[Pearls Ep 160: Answering atheism Tuesday.]
Today we complete our look at how the three temptations of Christ in the desert reflect our three enemies – satan, the world and our fallen nature.
In the final temptation we encounter the allurement of the world:
Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, and he said to him, “All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.”
Satan promises the world (not that it was his to promise in the first place – but details like that don’t stop an expert liar like satan…)
Christ, of course, saw through the temptation.
The fallen world is something we all face and something we all toy with at our peril.
Here are two reliable definitions of the “fallen world.” First, from Fr. John Hardon, the fallen world is “the attractive.” This is the world that tempts us with cheap and tawdry allurements that would drag us down to low and base things. Think Vegas, or TikTok, or most anything on our soul-sucking-devices. The fallen world has a voracious appetite for our time and attention. By gobbling up those two things the fallen world is essentially robbing us of our free will and our God-given mission to live out our vocation.
The other trustworthy definition of the world comes from Venerable Fulton Sheen, “the world means a spirit; organization without God.” Chilling way to put it. Organization without God. This is when people come together, absent God, and carry out colossal evil. Evil on a scale that we could never achieve individually. The kind of evil that needs systems and organizations and machinery (think Nazis, and most public-school systems). And it’s driving by a spirit.
The Spirit of the World is directly opposed to the Holy Spirit, Who guides us as the Body of Christ.
It was the Spirit of the World that instigated the construction of the Tower of Babel. And here’s what the Spirit of the World looked like at the time of Noah, “they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.”
Here’s what the Spirit of the World looked like at the time of Christ, “They cried out, ‘Take him away, take him away! Crucify him!’ Pilate said to them, ‘Shall I crucify your king?’ The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but Caesar.’ Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.”
Here’s the Spirit of the World in the 20th Century, speaking through Karl Marx and his denial that humanity is created in the image and likeness of God, “I speak of individuals insofar as they are personifications of economic categories and representatives of special classes of relations and interests.” Thank you, Karl, for our current nightmare of class-warfare and racial politics.
And what does the Spirit of the World look like today? Well, take out your soul-sucking-device and open any “news” app. There you go.
The Spirit of the World is always directly opposed to Christ. And Christ is Truth. See how much Truth you can find in that “news” app.
Our predicament is this – our fallen nature, which is also called our “false self,” is a conformist. “Go along to get along.” Don’t make waves. #inittogether. And Spirit of the World wants to take advantage of our instincts to conform and bend us all to its perverted plan for our life. For example, there are things we hesitate to write in these emails to avoid being deplatformed – and the time and expense that entails. And so we bow a little bit to the Spirit of the World.
That’s not to say we should always go picking fights with “the world.” Many times the path of wisdom is to just keep our heads down. This takes discernment, as Jesus says, “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” But we must always resist the fallen world diverting us from our walk with God.
Fulton Sheen (and all of the Church Fathers for that matter) teach that in the desert, satan was trying to tempt Christ into denying the cross, as if the red-faced twerp was saying, “You don’t have to go through all that pain and suffering – I’ll hand you the world on a platter – easy as pie.”
That’s what satan, acting through the Spirit of the World, whispers to each of us. And so the question we have to ask ourselves, “in what ways is the world alluring me, or wearing me down, to go along with things that are not good for me or my loved ones?”
Jesus gives us the answer to the Spirit of the World in His response to satan’s temptation, “Get away, satan! It is written: The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.”
Whenever we sense the Spirit of the World pulling us from God we need to call out, “Get away, satan!”
You know, the surest way to send him packing is with prayer and fasting. And here we are in Lent – the season of both.
Lenten blessings –
Steve and Karen Smith
Interior Life
Postscript: Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 4:1-11)
At that time Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.
He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards He was hungry.
The tempter approached and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread.” He said in reply, “It is written: One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.”
Then the devil took him to the holy city, and made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: He will command his angels concerning you and with their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.” Jesus answered him, “Again it is written, You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.”
Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, and he said to him, “All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.” At this, Jesus said to him, “Get away, Satan! It is written: The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.”
Then the devil left him and, behold, angels came and ministered to him.