart has been captured by the grace of God in Jesus Christ and
considers himself a post-evangelical disciple seeking a Jesus-shaped life and
hoping to help the church do the same. He is forever grateful to his friend,
Michael Spencer, for giving him an opportunity to write for Internet Monk.
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Martin
Luther
|
Martin
Luther regularly gave personal and pastoral counsel to his friends to seek cheerfulness. He himself
was subject to discouragement and depression, which he usually attributed to
the attacks of the devil. His letters and table-talk have much to say about
ways of overcoming dark moods. Luther’s advice is characteristically earthy and
bold, while at the same time he clearly points his companions to Christ. This
combination of utter humanity and spiritual insight is one of the features that
makes Luther so attractive as a mentor.
One
of the best known examples is a letter to Jerome Weller at Wittenberg while
Luther was away from home during the summer of 1530.
Though
Luther preached strongly against drunkenness and debauchery, words like the
following testify that Luther thought Christians were perfectly free in Christ
to make use of God’s gifts to gladden their hearts in full enjoyment of life.
Whenever this temptation comes to you beware not to dispute with the devil nor allow yourself to dwell on these lethal thoughts, for so doing is nothing less than giving place to the devil and so falling. Try as hard as you can to despise these thoughts sent by Satan. In this sort of temptation and battle contempt is the easiest road to victory; laugh your enemy to scorn and ask to whom you are talking. By all means flee solitude, for he lies in wait most for those alone. This devil is conquered by despising him and mocking him, not by resisting and arguing. Therefore, Jerome, joke and play games with my wife and others, in which way you will drive out your diabolic thoughts and take courage. Whenever this temptation comes to you beware not to dispute with the devil nor allow yourself to dwell on these lethal thoughts, for so doing is nothing less than giving place to the devil and so falling. Try as hard as you can to despise these thoughts sent by Satan. In this sort of temptation and battle contempt is the easiest road to victory; laugh your enemy to scorn and ask to whom you are talking. By all means flee solitude, for he lies in wait most for those alone. This devil is conquered by despising him and mocking him, not by resisting and arguing. Therefore, Jerome, joke and play games with my wife and others, in which way you will drive out your diabolic thoughts and take courage.Be strong and cheerful and cast out those monstrous thoughts. Whenever the devil harasses you thus, seek the company of men or drink more, or joke and talk nonsense, or do some other merry thing. Sometimes we must drink more, sport, recreate ourselves, aye, and even sin a little to spite the devil, so that we leave him no place for troubling our consciences with trifles. We are conquered if we try to conscientiously not to sin at all. So when the devil says to you, “Do not drink,” answer him: “I will drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to.” One must always do what Satan forbids. What other cause do you think that I have for drinking so much strong drink, talking so freely and making merry so often, except that I wish to mock and harass the devil who is wont to mock and harass me. Would that I could contrive some great sin to spite the devil, that he might understand that I would not even then acknowledge it and that I was conscious of no sin whatever. We must put the whole law entirely out of our eyes and hearts, — we, I say, whom the devil thus assails and torments. Whenever the devil charges us with our sins and pronounces us guilty of death and hell, we ought to say to him: I admit that I deserve death and hell; what, then, will happen to me? Why, you will be eternally damned! By no means; for I know One who has suffered and made satisfaction for me. His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Where He abides, there will I also abide.”
Despite
the pietistic protestations of Christian teachers such as John MacArthur, who
recently wrote a prohibitionist diatribe against his young, restless, and
reformed brethren called, “Beer, Bohemianism, and True Christian
Liberty,” Luther had no such scruples about whether such
enjoyments as drinking alcohol offend God. Nonsense! He saw tee-totalism as the
devil’s work! What else could it be, since it involves despising what God calls
good, what he has given to gladden the human heart (Psalm104:15)?
One
of my favorite passages from the First Testament, which I imagine has rarely
been preached in most Baptist or old-time Methodist churches, is Deuteronomy 14:22-26 –
Set
apart a tithe of all the yield of your seed that is brought in yearly from the
field. In the presence of the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose
as a dwelling for his name, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, your wine,
and your oil, as well as the firstlings of your herd and flock, so that you may
learn to fear the Lord your God always. But if, when the Lord your God has
blessed you, the distance is so great that you are unable to transport it, because
the place where the Lord your God will choose to set his name is too far away
from you, then you may turn it into money. With the money secure in hand, go to the place that the
Lord your God will choose; spend the money for whatever you wish—oxen, sheep,
wine, strong drink, or whatever you desire. And you shall eat there in the
presence of the Lord your God, you and your household rejoicing together.
So
here, we have God commanding
his people to spend their tithe
money on anything they want
in order to throw a great feast
for themselves and their households! Including wine and strong drink, if they so desire.
[If
you tend to be overly scrupulous before God and strict with yourself out of
fear of offending him, commit that text to memory and recite it to yourself
over and over and over again.]
Once
we truly grasp God’s grace toward us in Christ, we will not live timidly or
refuse to relish our Creator’s good gifts. For heaven’s sake, life is hard
enough, sad enough, stressful enough. The world, the flesh, and the devil exert
their pressures on our spirits every day. The remedies that bring us relief are
not always “spiritual.”
How could that possibly be? Our Savior, who had a reputation among the
righteous as a glutton and winebibber, a friend of “sinners” who loved to party
and enjoy gaiety and laughter around the table, won’t stand for it.
So,
my brothers and sisters — play, and sing, and dance, and laugh, and raise a
glass.
Tell
the devil to go to dreary hell.
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