know your enemy

so i wrote a couple days ago about my study in genesis 3, and Satans temptation of eve, and the fall of mankind.. and i wrote a little bit about how Satan is cruel and ruthless and what not, and cares only for the destruction of our souls, or something like that.. and it reminded me of the way cs lewis presents satan in one of my all time favorite books, Perelandra..

Perelandra is the second book in a science fiction trilogy that follows a man named dr ransom as he travels to distant planets in our solar systems.. ransom is brought to the planet called perelandra supernaturally, with little explanation as to why he was summoned there.. because i encourage every single person who reads this to read Perelandra i will keep details to a minimum, but we find out from reading on that venus (as was speculated to be during the time the novel was written) is a vast ocean.. cs lewis creates this world filled with floating islands that collide and separate again, always changing the landscape.. ransom discovers a woman, and through speaking with her discovers that she has become separated from her husband, and is searching for him, and that they are the only native inhabitants.. ransom also discovers through the woman that there is only one island on the planet, 'the fixed land,' that the woman is permitted by God to be on, but not permitted to live on, or sleep on.. the woman takes him to the fixed land, and while there ransom discovers that a spaceship carrying a physicist from earth had landed on perelandra.. the woman leaves and ransom and this man, named weston, begin having a philosophical conversation.. to make a long story short, weston says that God and Satan are really the same 'Life-Force,' and calls it into himself.. at this point weston becomes possessed by Satan himself, and the stage for the rest of the novel is set..

the parallels to the genesis story are unmistakable (the only addition being ransoms presence) as the possessed weston begins to tempt the woman to live on the fixed land, thus breaking the only commandment given her by God.. the majority of the novel becomes very dialogue-driven, revolving around the very precarious interactions between the innocent 'Eve' and Satan himself (through westons body), with ransom battling against him to help the woman cling to truth.. lewis does an incredible job of displaying the weight of what is at stake, and the weight of that moment we read about in genesis that once existed for mankind on earth.. the fate of this planet hinges on ransoms ability to fight against Satans crafty temptations directed at the woman..

i bring this all up because i feel that lewis paints an incredibly convincing picture of what Satan is really like.. i wanted to share a couple quotes from the book, to more or less just expose Satan for who he is..

"I [the woman] have said already that we are forbidden to dwell on the Fixed Land. Why do you not either talk of something else or stop talking?"
"Because this forbidding is such a strange one," said the Man's voice. "And so unlike the ways of [God] in my world... It is mere command. It is forbidding for the mere sake of forbidding."
"But why...?"
"In order that you may break it...that you may become really old [wise]..." (p. 89, 100)

the parallels here are so clear, arent they? it is almost an excerpt from Scripture, with the implications Satan makes in his questioning of eve.. he questions Gods goodness, and tries to create doubt in the womans heart.. this next section of dialogue gives me chills:

Ransom: "He [weston] says I am young, but I say not."
The voice of Weston's face spoke suddenly, and it was louder and deeper than before and less like Weston's voice.
"I am older than he," it said, "and he dare not deny it. Before the mothers of the mothers of his mother was conceived, I was already older than he could reckon. I have been with [God] in Deep Heaven where he never came and heard the eternal councils. And in the order of creation I am greater that he, and before me he is of no account... consider how white his cheeks have turned and how his forehead is wet... It is what happens -- it is the beginning of what happens -- to little creatures when they set themselves against great ones."
..."Listen, Lady," said Ransom. "There is something he is not telling you. All this that we are now talking has been talked before. The thing he wants you to try has been tried before. Long ago, when our world began, there was only one man and one woman in it, as you and [your husband] are in this. And there once before he stood, as he stands now, talking to the woman. He had found her alone as he found you alone. And she listened, and did the thing [God] had forbidden her to do. But no joy and splendour came of it... all love was troubled and made cold, and [God's] voice became hard to hear so that... life became narrower, not wider."
"He has hidden the half of what happened," said Weston's corpse-like mouth. "Hardness came out of it but also splendour... He has not told you that it was the breaking of the commandment which brought [God] to our world and because of which He was made man. He dare not deny it."
"Of course good came of it. Is [God] a beast that we can stop His path, or a leaf that we can twist His shape? Whatever you do, He will make good of it. But not the good He prepared for you if you had obeyed Him. That is lost forever. The first King and first Mother of our world did the forbidden thing; and He brought good of it in the end. But what they did was not good; and what they lost we have not seen..." He turned to the body of Weston. "You," he said, "tell her all. What good came to you? Do you rejoice that [God] became a man? Tell her of your joys, and of what profit you had when you made [God] and Death acquainted."
...The body that had been Weston's threw up its head and opened its mouth and gave a long melancholy howl like a dog... (p.102-104)

i think we tend to forget who Satan is.. he has done an incredible job of making himself a laughable idea in our culture: the tiny little man on your shoulder, whispering things to you; the dude in red spandex with a plastic pitchfork that kids dress up as for halloween.. Satan is perfectly content in being mocked, so long as he continues to accomplish his tragic mission: to devour the souls of men (1 Peter 5.8) and destroy humankind (John 10.10).. we forget that Satan stands before God as an accuser of man, that he hates us with a fiery passion, and that he will do anything to destroy us.. we forget that Satan was once an archangel, and that he is still very powerful and incredibly manipulative, driven by his pride and consuming hate.. in another passage, lewis describes a way that the Satan-possessed body of Weston smiles, saying:

"The smile was not bitter, nor raging, nor, in an ordinary sense, sinister; it was not even mocking. It seemed to summon Ransom, with a horrible naivete of welcome, into the world of its own pleasures, as if all men were at one in those pleasures, as if they were the most natural thing in the world and no dispute could ever have occurred about them. It was not furtive, nor ashamed, it had nothing of the conspirator in it. It did not defy goodness, it ignored it to the point of annihilation... The extremity of its evil had passed beyond all struggle into some state which bore a horrible similarity to innocence. It was beyond vice as the Lady was beyond virtue." (p.95)

i could honestly quote the whole book here, and i want to, but youd stop reading (if you havent already) and i might get sued for copyright infringement.. so i better wrap this up.. i think just writing about Satan and the fall of man a few days back just got me thinking about who our enemy is.. that he would stop at nothing to destroy us, and that he would do it with joy in his heart and a smile on his face.. and if all goes as he hopes, all of mankind will have smiles on their faces as well..

but have no fear! thank God for Jesus! thank God that He is so much stronger than Satan, that we have a hope.. but lets not forget that without God, without Jesus, we are hopeless.. if we try to face Satan and his attacks alone, we will fail.. we need to be daily putting on our armor (Ephesians 6.12-18) and coming to the Lord in prayer for His protection and strength..

i just think that if we can get a clearer picture of who Satan is, what he really wants with us, and how he goes about his business, then it makes it so much easier to resist him.. we can almost hear his deceptive and tempting voice in our heads, beckoning us into sin.. and if we recognize that he only desires our destruction, then sin becomes so much more repulsive and undesirable.. and his attempts at beckoning us become much more pathetic..

thats all.. thanks for taking the time to read this.. buy the book!